Louisiana lawmakers kill a bill to provide for a local vote on carbon capture projects

A state House panel Tuesday rejected a bill to let parish officials or voters decide whether controversial “carbon capture” projects can be built in their communities.

But the panel did give the feelings of local officials extra weight in the permitting process through the state Department of Energy and Natural Resources. That bill was seen by some legislators as a compromise to meet demands to let residents weigh in on the rush to bring the technology to Louisiana.

Carbon capture and sequestration technology permanently stores carbon dioxide from industrial processes deep underground to cut greenhouse emissions but has sparked environmental and property rights concerns.

Both bills faced objections from trade associations for the oil and gas industry, the chemical industry and other business and economic development groups fearful that more regulatory uncertainty could steer the billions of dollars in industrial projects counting on carbon capture away from Louisiana.

They argue the technology could make Louisiana an economic leader — and the two bills and others considered Tuesday by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment risked killing that opportunity.

“These proposals are decidedly anti-industry and would cripple Louisiana’s ability to deliver on these historic projects or compete for future ones,” said David Cresson, the new president and CEO of the Louisiana Chemical Association.

The bill that passed, Senate Bill 73 by Sen. Mike Reese, R-Leesville, would require the state conservation commissioner to give “substantial consideration to local government comments” on carbon injection well permits. The language is borrowed from the state’s coastal use permitting process.

Reese said that if the state office denied a carbon-capture permit based at least in part on objections by local officials, the decision would be on stronger footing to withstand a legal challenge.

“That is defensible action that agency has taken, so I think it is an important tool. That tool has worked in the coastal permitting process. There have been multiple permits just in the last couple years that have been denied in the coastal permitting process under this provision,” Reese told the committee.

While the bill, already passed by the Senate, would require state regulators to consider input from local officials, they could reject it when making their permitting decisions.

Reese’s bill passed without committee opposition. It was a prelude to a lengthy discussion on the local-option bill, House Bill 4 by Rep. Chuck Owen, R-Rosepine, that went on for roughly five hours. That bill would have mandated one of two local-option procedures — police juries could either decide themselves whether to approve carbon capture in their parish or put the issue before voters in an election.

The marathon discussion drew commenters from southwest Louisiana, including members of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana, people who live in the industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, business and industry groups and state officials.

Proponents of the local-option bill were a cross-section of groups who generally opposed carbon capture, both traditional environmental and community activists but also residents and officials from southwestern Louisiana who said they normally favored the oil and gas industry but didn’t see carbon capture as part of it.

Many argued that the people should have the final say on the technology, which some cast as a threat to their property rights and others saw as a continuation of Louisiana’s traditionally poor treatment of the environment when big dollars are at stake.

“This allows for the people, who are most important in this country and in this state, to have a say,” said James Hiatt, a Lake Charles-area environmental activist who formerly worked for an oil refinery.

Owen’s bill failed in a 6-10 vote.

Opponents on the committee had questions about how the bill would be applied to projects that have injection wells in one parish but would send underground carbon dioxide plumes into multiple parishes.

Blake Canfield, executive counsel for the state natural resources department, said that as written, the bill would have only blocked projects if police jurors or voters voted against a project in the parish where a carbon injection well is drilled.

Owen pointed out that his bill wouldn’t have blocked carbon capture — it would simply give local officials and residents a say in their community and chance for industry proponents of carbon capture to make their case directly to them.

After the bill’s defeat, Owen said he hoped to win over the oil and gas industry by promising to help them with the impact of coastal lawsuits that have forced them “to prostitute” themselves for the dollars behind carbon capture.