Louisiana Private Property Owners Could Get Protection From Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Pipelines

By Elise Plunk

A bill to prevent the takeover of private property for carbon capture and sequestration pipelines in Louisiana was resurrected Wednesday after a tie vote in committee last week. The bill now gets a chance to be debated in the state House of Representatives.

Originally sidelined after a tie 8-8 vote last week, House Bill 601 by Rep. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles, was brought back before the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment eight days later and was approved with a 11-4 vote. 

“To get it out today, I’m very grateful,” Geymann said in an interview. He noted his bill follows comparable legislation in states such as South Dakota, which recently approved similar legislation.

“It’s got a long road ahead of it, but getting it out of committee is a big step,” he added. “I think it’s an issue people will rally around.”

The bill would prevent companies building CO2 pipelines from claiming eminent domain to move their projects forward. The principle allows development on private property if the project is deemed to have a positive public impact that trumps the landowner’s rights not to sell.  

Geymann’s bill is one of the select few carbon capture regulation bills to make it out of committee so far in the legislative session that ends June 14. Other proposals that would require local approval for drilling wells used to inject carbon dioxide underground haven’t made much headway, despite an abundance of support for them.

Geymann attributes some success to the bill’s wider appeal to personal rights.

“It is about private property rights,” he said. “Some of the bills are attempts to kill carbon capture. This one is not.”

Also central to his case for the bill’s passage is the idea that CCS is not connected with direct benefit to the public good. 

“We have eminent domain for pipelines for public use, water, oil, gas,” he said. “But for CO2 … where you’re taking a product and injecting it underground permanently, my opinion is it is not for public use, therefore you shouldn’t be able to take someone’s property without their consent.”

Oil and industry representatives maintained their staunch opposition to Geymann’s bill. 

“We are trying to create the best opportunity for carbon capture projects to move forward in Louisiana,” Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, said during the committee. “We believe this bill makes that much harder and, in some cases, almost impossible.”

Allan Parish Police Jury chairman Roland Hollins argued the opposite in committee, in his support for the bill. Multiple carbon storage projects are proposed in and near Allen Parish, and Hollins leads the Louisiana CO2 Alliance, a coalition of parish leaders who want more scrutiny and local say over carbon storage infrastructure. 

“This bill does not shut down CO2 pipelines. It does not shut down CCS,” he said. “It simply affords landowners of this great state the ability to make a very important and fair decision about their land.” 

The eminent domain restrictions in Geymann’s bill would only apply to transport pipelines for CO2 sequestration. Carbon capture and storage facility operators would still be able to use eminent domain to build their facilities or construct power lines needed to operate them, as long as they have approval from the state conservation commissioner. 

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