Breaking the Carbon Capture Illusion
LAFS’s Earth Day Rally
When you picture Earth Day in Louisiana, you’d probably think about protecting our wetlands, cleaning up our bayous, and fighting to keep our wildlife out of danger. What if we told you that this year, one of the state’s biggest environmental conversations centered on something less visible: the push to bury millions of tons of carbon dioxide underground?
This past Earth Day, LAFS held a rally at the Capitol Gardens, where they shared their opposition to the growth of the carbon capture industry. Louisiana Against False Solutions (LAFS), a coalition featuring members of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, For a Better Bayou, The Descendants Project, RISE St. James, True Transition, and Earthworks, is fighting for genuine environmental justice in Louisiana and advocating against the expansion of fossil fuel projects that present major risks to not just the environment but public health.
Carbon capture, or CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage), is the process of using chemical solvents to separate CO2 from industrial gases, compressing it into a liquid-like state that is then pumped deep underground for storage. Major industry projects in Louisiana are being funded by massive federal tax credits while posing great public safety risk from underground leaks and even pipeline ruptures/explosions in historically marginalized and at-risk communities, such as the Satartia, Mississippi Pipeline Rupture in 2020 and the Sulphur, Louisiana leak in 2024, which released a plume of c02 along the ground for 2 hours, forcing residents into an emergency shelter-in-place. Because c02 is heavier than air, it forms a dense, invisible cloud that displaces oxygen.
“We want clean air and clean water and a future for generations to come, and we do not want to continue subsidizing harmful corporations that continue to pollute and destroy our communities,”
said James Hiatt, director of environmental nonprofit For a Better Bayou. Recent information from the state Department of Conservation and Energy shows that there are 31 listed applications for carbon storage projects across the state as of December 2025, each representing anywhere from one to eight wells to pump carbon dioxide underground. One of LAFS’s main legislative priorities is preventing private companies from using eminent domain to acquire land for carbon storage projects.
Eminent domain is typically used as a last resort when a property owner refuses to sell or make way for infrastructure or development that is considered to be in the public interest. Carbon storage projects should not qualify, especially when developed by private companies. Louisiana lawmakers, nearly all of them Republicans, have introduced more than a dozen bills to regulate carbon storage projects or block them entirely in their respective parishes, following the failure of House Bill 7, one of the least restrictive measures on carbon capture and eminent domain. “It’s been interesting finding some common ground with these Republican legislators,” said Caitlion O’Neill Hunter, RISE St. James research and policy director. “I think we can come together and shake hands on a ‘no.’ No private company should be able to put anything on your land without your permission.”
“There’s still 22,000-plus idle wells in our state waters and only 33 inspectors for those wells,” said Justin Solei, an organizer for True Transition, an environmental group working to clean up fossil fuel drilling infrastructure. Rather than supporting the expansion of carbon storage, LAFS and its member organizations are urging lawmakers to provide more funding to cap these orphan oil and gas wells across Louisiana, especially off its coast. These abandoned wells can leak pollution into wetlands, waterways, and marine ecosystems, adding to the pressures already facing Louisiana’s coast.