This story was initially printed by the Louisiana Illuminator. Editor’s be aware from the Illuminator: The next commentary was submitted in response to a submission from Chad Hanks, “Farmer finds fears over carbon seize unwarranted,” June 9, 2026.

The current protection of carbon seize and sequestration presents a well-known narrative: struggling farmers, financial alternative and a promise that Louisiana’s future relies on embracing this new {industry}. 

It’s a compelling story. Sadly, additionally it is incomplete.

Nobody disputes that farming is troublesome. Commodity costs fluctuate. Enter prices rise. Households battle each day to carry onto land that’s been of their household for generations. As a Louisiana landowner myself, I perceive these pressures.

However the query earlier than Louisiana will not be whether or not farmers deserve alternatives. It’s whether or not residents ought to give up their property rights, public assets and native management so multinational firms can bury thousands and thousands of tons of business waste beneath our communities.

Supporters of carbon seize and sequestration usually body opposition as concern, misinformation, or “Fb rumors.” But lots of the individuals asking questions are engineers, geologists, attorneys, landowners, elected officers and residents who’ve spent years finding out the permits, laws, regulatory filings and monetary incentives driving this {industry}.

What issues us is an industrial-scale system that depends on eminent area, taxpayer subsidies, authorities mandates, regulatory favoritism and the everlasting alteration of Louisiana’s subsurface property rights.

If carbon seize and sequestration is such a worthwhile and useful {industry}, why does it require billions in federal tax credit? Why does it require state legal guidelines granting personal firms the facility to expropriate personal property? Why does it require immunity protections and limitations on legal responsibility? Why does it rely on authorities intervention at each stage?

The reply is easy: The economics don’t work with out authorities help and the switch of danger from firms to Louisiana residents.

Supporters regularly evaluate carbon dioxide pipelines to conventional oil and fuel pipelines. That comparability ignores necessary information. Oil and fuel pipelines transport merchandise with rapid financial worth. CO2 pipelines transport waste streams for everlasting disposal.

Supporters additionally evaluate industrial CO2 pipelines to glowing water and fireplace extinguishers. That comparability misses the purpose. The problem will not be the small quantities of carbon dioxide present in shopper merchandise. These tasks contain huge volumes of compressed industrial CO₂ transported by means of high-pressure pipelines and injected underground for everlasting storage. Residents have each proper to look at the dangers, long-term legal responsibility, and emergency response challenges related to that scale of operation.

The Satartia, Mississippi, pipeline rupture demonstrated how a carbon dioxide launch can create a ground-hugging cloud able to incapacitating a whole group. First responders discovered themselves unprepared.

This isn’t fear-mongering. It’s documented actuality.

Lots of the firms in search of to construct carbon storage tasks in Louisiana are headquartered exterior our state. Funding funds, multinational firms and consulting companies selling these tasks are largely exterior the communities the place the pipelines and injection wells might be situated.

In the meantime, lots of the residents elevating issues are Louisiana landowners, farmers, enterprise homeowners and native residents funding their very own efforts, attending conferences on their very own time and preventing to guard their property rights and communities.

This isn’t a battle between Louisiana and outdoors activists. In lots of instances, it’s Louisiana residents asking exhausting questions on tasks being superior by out-of-state firms, buyers and particular pursuits.

What is maybe most troubling is the coordinated effort underway to fabricate public acceptance. 

Throughout Louisiana, chambers of commerce, financial growth organizations, industry-funded associations, universities and authorities companies have joined collectively underneath what has been described as a “entire of Louisiana” strategy. Residents are repeatedly informed carbon storage is inevitable, opposition is anti-business, and that Louisiana should select between CO2 sequestration and financial prosperity.

This isn’t a grassroots motion. It’s a coordinated public relations marketing campaign.

Residents are hardly ever informed that lots of the organizations selling carbon seize and sequestration stand to learn from industrial growth, grants, consulting contracts and financial incentive packages tied instantly to those tasks.

Chad Hanks’ commentary argues that opposing CCS tasks someway infringes upon a prepared landowner’s rights. However what in regards to the neighboring landowner who refuses to take part? What about landowners going through pipeline expropriation? What about future generations who inherit the dangers lengthy after at present’s executives, politicians and lobbyists have moved on?

Property rights should apply equally to everybody, not simply those that signal contracts.

Louisiana’s power has at all times been its individuals, its pure assets and its impartial spirit. We must always welcome trustworthy financial growth. We must always encourage manufacturing, innovation and vitality manufacturing.

However we should always by no means settle for the false selection that Louisiana should turn into the nation’s carbon waste repository in an effort to survive.

Residents have each proper to ask exhausting questions earlier than surrendering property rights, public assets and native management to an {industry} that might not exist with out huge authorities subsidies.

We are able to help farmers with out sacrificing landowners.

We are able to create jobs with out surrendering property rights.

We are able to pursue financial progress with out turning Louisiana right into a everlasting storage website for the emissions of the world’s largest firms.

That isn’t anti-business. That’s widespread sense.

Gary Musgrove is president of Save My Louisiana, a grassroots group targeted on defending personal property rights, landowner pursuits and Louisiana’s pure assets. He’s a lifelong Louisiana resident, landowner, small enterprise proprietor and retired U.S. Air Power veteran.

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