How CCS Came to Louisiana

Part 1: The Political Groundwork

While Louisiana slept, laws were passed, land was leased, and one of the state’s most powerful industries quietly took control of your underground rights. This wasn’t the beginning of a trend — it was the beginning of a takeover.

Most people think carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Louisiana began with Senator Sharon Hewitt’s pipeline bill, SB 353 in 2020. That’s the version industry lobbyists want you to believe. Simple. Clean. Recent.

But the truth?
 The machine was built long before 2020 — piece by piece, deal by deal — while most Louisianans had never even heard the term “CCS.”

The 2009 Blueprint

Go back to 2009, under Governor Bobby Jindal. While the public was distracted by hurricanes, budget fights, and ethics reform, the Legislature passed House Bill 661 — later known as Act 517, the Louisiana Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide Act.

With one stroke of the pen, Louisiana declared pumping CO₂ underground a matter of “public interest.” The law:

• Gave companies eminent domain powers to run pipelines across private land
  
  
• Handed them legal ownership of injected CO₂
  
  
• Built in a liability shield through a Carbon Storage Trust Fund
  
  

And the public? Left in the dark.

The Lobbyist in the Room

That same year, Tyler Gray was legal counsel for the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA). He wasn’t its president yet, but even then he was helping craft the legal positions that would shape Louisiana’s energy future.

Over the next decade, Gray climbed the ladder — eventually becoming LMOGA president and later one of the most powerful unelected men in Baton Rouge.

Insiders like Gray knew what was coming: federal carbon credits, international emissions pressure, and the need for industry to reinvent itself. CCS wasn’t about protecting the environment. It was about survival for polluters.

The Dow–Denbury Deal

Also in 2009, Denbury Resources struck a deal with Dow Chemical to capture CO₂ from Dow’s Plaquemine plant and ship it by pipeline for enhanced oil recovery in depleted oil fields.

This was Louisiana’s first commercial carbon-capture project — executed before most of us even knew what a CO₂ pipeline was.

A Decade of Quiet Moves

Between 2009 and 2019, while few public projects were announced, the legal foundation kept growing:

• Clarifying who owns the pore space under your land
  
  
• Authorizing state leasing of public lands for CCS projects
  
  
• Expanding DNR’s power to issue Class V and Class VI injection permits
  
  

Piece by piece, the chessboard was being set.

2020: The Pivot Point

When SB 353 passed in 2020, it wasn’t the start of CCS — it was the pivot when the setup turned into a strike.

Who was waiting in the wings? Tyler Gray.
 After lobbying to get the rules written, he soon moved into government itself. By 2023, Governor Jeff Landry appointed him Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. With SB 244 in 2025 further consolidating permitting power under DNR, Gray’s influence only grew.

The Architect: John Bel Edwards

Governor John Bel Edwards played a quieter but equally critical role. His 2020 Climate Task Force leaned heavily on CCS as Louisiana’s path to “net zero.”

By 2023, Edwards was fronting the federal $1.2 billion Project Cypress hub and marketing Louisiana as a CCS goldmine, with 340 sites already eligible for lucrative 45Q tax credits. His administration worked closely with the Biden White House to secure primacy over CCS permitting, clearing the way for “fast-tracked” projects.

When Edwards left office in 2024, he didn’t leave CCS behind. He joined Fishman Haygood, a New Orleans law firm representing landowners in CCS deals with Talos Energy. From governor’s mansion to law firm boardrooms, Edwards remained deeply tied to the carbon-capture economy.

In Walks Governor Landry

Many Louisianans believed that electing Jeff Landry, a Republican promising to defend conservative values, would slam the brakes on CCS. They were wrong.

Instead, Landry has opened the floodgates, inviting projects into Louisiana under the banner of “economic development.”

The Louisiana Department of Economic Development itself admitted that one massive CO₂ injection project in Allen Parish would generate exactly one permanent job — in exchange for pumping millions of tons of CO₂ beneath aquifers rural families depend on.

The sales pitch is economic growth.
 The reality is corporate profit, public risk, and a governor willing to gamble Louisiana’s future at the carbon-capture table.

Welcome to the Era of Subsurface Seizure

While you were raising families, working, and rebuilding after storms, the state leased out your underground rights to corporations like Air Products, Denbury, Exxon, Oxy, and Shell.

All perfectly legal.
 Because in 2009, they saw it coming.

Why We’re Telling This Story

📰 Independent voices are rare — and worth protecting.

The CO₂ Chronicles exist because someone has to connect the dots they don’t want you to see. No corporate sponsors. No industry influence. Just truth, persistence, and a lot of coffee.

👉 Part One is free. Parts Two and Three are available for subscribers at $4.99/month.

Part 2: 🕵️‍♀️ COMING SOON: Part II — Denbury’s Bill, Not Yours

A pipeline exploded. A law passed. A billion-dollar buyout followed. But what really happened behind closed doors?

In the next chapter of the CO₂ Chronicles: A CO₂ pipeline explosion in Mississippi sends dozens to the ER — yet Louisiana rushes to pass SB 353 anyway.

Why no one dared delay the vote… and what it had to do with ExxonMobil’s buyout of Denbury.

How SB 353 gave carbon pipeline companies eminent domain — and why you never got a say.

Why it matters that Senator Hewitt’s husband worked for Denbury — the very company that stood to gain the most.

And how it all connects to a growing network of land deals, legal loopholes, and public silence.

🧠 It’s the kind of story they hope you’ll never piece together.

But we did.

🎙️ Part II drops soon. Subscribers get it first.

Part 3: 🧨 COMING NEXT: Part III — The Backlash Begins

🧨 COMING NEXT: Part III — The Backlash Begins

What happens when small-town Louisiana stands up to billion-dollar carbon giants?

You’ve seen how the laws were passed. You’ve seen who profited. Now see what happens when the people push back.

Inside the final chapter of the exposé: How Allen Parish discovered an injection well already built — with zero public notice.

The local ordinances and emergency resolutions passed to block CCS — and how the state tried to strip them away.

The ExxonMobil lawsuit against a rural parish… and the legal fight that could shape landowner rights statewide.

The quiet role of Oxy and CapturePoint, and why their fingerprints are all over parish maps.

How residents are organizing, fundraising, and lawyering up — while state agencies quietly rewrite the rules.

The growing list of sheriffs, jurors, and parish councils ready to join the fight.

🗣️ This isn’t just a story. It’s a resistance. And you won’t hear it anywhere else.

🎙️ Part III drops soon. Subscribers get first access.

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