Three years ago, the administration of then-Gov. John Bel Edwards finished a broad plan to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions through 2050 and help industries transition to low-carbon production.
That plan is still technically on the books despite the state’s right-wing shift under Gov. Jeff Landry, and lawmakers hoping to ditch it altogether are learning that doing so is not a simple matter.
Landry, who has questioned human-caused climate change, has staked out a quiet middle ground — not supporting the plan’s emissions reductions but remaining open to related projects that his administration says have “broad support.”
This position has run headlong into rural and conservative opposition over carbon capture and sequestration, a method of mitigating climate change by injecting carbon dioxide emissions permanently underground.
LSU scientists say it is safe technology, and big Louisiana industries see it as a way to lower the carbon intensity of their fossil fuel-based operations without giving up on oil and gas. There are also major federal tax credits in place to support it.
But critics worry about threats to groundwater, pipeline leaks and land rights infringements from the deep injection wells and their infrastructure. They are asking how Louisiana has gotten to the point where nearly three dozen carbon capture projects are up for review.
Enter state Rep. Charles “Chuck” Owen, R-Rosepine, a retired military intelligence officer, climate change skeptic and CCS critic. Owen has called for the repudiation of the 2022 Climate Action Plan.
Owen says the plan never received the Legislature’s scrutiny, commits to a Paris climate agreement that the second Trump administration dumped in January 2025 and remains a justification cited in permits for CCS projects he opposes.
Earlier this month in a compromise, he agreed to a resolution calling for an oversight hearing.
Owen said he wants to expose the “shenanigans” that led to the adoption of climate goals that, he says, give businesses a false impression of what Louisianans want.
“I’m trying to recalibrate where we are in this state,” he said.
Owen said he wants to shift to a more full-throated endorsement of oil and gas development, though he isn’t opposed to renewable projects that can stand on their own economically. The House Natural Resources and Environment Committee would hold the hearing, possibly this fall, the committee chairman has said.
The panel includes members skeptical of climate change and oppose CCS, but also has a separate majority which has blocked most bills to bar or limit CCS. The technology is drawing billions of dollars in new industrial investment to Louisiana, and these members see it as critical for oil, gas and petrochemical industries, including the fast-growing LNG industry, to make low-carbon products sought in Europe and Asia.
The hearing could put these legislators in the position of defending some of the plan’s proposed solutions while not endorsing the science behind climate change itself.
State Rep. Jessica Domangue, R-Houma, who sits on the committee, said there’s no question in her mind that the climate has been changing, but she isn’t sure it is tied to manmade emissions versus natural cycles.
Domangue, 43, said she grew up in a family that lived off the shrimping industry and struggled through the oil bust of the 1980s. Her votes to protect carbon capture are aimed at supporting her oil and gas-reliant district in Terrebonne Parish, she said.
She said countries want low-carbon products from wherever they can find them, and worries what kind of message killing the climate plan would send.
“I know that companies are watching every piece of legislation that’s coming out of this body, and they’re watching, and they want to make sure that we’re continuing to move towards the goal of these low-carbon emissions, whether we like it or not,” Domangue said.
‘Not going away’
Since 2018, about $100 billion in CCS-related projects have been proposed for Louisiana, state economic officials say.
“Whether Trump likes it or not, whether I like it or not, this is where we are. This is the world that we’re living in. It’s not going away,” Domangue added.
A consensus developed by years of scientific study has concluded the climate is warming from manmade emissions from burning fossil fuels. Seas have been rising for years, a change expected to sharpen in the coming decades in Louisiana, driven by warming temperatures and land subsidence.
Domangue’s coastal district near Houma could see between 3.3 feet and 8.5 feet sea level rise by 2100, according to projections from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Developed from a consensus of industry, environmental groups, scientists and others meeting publicly over 15 months, the 2022 Climate Action Plan laid out the scale of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Called for in the United Nations Paris climate agreement, “net zero” is meant to keep global temperatures from rising further than they have already during the world’s industrial era.
The state plan doesn’t have the force of law, but anticipates emissions reductions through CCS, coastal protection, increased industrial electrification, more efficient gas-fired power plants and several other methods.
‘Sky would not fall’
Charles Sutcliffe, Louisiana’s first chief resilience officer under Edwards, said his task force to develop the plan included legislative appointees and demonstrated that a consensus could be reached from diverse interests — and “that Louisiana could speak the words ‘climate change’ out loud and the sky would not fall.”
Development of the plan’s science-based recommendations “involved over 140 experts and nearly 50 public meetings,” he added.
Members of the buoy deployment team leave the area after the deployment of one of four buoys in Lake Maurepas. Scientists from Southeastern Louisiana University will be monitoring the marine life populations (fishes, crabs, shrimp), as well as the plant life in the surrounding wetlands, and also watching and studying any variations in water quality with data from the buoys.
Provided photoby Randy Bergeron
“It also showed that by doing that hard work, we could attract billions of dollars in federal grants to both reduce our disaster risk and improve our infrastructure, and we could send a signal to the private sector that Louisiana was ready to lead the next generation of energy production just like it had the last,” said Sutcliffe, now a senior resilience adviser with the National Wildlife Federation.
“And we could do it all with an eye on improving people’s health and lives. I am not sure which parts of that need repudiating.”
As CCS storage and CO2 pipeline projects have begun to roll out, however, the usual political dynamic around environmental issues has been scrambled, with left-leaning environmental groups finding uneasy common cause with rural conservatives generally in favor of oil and gas to oppose CCS.
Louisiana’s oil and gas industry and chemical sectors are also defending CCS, not so long after oil majors spent decades casting doubt on climate change.
The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association and Louisiana Chemistry Association, which favor carbon capture, did not respond to requests for comment. The Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club, which opposes carbon capture, opposed Owen’s resolution.
On Edwards’ way out in 2023, he expressed hope that Landry would stick with the plan. Landry hasn’t formally acted to undo it, and his administration has regularly lauded new economic development with CCS or other low-carbon components.
But, in testimony earlier this month before the House environment committee, Dustin Davidson, secretary of the state Department of Conservation and Energy, disavowed the plan’s emissions reduction goals. He said the state doesn’t use the plan to guide “environmental policy decisions.”
He also didn’t oppose repudiating the state plan. But he warned about climate mitigation projects in the plan, pointedly noting a biomass power plant that Owen supports for his House district.
“There are certain things in there that the state has had broad support over, so it’s very critical that we understand everything that’s in it before we go out and say, ‘Throw all this out. Let’s not do anything that’s in here,'” Davidson said May 6.
Those comments elicited a response from Owen that he supports some of the projects in the plan, including the one in his district, but believes the overall blueprint should have had legislative review.
State Rep. Neil Riser, R-Columbia, who backs a CCS-tied project in his district, suggested an oversight hearing to lay out “the pros and cons.”
The next week, the House environment committee backed a resolution from Owen calling for that hearing. House Resolution 274 cleared the House on Wednesday without opposition.