A Republican state representative has filed a trio of bills targeting carbon capture. The lead measure Pineville Representative Mike Johnson has filed is the Louisiana Landowners Protection Act, which would eliminate eminent domain for carbon capture projects. Johnson notes that eminent domain is an important tool for “public necessary purposes.”
“Carbon capture projects are not considered a public necessary purpose. And therefore, eminent domain would not be available for that use,” Johnson said.
Johnson says the no private business should ever force any private landowner into court in an effort to take his or her property for something that is not in the greater public’s interest.
“We want to protect the peaceful ownership of the private property. Except when it has a public purpose or public necessity, no one is really able to say that carbon capture projects are that,” Johnson said.
Johnson says while he has no reason to believe any private companies are looking to take private property through eminent domain for carbon capture projects, he wants to prevent that from becoming an option to them.
“They say that it’s not a tool that they necessarily intend to use, but it’s available to them,” Johnson noted.