Key Issues & Advocacy

Eminent Domain

• Lack of Public Clarity on Standards: Although recent legislation has moved to tighten the criteria under which eminent domain can be used for carbon pipeline projects—requiring operators to demonstrate a “reasonable probability” that their project serves a public purpose—the process for making these determinations remains largely opaque. The criteria for what qualifies as “public use” are still not clearly defined or easy for the public and impacted landowners to interpret or challenge.
• Decision-Making Exempt From Public Scrutiny: Details behind why certain projects qualify for eminent domain are often determined administratively, with minimal explanation or public record, leading to continued skepticism from landowners and community advocates.

Carbon Capture (CCS) Legislation

• Opaque Permitting Processes: Lawmakers have introduced mandatory incident reporting for CCS projects and slightly increased public disclosure requirements, but the permitting and approval process for new Class VI wells and CCS infrastructure is still criticized for being difficult for ordinary citizens to follow or participate in meaningfully. Even with procedural changes and agency restructuring, outside groups frequently point to the absence of proactive, plain-language communications and comprehensive databases accessible to the public.
• Local Input Often Overridden or Ignored: Efforts to require more significant local government input on carbon capture projects have seen limited success. Several bills to give parishes actual veto power over CCS projects either failed or were watered down, with final decisions centralized at the state administrative level and only nominally informed by local stakeholders.

Landowners’ Rights

• Inadequate Notification and Explanation: Expanded notice requirements exist in law, but in practice, many landowners feel they are not given timely, clear, or detailed explanations when their property could be affected by CCS development or pipeline construction. Notices are often technical and legalistic, offering little substantive guidance on risks or means to object or appeal.
• Complex Legal Burden and Difficult Access to Information: Landowners and communities say it remains difficult to access clear step-by-step explanations of their rights and what recourse is available if they are subject to expropriation, unitization, or impacted by carbon projects. Even significant legislative reforms have left much of the relevant data, criteria, and justification hidden behind agency discretion, lengthy documents, or complex legal frameworks.
• Environmental Monitoring and Emergency Response Oversight: While mandates for increased monitoring and reporting have been enacted, the mechanisms for independent public oversight, ongoing data transparency, and clear remediation plans remain weak, prompting criticism that the public is often in the dark about risks and incident responses until after the fact.

Summary

Despite a flurry of new legislation responding to concerns about eminent domain and carbon capture, transparency in government processes and laws has not significantly improved for many citizens and landowners. Core decisions remain shielded within administrative agencies; local voices are frequently superseded by state priorities; and notification requirements, while more numerous, often fail to provide clear, usable information. These gaps have led to heightened mistrust among private landowners, who argue that state reforms have not gone far enough to create genuine transparency or restore confidence in government oversight of property rights.