Primacy on carbon capture challenges state to get rules right
State and industry officials are bullish on the prospect of Louisiana becoming a national leader in the practice of carbon capture and sequestration, basically capturing carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to atmospheric warming and injecting it deep into the ground.
With huge economic development projects lining up — and with a full understanding of the state’s extreme vulnerability to rising tides and extreme weather associated with climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions — we are bullish too.
So we support the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s recent decision to hand regulatory powers — technically called “primacy” — over Class VI injection wells to the Department of Natural Resources, making Louisiana one of just three states to have this authority.