Louisiana environmental groups on Tuesday filed a legal challenge to the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s decision making the state the primary regulator of carbon-capture projects planned by the oil and gas industry.
The Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Healthy Gulf and the Alliance for Affordable Energy filed the petition challenging the federal permitting rule at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The legal filing comes in the wake of the EPA’s decision in December to give the state primacy in the regulation of injection wells and related projects to carry out the underground sequestration of carbon dioxide.
“Petitioners respectfully request that this court hold unlawful, vacate and set aside the final rule, and grant any such further relief as may be deemed just and proper,” the plaintiffs said in their petition.
The federal rule, which took effect on Feb. 5, allows the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources to oversee permits for geologic carbon sequestration facilities involving what are termed Class VI wells, which can be drilled to a depth of 1 mile or more. Former Gov. John Bel Edwards and the state’s oil and gas industry have supported the EPA’s decision to give primary oversight to such wells to the state agency.
Earthjustice senior attorney James Yskamp, a counsel for the petitioners, said his clients argue that the state lacks a strong environmental justice record.
“All three of those groups alleged that Louisiana doesn’t have the expertise and resources to implement the (carbon-capture) program,” Yskamp told the Louisiana Record.
The reason the petition was filed with a federal appeals court rather than a district court is procedural, he said.
“The Safe Drinking Water Act, which is what these underground injection-control programs fall under, provides that you have to go to the court of appeals,” he said.
Last summer, the EPA received 41,000 comments that opposed giving Louisiana the authority to fast-track Class VI wells, which environmentalists see as a potential threat to the safety of drinking water in many Louisiana communities.
““The U.S. EPA made a promise in 2022 to fight against environmental injustices, but … they have transferred authority to safeguard Louisiana’s drinking water to an agency that is ill equipped to do the job,” Logan Burke, executive director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy, said in a prepared statement in December. “Louisiana’s notorious failure to provide regulatory agencies with the staff and funds to do their jobs makes EPA’s primacy decision concerning. …”
Carbon capture and storage is a three-part process, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. First, carbon dioxide must be separated from other gases at power plants, refineries and other facilities; then, CO2 must be compressed and shipped by pipeline to a storage site. The last step is injecting the CO2 into deep wells without disturbing groundwater, the department reports.
Advocates for carbon sequestration, including the American Petroleum Institute (API), indicate that the United States is a world leader in implementing carbon-capture projects. The nation now has a dozen commercial-scale sequestration projects in operation, capable of keeping 25 million metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere annually, according to API.
Opponents of such projects, however, see the state agency as lacking a strong environmental track record to oversee potential threats the projects pose to Louisiana communities.