ICYMI: Kennedy: No carbon capture injection wells without landowner consent

Watch Kennedy's comments here.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) argued that no carbon capture injection wells should be installed in Louisiana without the consent of landowners in two speeches on the U.S. Senate floor.

Key excerpts of Kennedy's first speech on April 28 are below.

"It is called the 45Q tax credit. . . . We are paying companies a whole bunch of money to go capture this carbon and inject it in the ground. Now, I didn't come here tonight to debate whether that is a good idea or a bad idea. A lot of that is up to the States and to Congress for another day. There are pros and cons, and some say it is a good idea. Some say it is a bad idea.

"I know certain oil and gas companies have been injecting CO2 into producing oil and gas wells for years to make the gas and oil flow better without hurting anybody. I know in other cases there have been CO2 pipelines-carbon dioxide pipelines-transmitting carbon dioxide that have ruptured and injured people.

"I don't know who is right, and I don't know who is wrong. I do know, though, that to inject it underground, you have got to do it on somebody's property. And that is where the rub comes in. We take our property rights in Louisiana seriously. Your right to own property is a federal constitutional right. In Louisiana, it is also a state constitutional right. So important, we put it in our state constitution."

. . .

"In my State, in every other state, and under the federal government, the state can come in and say: Look, Kennedy, we know you don't want to give up your property, but it is going to cost us a lot more to put the road over here. So we are going to take your property, but we are going to pay you full price.

"And they do. They have to. It is in our constitution. They have to pay the full, fair market price. So, we are pretty comfortable with that.

"But the people in Louisiana have just discovered that the companies that I talked about who are being paid this Federal money-$85 a ton to capture carbon and inject it into the ground-can also take people's land to put in an injection well. And I don't like that."

. . .

"So, if one of these companies comes to one of my people on their family land and says, 'We will offer you this. We want to put in an injection well,' and the owners of that land go, 'I don't think so. This property has been in my family for years, and I don't know about this CO2 stuff anyway,' they are not going to have a choice because the state can come in and take that land.

"I don't like that, and I think our legislature needs to weigh in on this. I think we ought to go back to what our state constitution says and what the federal constitution has said even longer: People have the right to property."

On April 29, Kennedy delivered a second speech on carbon capture. Key excerpts of that speech are below.

"If the powers that be in my state start bullying people-I'm not saying they will, but if they start bullying people and taking their property when they don't want to give it up to inject carbon dioxide beneath their land without their permission or consent-then I'm going to have something to say about it because this money that we're paying companies to do that, it's a federal statute."

. . .

"And you know what? That 45Q tax credit can be changed. I can't make the legislature pass or not pass a law, but I sure can offer a bill to change that amount of money that we're paying companies to do this if they're going to force people and take their land in order to put in these wells."

Watch Kennedy's speeches here.