Let’s pretend I own a grocery store.

There’s several of my regular customers that have demanded that I stock organic, GMO-free kale.

Now, I can go one of two directions:

I can choose to get on my soapbox and lecture these naïve hipsters about how stupid they are for paying extra for this product.   Of course, they will simply just start shopping at the grocery store down the street.

Or, I can choose to stock the item and take their money.

The “why” of CCS is really no more complicated than this analogy.   The Europeans demand that the liquified natural gas that we export be low-carbon.   As the supplier, we come up with a solution to give the customer what they want, or they simply go elsewhere.

No, the Republicans in the state legislature didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and start collectively believing in climate hysteria.   Like the grocer, our personal feelings are never what should drive critical economic policy decisions.   We recognize there is no changing the minds of a bunch of European bureaucrats who have green energy etched into their brains.

We’ve all seen the memes where President Trump always seems to be playing a game of 4D chess.   With CCS, some of my fellow legislators sadly remain hyper-focused on one single square instead of looking at the whole chessboard.

Trump’s energy doctrine for Europe is extraordinarily simple:

1. Europe should expand the use of natural gas instead of dependence on Chinese-manufactured wind and solar components.
2. Europe should buy our American-made LNG instead of dependence on Russian natural gas.

As common sense as that sounds to us, there is one sticky little point in the European mindset: the process of liquifying natural gas creates an additional carbon footprint than a pipeline from Russia.   That’s where the concept of CCS comes into play: “de-carbonizing” our LNG while further unleashing our skilled workforce and domestic manufacturing capabilities from our oil and gas industry.

There is no ambiguity in President Trump’s position.   The state Republican delegation attended meetings at the White House last fall where I asked the Secretary of Energy to clarify the administration’s stance on CCS and the 45Q federal tax credits.   The response was, “If Trump didn’t support CCS, 45Q wouldn’t have been in the Big Beautiful Bill.”

Carbon capture is vilified from many corners, most commonly from self-serving interests.   There are Russian and Chinese based bots spreading misinformation to box out American LNG in Europe.   There are climate extremist groups like the Sierra Club that want all fossil fuel production to cease.    There are podcasters using the topic to tear apart fellow Republicans in Louisiana for their chosen United States Senate candidate to win.

I recognize there are authentic concerns our fellow Louisianians have on this subject dealing with property rights, pore space, and safety.    Contrary to all the noise and politicalization, the legislature has taken measures to address these concerns.    As a result of Act 544 last year, in a sweeping overhaul of our Department of Energy and Natural Resources, we now have probably the strongest eminent domain laws in the entire nation.

But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.  It’s never going to be enough to satisfy the folks screaming that the “Green New Scam” is coming to literally steal your land.

Representative Jessica Domangue
Louisiana House District 53