There are now no remaining bills from local lawmakers that could stop or delay the plan to pipe carbon dioxide under Lake Maurepas through pipelines and injection wells that have yet to be built.
By a 3-1 vote on Monday afternoon the State House of Representatives defeated Representative Bill Wheat’s bill to delay the Lake Maurepas industrialization project. The action came even after Dr. Wheat offered to cut the moratorium from 10 years to 5 years.
Earlier in the day, by a similar margin, the House killed Representative Nicky Muscarello’s bill that would have essentially kept the proposed carbon sequestration project out of Lake Maurepas entirely.
Hundreds of miles of pipelines and up to 31 injection wells in the lake are to service a proposed plant in Ascension Parish that would convert natural gas into hydrogen. Carbon removed from the gas would then be pumped under pressure as carbon dioxide into the pipelines to the wells and then under Lake Maurepas.
Local sportsmen and environmentalists had banded together to oppose the project, but faced a powerful lineup of lobbyists, as well as the Edwards’ and Biden Administrations.
