A Dallas-based company called Cox Oil and partners recently received $8.4 million in federal taxpayer funding to build a 110-mile carbon dioxide pipeline and dumping ground beneath the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed “Louisiana Offshore CO2 Hub” would take liquefied carbon dioxide from petrochemical plants in Geismar, Louisiana, and pump the waste into oil and gas wells in the Gulf south of Grand Isle, both to store the greenhouse-gas pollution and force more oil and gas out of the wells. Many local environmentalists and fishermen complain about the project, which could destroy 800 acres of wetlands in an ecologically fragile area.
The carbon burial ground off Grand Isle is one of almost 30 planned for Louisiana, and more than 100 nationally, because of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture in the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. Scott Eustice, Community Science Director of the nonprofit organization Healthy Gulf, and Justin Solet, a fisherman and member of the Native American United Houma Nation, discuss their objections to the carbon pipelines and dumping grounds planned for Louisiana. “Basically, we’re rats in a laboratory,” Solet said. “And they are forcing this carbon waste injection down our throats, trying to see if it’s going to work.”
