FRENCH SETTLEMENT - Carbon capture, a process the U.S. Department of Energy describes as capturing carbon dioxide emissions from sources like power plants and storing them underground, has been a controversial subject during this year's legislative session.

There have been more than a dozen bills surrounding the topic and the debate has only been heating up.

On Tuesday evening, Save My Louisiana, a non-profit organization that is anti-carbon capture, held a public event in the new French Settlement school gym in Livingston Parish to explain why they're against it.

However, Desiree Lemoine, the Executive Director for Industry Makes, says that it's an economic development tool for Louisiana.

“Customers that Louisiana’s manufacturing base sells to are demanding carbon-free molecules, so if we can’t make it here, they will make it elsewhere," Lemoine said. "If you can make carbon-free LNG or carbon-free plastics, anything that you can reduce your carbon footprint on. That is the whole point. How do we remove the carbon from the processes, and where do we put it if we can't put it in the air? The safest, best place to put it is back in the ground where it came from."

Mark T. Guillory with Save My Louisiana says that the entire process can be dangerous to residents.

“As it’s placed in pipes to transport, it’s a supercritical rate where it’s compressed down about 2500 psi. It’s very caustic. It will destroy pipes," Guillory said. "As you pump it into the ground, it's got to go through our aquifers. If carbon dioxide gets mixed with water, you have carbonic acid. That is not exactly the kind of water we want to drink."

Lemoine highly disputes this point, saying that CO2 is dehydrated before it is put into a pipe and that typically, it does not go through the aquifer as carbon dioxide pipes are thousands of feet below aquifers.

A large point of discussion during the meeting was eminent domain. Livingston Parish Councilman Dean Coates, an outspoken critic of carbon capture, shared his thoughts with WBRZ.

“I think eminent domain is something that our Constitution clearly states how it's to be used, and it has to be used for a public purpose," Coates said. "Public purposes have generally been roads, bridges, schools, and things of that nature, so that the public is going to receive a greater good. CCS utilizing eminent domain does not fit into that characterization.”

Lemoine says there is a misconception about eminent domain and people believing it is stealing land.

“A company has to be granted a certain certification by the state of Louisiana that what they’re doing is basically for the public good," Lemoine said. "What that does is that allows companies to go in and negotiate with landowners who are willing to give rights of way away, not entire slots of land, but rights of way for pipelines, so that a company can come and put a pipeline under your land while you keep use of your land. It’s a negotiation. No one steals your land.”

Critics of eminent domain argue that even when negotiations occur, landowners may ultimately feel pressured because companies can seek to acquire pipeline rights through court proceedings.

Coates says the risks far outweigh any economic gains that could come from carbon capture.

"Those are all temporary jobs. Those are construction jobs that are going to be utilized for the infrastructure. Once the infrastructure is built, they’re going to go away. You might have a few people left, an operator to man the system, there’s not gonna be a lot of residual long-term benefit of that at all," Coates said.

A DOE report from 2022 says that the U.S. could potentially add $600 billion to $1.5 trillion in gross value to the economy by 2050 through the expansion of carbon management.