BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA — The Preamble to the Constitution of the State of Louisiana states, “We, the people of Louisiana,…desiring to protect individual rights to life, liberty, and property;…do ordain and establish this constitution. Article 1, Declaration of Rights, declares the origin and purpose of Government by stating, “All government, of right, originates with the people, is founded on their will alone, and is instituted to protect the rights of the individual and for the good of the whole.  Its only legitimate ends are to secure justice for all, preserve peace, protect the rights, and promote the happiness and general welfare of the people. The rights enumerated in this Article are inalienable by the state and shall be preserved inviolate by the state. “ 

The LA Constitution is the will of the people and therefore the foundation of authority for the Louisiana Government. This constitution both grants power and restricts power. It’s ultimate aim in granting and restricting power is to form a government which the principle purpose, “only legitimate ends” is to protect the rights of men, of these rights, the most basic are Life, Liberty and Property. Any action taken by any branch of our government which violates our Constitution and abridges these rights must be challenged and declared unlawful.

Beginning in 2020, the Louisiana Legislature passed a series of special laws granting special privileges to private companies engaged in the carbon capture and sequestration industry. Through these special laws, the Legislature stripped Louisiana citizens of their Constitutional protections against expropriation of private property by non-utility service providing private companies for private gain. In these special laws, the Legislature granted the power of eminent domain to private companies in violation of Constitutional guarantees and protections, in particular, the right to Property. It is our firm position that these special laws are in violation of the LA Constitution, specifically Article 1, Sections 1, 2, and 4, Article 3, Sec 12 as well as additional sections. 

Today, our organization, Save My Louisiana, a citizen organization dedicated to safeguarding the fundamental rights and public safety of the citizens of Louisiana has exercised our right to petition our government for corrective action of what we believe to be unconstitutional law. We are petitioning the Judicial Branch to review these laws and establish that they are indeed in violation of the Constitution of Louisiana and that they be struck from the law thereby restoring Louisianaian’s fundamental Right to Property. 

Prior to filing this petition today, our organization petitioned members of the Legislature and the Governor to correct this egregious and overt trampling of Constitutional guarantees and protections. As the fact of our standing here today testifies, neither Legislators nor the Governor have taken acceptable corrective action in response to our concerns. 

Legislators have offered excuses for this massive failure stating that they either didn’t read or understand the bills that created this situation yet still they voted for them. It was not until this organization and others like it discovered this treachery of negligence that Legislators began “working” to correct the situation. Although Legislators seek full forgiveness for their negligence, they have only offered anemic half-measures to correct their whole measure offense. Their actions seem more like threading a needle to placate citizens with a false sense of security while protecting the carbon capture and sequestration industry’s “right” to exercise eminent domain. They also continue to deceive citizens that no eminent domain danger exists. The problem with their statements is that RS 19, Sec 2, paragraph 10 and 11 and RS 30:1108, A(1) states “Any storage operator is hereby authorized…to exercise the power of eminent domain and expropriate needed property to acquire surface and subsurface rights and property interests necessary…”. The authorization to utilize the power of eminent domain for the carbon capture and sequestration industry is still in full force. 

The Governor’s response to our petition was to issue an executive order, which, in part cited a “Landowner Bill of Rights for Geological Sequestration Projects” as created by the same laws the Legislature neglectfully passed. The problem with this approach is that Louisiana citizens already have Constitutional guarantees to property which are far more restrictive. New laws can make the taking of property more restrictive but in no case less restrictive than the Constitution.

So here we are today, having been woefully disappointed by both the legislative and executive branches, we are now petitioning our remaining branch of government for redress of our grievance. These special laws created by the Legislature exceeding it’s authorized powers and ignored by the Governor are unconstitutional and this petition before the court will prove that fact to be the case.