The best news of the week came on Wednesday when Rep. Landry’s Legacy bill (HB 602) passed out of the House Natural Resources committee. After months of back and forth with not only the bill author but with the landowner associations, we finally got the bill to a place where we were able to support it in it’s current form. You can watch LOGA President Mike Moncla’s testimony on the bill here.
The bill was “reported by substitute,” which just means that there will be a fresh bill with a new bill number assigned when it comes up on the House floor. This is because there were so many amendments to the original bill language after all the back and forth over the past few months between us and the landowners. So the new bill number for Legacy is now HB 694.
Going to Houston hundreds of times over the last ten years, we can’t recall a single trip where Houston companies didn’t complain about Legacy suits and how they were done with the litigiousness of Louisiana. So last year, you may recall that we aimed to fix Legacy with a bill that started in the Senate.
We hit some delays, and ended up running out of time. It was disappointing, because we really wanted to tout what the Governor kept saying that Louisiana was “open for business.” If we really want Louisiana back open for business, fixing Legacy is ground zero.
We feel confident we can get it through the House, and in the Senate, if it gets referred to the Natural Resources committee, we have a great shot at making it to the Senate floor, which like I said, was where we ran into a buzzsaw last year with this bill. But we know that now going in, and we’re more prepared than ever to see it through all the way to the Governor’s desk.
Another one of our priority support bills, Senator Womack’s SB 168, which puts a 10-year prescription on mineral leases on state property, passed out of the House Civil Law committee on Tuesday. If you recall, this was actually amended down to 5 years in the Senate, but the House just bumped it back up to 10, so it will now have to go back to the Senate for concurrence if/when it passes the House.
On Tuesday, we also were at the House Ways & Means Committee to support Rep. Ken Brass’s HB 383, which postpones the termination of a tax credit for C-corporations for local inventory taxes paid. The bill passed out of committee and now goes to the House floor.
Now, some bad news. We did take another beating on CCUS this week in Natural Resources and on the House floor.
HB 304 (Carter), which requires expropriation hearings in eminent domain cases be heard in the parish where the property in question is located, passed the House on Tuesday. We will oppose it again in the Senate (presumably in Natural Resources).
Then, three more anti-CCUS bills that we are opposing passed out of the House Natural Resources committee on Wednesday:
• HB 568 (Carrier), which establishes public safety and accountability procedures applicable to carbon capture and storage projects
• HB 585 (McCormick), which requires advance notice to surface and mineral owners prior to permitting or performing carbon dioxide sequestration activities
• HB 632 (Riser), which protects mineral servitude ownership in relation to carbon dioxide sequestration
The good CCUS news is that, on Monday, HB 444 (Mack), which imposes additional taxes on CCUS operators, was killed by the House Ways & Means committee.
Visit the LOGA Tracker to stay up to date with all of the latest legislative action.
