Blogs

The 2025 Louisiana Legislative session is officially underway, with the Louisiana House committee set to hear multiple bills concerning Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) this Tuesday, April 29th. These bills will cover the regulation, safety, property rights, and local control issues surrounding carbon dioxide sequestration and pipeline infrastructure, with proposals ranging from permitting authority and compensation for landowners to moratoriums and safety protocols.

Here’s a brief description of each bill:

• HB 4 (OWEN, CHARLES), which authorizes a parish governing authority to determine whether Class VI carbon dioxide injection wells may be permitted within its parish
• HB 75 (MCCORMICK), which provides relative to compensation for pore space owners
• HB 353 (MACK), which provides relative to carbon dioxide sequestration
• HB 380 (SCHAMERHORN), which removes eminent domain authority for carbon dioxide sequestration
• HB 522 (MCCORMICK), which places a moratorium on carbon dioxide sequestration
• HB 537 (SCHAMERHORN), which authorizes liens for victims of CO2 pipeline disasters
• HB 553 (SCHAMERHORN), which prohibits the exercise of eminent domain or unitization for a pipeline that carries carbon dioxide
• HB 568 (CARRIER), which establishes public safety and accountability procedures applicable to carbon capture and storage projects
• HB 601 (GEYMANN), which provides relative to carbon dioxide sequestration
• SB 73 (REESE), which provides for sequestration of carbon dioxide.

Follow along the 2025 Liskow CCS Legislative Update to stay tuned for further updates regarding the status of these bills. For further inquiries, reach out to Liskow attorney and Louisiana Lobbyist Neil Abramson and CCS attorney Jeff Lieberman and visit our Carbon Capture & Storage practice page.

On this week’s episode of “Energy Law This Week,” hosts Matt Jones and April Rolen-Ogden are joined by Josh Downer, an energy business attorney at Holland & Knight, to discuss the latest developments in the Greenpeace trial, the growing challenges in offshore oil and gas leasing, and how Texas’s newly established business courts may impact oil and gas litigation in the state.

They also take a closer look at gathering agreements—the “beginning of the middle” in oil and gas production and the first step in midstream. These contracts represent significant, long-term commitments for all parties involved, where timing and structure can make a major difference. With experience in both drafting and litigating these underappreciated but critical deals, Matt and April offer practical insights into how gathering agreements move production from wells to sales.

Listen to the full episode on the Oil & Gas Network here.

Environmental and science advocacy groups ¹ have sued EPA and other agencies in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for removing without notice “vitally important webpages” that served as sources of information about environmental justice and climate change. Sierra Club v. EPA, No. 1:25-cv-01112 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 14, 2025). The groups allege that the removal is arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and violates the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), which mandates that every agency “ensure that the public has timely and equitable access to the agency’s public information” and must “provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products.”

            The groups claim that the agencies, in late January and February 2025, deleted from their websites the following environmental justice (EJ) and climate change tools and pages without notice or a “reasoned explanation”:

• EJScreen – an interactive mapping tool that provided data on local pollution burdens, demographic indicators, and environmental justice indicators.
• Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) – an interactive mapping tool that identified communities facing disproportionate environmental burdens.
• Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool – an interactive mapping tool that helped users understand and compare the cost of energy relative to income for various geographic regions, including census tracts, cities, counties, states, and tribal lands.
• Equitable Transportation Community (ETC) Explorer – an interactive mapping tool that compiled location data based on transportation insecurity, climate and disaster risk burden, environmental burden, health vulnerability, and social vulnerability.
• Future Risk Index – an interactive mapping tool that provided projected economic losses due to climate change at the county level, based on different greenhouse gas emission scenarios and environmental hazards.

The complaint alleges that removal of the online tools is “causing and will cause substantial harm” to the groups because it hampers their ability to convey accurate information on impacts to human health and the environment from pollution. The complaint also alleges that without access to alternative sources of information that provide the same level of reliability and functionality as the removed webpages, the groups “must now either expend additional time and resources to determine how to serve their target populations or face a greater risk that their investment of time, money, and resources will go to naught.” The groups request the court to declare that the agencies’ removal of the tools violates the APA and PRA, to order the agencies to restore the removed webpages, and grant any other relief the court deems appropriate.

State agencies and industry will also have an interest in the outcome of the litigation. Many state agencies have relied on these EJ tools, particularly EJScreen, to help incorporate EJ considerations into agency actions such as permitting, both to address former federal requirements and those independently arising from state law. Removal of these tools has led some state agencies to reevaluate sources that may be used to address the data gap. Other states have developed their own state-level EJ mapping tools. In addition, some industry actors have used these EJ tools for their own purposes, including sustainability reports and community engagement.

Liskow will be monitoring this litigation as well as other legal challenges to the new administration’s rules and policies on Liskow’s The Louisiana Industrial Insights Hub. For more information on industry impacts arising under the new administration, please contact Liskow attorneys Greg Johnson, Clare Bienvenu, and Colin North.

¹ The groups include Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environmental Integrity Project, and California Communities against Toxics.

When an operator mistakenly overpays a royalty owner, it can recoup the overpayment from future royalties.  While this is a common industry practice, the doctrine of equitable recoupment is seldom discussed in detail by Texas courts.  Recently, however, the Fifth Circuit provided an in-depth overview of the doctrine of equitable recoupment in its opinion affirming a district court decision from the Western District of Texas in DDR Weinert, Ltd. v. Ovintiv USA, Inc.

The dispute centered on whether Ovintiv USA, Inc. (“Ovintiv”), the operator and lessee, was permitted to recoup overpayments that were made two years prior to a prior lessor (“the Richters”) from the successor lessors, DDR Weinert, Ltd. and DDR Williams, Ltd. (“Plaintiffs”), two entities owned and controlled by the Richters.  The Richters owned several tracts of land in Karnes County, Texas (the “Subject Property”), and Ovintiv was the lessee and operator of the Subject Property.  In December 2017, the Richters conveyed their mineral interests in Subject Property to the Plaintiffs.  As such, the Plaintiffs became the successor lessors of the Subject Property.

In September 2016, Ovintiv mistakenly adjusted the gas flow on the Subject Property; this error resulted in Ovintiv overpaying the Richters royalties.  Ovintiv did not discover its error until January 2018.  Once Ovintiv discovered the mistake, it notified Plaintiffs that “it planned to conduct a ‘Prior Period Adjustment’ that year and would recoup any overpayments to the Richters from future royalty payments to the Plaintiffs.”  Plaintiffs sued Ovintiv in Texas state court on April 27, 2022, alleging that Ovintiv withheld over $608,000 in royalties from them.  On the basis of diversity jurisdiction, Ovintiv removed the lawsuit to the Western District of Texas, and the district court granted summary judgment for Ovintiv.  Plaintiffs appealed, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed.  The Fifth Circuit’s decision focused on the doctrine of equitable recoupment.

The Fifth Circuit explained that for the doctrine of equitable recoupment to apply, two requirements must be met: “‘(1) some type of overpayment must have been made, and (2) both the creditor’s claim and the amount owed the debtor must arise from a single transaction.’” Neither party disputed that an overpayment was made; thus, the Fifth Circuit only considered whether the overpayment arose “from a single transaction.”

Guided in large part by one of its previous rulings, W & T Offshore Inc. v. Bernhardt, F.3d 227, 241 (5th Cir. 2019), and a seminal Texas Supreme Court case, Gavenda v. Strata Energy, Inc., 705 S.W.2d 690, 692 (Tex. 1986), the Fifth Circuit concluded that Ovintiv’s overpayment arose from a single transaction and, thus, the doctrine of equitable recoupment barred the Plaintiffs’ claims.  In W & T Offshore Inc., the Fifth Circuit held that, for recoupment purposes, each monthly payment under a lease is part of the same transaction; applying that ruling here, the Fifth Circuit concluded that Ovintiv’s overpayment of royalties arose from a single transaction.  Next, relying on Gavenda, the Court examined whether application of doctrine of equitable recoupment would prevent Ovintiv from being unjustly enriched.  The Court reasoned that if the Plaintiffs were to succeed, “Ovintiv ‘would pay the amount of overpayment twice—once to the overpaid royalty owner . . . and again to the [Plaintiffs] through [t]his suit.’” Two facts of particular importance were that (1) Ovintiv did not profit from underpaying the Plaintiffs and (2) the Plaintiffs are entities controlled by the Richters.  Thus, if the Plaintiffs were to prevail, both the Richters and Plaintiffs would be unjustly enriched.  The Court also noted that the Plaintiffs could bring a claim for unjust enrichment against the Richters.  Therefore, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the doctrine of equitable recoupment applied and estopped the Plaintiffs’ claims against Ovintiv.

For more information about how recent rulings may affect royalty interests or operational practices, contact Liskow attorneys Jana Grauberger, James Kittrell, and Margaret Chavez, and visit our Royalty Litigation practice page.