Part 5: Wake Up, There’s a “Softwar” on American Soil

Part 5: Wake Up, There’s a “Softwar” on American Soil

By Danielle Walker, The State of Freedom

In Part 4, Brad LeBlanc joined me in laying out the case for ending the litigation lottery and replacing it with real, measurable stewardship. That fight sits inside a larger conflict. Louisiana, like the rest of the country, is facing a sustained campaign of non-kinetic pressure designed to weaken its energy production and strategic position from within.

Defense strategist Major Jason Lowery (US Space Force) has described “Softwar” as a form of non-kinetic power projection — the use of energy, economic, and regulatory tools to shape outcomes without direct military confrontation. In this framework, Louisiana’s ability to produce and control reliable, affordable energy is itself a form of strategic power projection. Strong domestic energy production strengthens our economy, supports our industries, and gives our state leverage rather than dependence.

In Louisiana, this pressure — regulatory favoritism, eminent domain expansions, and CCS-centric policies — is being applied directly through our own institutions and leaders, many of whom are actively advancing arrangements that undermine the state’s domestic energy production while they are benefiting from the arrangement.

Narrative warfare is the more pernicious vector of this campaign against energy self-sufficiency. It attacks our ability to believe in abundance itself. Even the common term “fossil fuels” subtly reinforces a scarcity mindset by implying that these resources are ancient, finite remnants rather than part of the Earth’s ongoing geological and biological processes. For years, a sustained story has been advanced that frames hydrocarbons as inherently destructive, that treats the pursuit of cheap and reliable energy as morally suspect, and that presents scarcity as the responsible and inevitable future. This narrative erodes the basic confidence that we can develop our own resources at scale while protecting the environment.

In Louisiana, this conditioning runs deep. Decades of economic challenges, population loss, “last place” rankings, resource mismanagement, a lack of environmental stewardship, and political corruption have fostered a poverty mindset — a learned expectation that decline is inevitable and that the best we can hope for is to manage scarcity rather than create abundance. When that weakened confidence combines with officials who face little accountability, policies once unthinkable can take hold.

Carbon capture and sequestration functions as the tactile vector of that narrative — turning the cultivated scarcity mindset into concrete policy and infrastructure. It turns enforced scarcity into physical reality. In the 2026 Regular Session, a slate of bills that would have protected residents, landowners, and even nearby military assets failed to advance. HB 510, which would have prohibited the importation of captured CO₂ into Louisiana for sequestration, did not become law — even as new port terminals are being developed to bring in industrial CO₂ from Florida and Texas is planning to ship its industrial CO₂ waste into Louisiana for burial. Measures granting parishes local authority over Class VI wells, restricting private eminent domain for pipelines, and providing stronger mineral rights protections were never even given a hearing. The result: residents and landowners remain exposed, and critical infrastructure decisions proceed with minimal local input.

The stakes are concrete. Multiple large-scale CCS projects are advancing in Vernon Parish and surrounding areas — home to Fort Polk, the U.S. Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center. Leading U.S.-based developers include CapturePoint Solutions (CPS CENLA Hub, multi-billion-ton capacity for regional industrial CO₂ and future direct air capture), Aethon Energy (LA Wilcox Project), Denbury Carbon Solutions (now part of ExxonMobil, Draco Hub interests), and Trace Carbon Solutions (Evergreen Hub in nearby Beauregard Parish). Their stated purposes center on permanent geologic storage to support industrial decarbonization, generate 45Q credits, and enable certified “low-carbon” products for export markets. A key additional driver is the ESG credits market and European mandates that reward sequestration for access to premium pricing in those markets.

This places high-volume CO₂ injection and pipelines in proximity to active military training ranges, logistics nodes, and the Chicot Aquifer — a critical groundwater source for the installation and region. The area also features documented surface fault traces and natural subsidence. The combination raises legitimate questions about pressure management, induced seismicity, pipeline hazards, and long-term liability that will ultimately rest with Louisiana taxpayers. Residents’ opposition has fallen on deaf ears. Proposed large-scale CCS projects in Vernon Parish would place high-volume CO₂ injection wells and pipelines near Fort Polk’s training ranges and supporting infrastructure. Military personnel and families stationed at Fort Polk now face the potential consequences of decisions made without adequate public or installation-level scrutiny of readiness implications.

What is presented in Brussels as environmental progress is sold at home as necessity. Officials claim Louisiana has no choice but to comply with Europe’s lower-carbon LNG demands through CCS. This argument carries a built-in scarcity mindset — that Europe is the only viable market. In reality, significant demand exists from domestic buyers and other international partners (South Korea, India, and others) without equivalent ESG conditions. The CCS push diverts political capital, regulatory focus, and investment away from expanding production, refining capacity, and export infrastructure that does not require burial schemes.

Strong domestic energy production strengthens our economy, supports our industries, and gives our state leverage rather than dependence. It generates the severance taxes, royalties, and high-wage jobs that fund schools, infrastructure, and working families across Louisiana parishes. This is real revenue from real production — not federal credits funneled through compliance schemes. CCS, by design, diverts capital and political focus toward burial infrastructure with far fewer permanent jobs and with long-term liabilities that ultimately land on Louisiana taxpayers. The difference is not abstract. It is the difference between growth that builds sovereignty and arrangements that erode it.

This dynamic is reinforced by industry segments acting in short-term interests. Major producers have often capitulated to the ESG framework rather than defending long-term hydrocarbon viability. Midstream players have moved aggressively into CCS pipelines and storage as a new revenue line. Globalist incentives — ESG scores, 45Q credits, and regulatory favoritism — reward participation in a system that constrains Louisiana’s own resources while entrenching external dependencies.

Some elected officials have become foot soldiers in this campaign of enforced scarcity — either convinced by the narrative that abundance is unattainable, or seeing political advantage in it. They advance CCS under claims it preserves the state’s pipeline infrastructure by retaining skilled energy jobs, while granting tax advantages and federal incentives to these projects and offering no meaningful relief to citizens. The contrast is stark: conventional oil and gas development produces a real, tangible, valuable product that powers the world and delivers ongoing royalties and severance taxes that put money directly into landowners’ pockets and support parishes, schools, and working families across the state. CCS, by contrast, produces little more than expensive virtue-signaling carbon credits that amount to imaginary environmentalism, while the actual industrial CO₂ injection raises very real environmental concerns at the injection sites and surrounding areas. CCS, by design, relies heavily on upfront federal payouts and incentives for companies aligning with ESG demands and export certifications — forcing the very people who could be receiving royalty checks to instead give up their land through eminent domain or unitization while footing the bill as taxpayers for these subsidies and credits. Efforts to secure stronger legislative protections for landowners and residents have repeatedly failed. The insanity of this push for CCS and importing captured industrial CO₂ to inject under our soil cannot be overstated.

The Bossier Formation illustrates the practical cost. This formation holds some of the highest-quality, lowest-CO₂ natural gas in the country — an ideal feedstock for LNG exports and domestic use. Yet because Louisiana has not established clear primacy for mineral production over CCS, operators may actually face higher drilling and completion costs when new wells must be designed to avoid or work around CO₂ storage units. In some cases, acreage could become more expensive or even uneconomical to develop.

Success must be measured by outcomes that matter: verifiable environmental safety and accountability paired with energy costs low enough to improve daily life for working families. Policies that raise costs while limiting our own resources fail this test.

Narrative warfare has weakened belief in abundance. The tactile execution through CCS — especially near Fort Polk and despite failed legislative protections — actively undermines our ability to develop resources like the Bossier Formation.

The choice is straightforward. We can continue accepting a narrative that attacks abundance and policies that restrict our resources, or we can pursue genuine energy dominance that delivers environmental responsibility, higher family incomes, real economic improvement, and lower costs of energy for Louisiana families.

 Action Items for Louisiana

• Reject the entire pro-CCS narrative and its premise. We must reject the scarcity lies that underpin it because they fuel the broader Softwar campaign against American energy independence.
• Fully align private property rights protections with the Louisiana Constitution. No unconstitutional takings. No eminent domain for private commercial benefit or so-called “economic development.”
• Establish clear legislative primacy for mineral production over carbon storage projects to protect and accelerate development of resources like the Bossier Formation and expanded capacity for existing oil and gas projects.
• Restore meaningful local authority for all industrial development projects.
• Implement stronger, practical measures for actual environmental protection for real oil and gas production.
• Private CCS operators must retain full accountability. The state should shift liability back onto CCS operators and off of Louisiana taxpayers.
• Accelerate responsible conventional oil and gas development under clear environmental standards while closing infrastructure gaps (gas takeaway, refining for light crude).
• Measure success by real outcomes: lower costs, higher family incomes, genuine growth, and strategic energy leverage that benefits Louisiana families — not imaginary credits or foreign mandates.

That is how we effectively wage Softwar — by restoring confidence in our ability to project power through energy strength rather than ceding ground to adversarial interests. European ESG and low-carbon mandates, pushed by globalist frameworks, create the pressure. Adversaries like China and Russia stand ready to take advantage of the self-inflicted weakness. By constraining ourselves in the name of compliance or fake economic development, we weaken our strategic position and hand greater influence over global emissions — and global power — to others.

It’s time to stop playing defense against self-inflicted scarcity and launch a full-spectrum energy production offensive — one that restores Louisiana’s rightful place as an American energy powerhouse, rebuilds our economy from the ground up, and delivers real prosperity for our families and communities.

(The series continues with a deeper examination of the alarming plan to make Louisiana the CO₂ dumping ground for the world’s industrial waste.)

Danielle Walker is the Louisiana-based creator and co-host of The State of Freedom podcast and content series, fighting for sovereignty, accountability, and the unalienable rights of We the People.