SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Motiva, a plant involved with a carbon capture project, lays out new built pipes in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, on June 19, 2023.
(Photo: Emily Kask for the Washington Post)
Carbon Capture Could Be a New Way to Greenwash Fossil Fuels in Louisiana
Critics argue that using carbon capture as a transition technology will divert billions of dollars in federal resources away from more proven renewable energy development.
Apr 03, 2024
Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels—the very products warming the planet.
At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon dioxide from industries.
On the surface, these projects seem beneficial. Keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere prevents the greenhouse gas from fueling climate change. In practice, however, this may lead to a net increase in fossil fuel production and more emissions.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas—in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can receive.
The coup de grâce: Louisiana can authorize as many of these federally subsidized projects as it sees fit. The Environmental Protection Agency recently approved its quest to become only one of three states with regulatory “primacy” over such carbon storage wells.
Fossil fuel industry advocates are eager to get projects approved. “Louisiana has a chance with our geological structures to make a big splash in the pond for C02 in the world,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, told a legislative task force in December 2023.
Louisiana has taken advantage of disasters to boost the fossil fuel industry before. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated Louisiana’s marshlands and disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, Louisiana authorities pushed to expand drilling in federal waters in the name of hurricane recovery and coastal restoration.
In my book, Muddy Thinking in the Mississippi River Delta: A Call for Reclamation, I show how efforts to reduce such environmental destruction end up greenwashing industries that created the problem.
Using Disasters to Promote Fossil Fuels
Louisiana has been wrestling with environmental issues and coastal erosion since the early part of the 20th century, sped by a confluence of federal flood control levees on the Lower Mississippi River and oil and gas drilling.
Over the years, the fossil fuel industry drilled thousands of leaky wells and dug over 10,000 miles of pipeline and navigation canals. Coastal erosion accelerated, which also left oil and gas infrastructure exposed.
In the late 1990s, state leaders joined with the oil and gas industry on a public relations campaign to convince Congress to help fund a $14 billion coastal restoration plan. The effort stalled after Congress declined to approve the spending.
Then hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state in 2005. Oil and gas production in the region went offline, and U.S. energy prices surged.
Within days of Hurricane Katrina, Republicans in Congress were calling for lifting a 25-year drilling moratorium on the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf.
Within the year, Congress had voted to lift the moratorium and to share 37.5% of the federal royalties from the wells with Louisiana and the other Gulf states. The money would help fund the state’s coastal restoration plans, which were later bolstered by the huge disaster settlement from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The arrangement made coastal restoration dependent on future revenue from an industry that continues to damage the coast.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
Clearing the Way for Taxpayer Funds
Congress first created a tax credit for carbon sequestration in 2008, but the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act opened the flood gates. It boosted the federal tax credit to $85 per ton of carbon dioxide captured and stored from industrial facilities and $180 per ton for carbon captured from the air and stored. Companies that reuse carbon dioxide for industrial products or enhanced oil recovery will receive $60 per ton.
The tax credits by some estimates could cost the federal treasury well over $100 billion, depending on the program’s popularity, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
At least 24 carbon capture applications are now pending in Louisiana. Many more are in preliminary stages, according to a Louisiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman.
Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
Environmental advocacy groups say the program is riddled with problems, including lacking third-party verification that the carbon is being stored as claimed. An earlier federal investigation by the U.S. Treasury found that 90% of the $1 billion in tax credits awarded to companies for carbon storage between 2010 and 2019 was incorrectly documented.
Globally, there are only about 40 commercial carbon capture, use, and storage facilities in operation. They capture 45 million metric tons of carbon annually—just over 1% of global emissions. The vast majority of this captured carbon is used to increase oil production from old wells.
The New Gold Rush
Carbon capture technology is now being used as a rationale to maintain oil and gas production.
Gregory Upton, executive director of the Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies, testified on Capitol Hill in September 2023 that the Biden administration’s plan to limit new offshore leases would jeopardize Louisiana’s carbon capture projects. “In my opinion, policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel supply in the U.S. put this decarbonization strategy at risk,” he said.
Indeed, many planned carbon capture projects are tied to natural gas.
For example, a $4.5 billion “blue hydrogen” plant proposed by the Pennsylvania-based company Air Products uses natural gas to produce hydrogen, which also generates carbon dioxide emissions. The company has proposed burying 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year below Lake Maurepas, and presumably would garner $510 million in tax credits over 12 years.
Communities Are Worried
Critics argue that using carbon capture as a transition technology will divert billions of dollars in federal resources away from more proven renewable energy development and require building thousands of miles of specialized pipelines.
Capturing and storing emissions also requires energy. Adding carbon capture to a power plant, for example, requires one-sixth to one-third more power production, according to a Congressional Budget Office report. The tax credit rules also don’t account for the emissions released to produce the natural gas or transport and store the carbon dioxide.
When Louisiana petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for regulatory primacy over these projects, the agency received 45,000 public comments. Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
The company Air Products triggered a public outcry when it began seismic testing with dynamite below Lake Maurepas, which had enjoyed no-dredging, no-drilling protection for decades.
Supporters of the industry, meanwhile, suggested to a state carbon capture task force that resisting even a single project would send a message that Louisiana is not open for business.
But, as I see it, the message seems quite the opposite. With a windfall of federal funding, Louisiana has put out the welcome mat.
Why Your Ongoing Support Is Essential
Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy, justice, and a free press are escalating — putting everything we stand for at risk. We believe a better world is possible, but we can’t get there without your support. Common Dreams stands apart. We answer only to you — our readers, activists, and changemakers — not to billionaires or corporations. Our independence allows us to cover the vital stories that others won’t, spotlighting movements for peace, equality, and human rights. Right now, our work faces unprecedented challenges. Misinformation is spreading, journalists are under attack, and financial pressures are mounting. As a reader-supported, nonprofit newsroom, your support is crucial to keep this journalism alive. Whatever you can give — $10, $25, or $100 — helps us stay strong and responsive when the world needs us most. Together, we’ll continue to build the independent, courageous journalism our movement relies on. Thank you for being part of this community. |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Ned Randolph
Ned Randolph is an adjunct professor of environmental communications at Tulane University.
climate emergencyenvironmental justiceenvironmental protection agencyfossil fuelsgreenwashinginflation reduction actlouisianaoil and gas drillingcarbon capture
Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels—the very products warming the planet.
At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon dioxide from industries.
On the surface, these projects seem beneficial. Keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere prevents the greenhouse gas from fueling climate change. In practice, however, this may lead to a net increase in fossil fuel production and more emissions.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas—in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can receive.
The coup de grâce: Louisiana can authorize as many of these federally subsidized projects as it sees fit. The Environmental Protection Agency recently approved its quest to become only one of three states with regulatory “primacy” over such carbon storage wells.
Fossil fuel industry advocates are eager to get projects approved. “Louisiana has a chance with our geological structures to make a big splash in the pond for C02 in the world,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, told a legislative task force in December 2023.
Louisiana has taken advantage of disasters to boost the fossil fuel industry before. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated Louisiana’s marshlands and disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, Louisiana authorities pushed to expand drilling in federal waters in the name of hurricane recovery and coastal restoration.
In my book, Muddy Thinking in the Mississippi River Delta: A Call for Reclamation, I show how efforts to reduce such environmental destruction end up greenwashing industries that created the problem.
Using Disasters to Promote Fossil Fuels
Louisiana has been wrestling with environmental issues and coastal erosion since the early part of the 20th century, sped by a confluence of federal flood control levees on the Lower Mississippi River and oil and gas drilling.
Over the years, the fossil fuel industry drilled thousands of leaky wells and dug over 10,000 miles of pipeline and navigation canals. Coastal erosion accelerated, which also left oil and gas infrastructure exposed.
In the late 1990s, state leaders joined with the oil and gas industry on a public relations campaign to convince Congress to help fund a $14 billion coastal restoration plan. The effort stalled after Congress declined to approve the spending.
Then hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state in 2005. Oil and gas production in the region went offline, and U.S. energy prices surged.
Within days of Hurricane Katrina, Republicans in Congress were calling for lifting a 25-year drilling moratorium on the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf.
Within the year, Congress had voted to lift the moratorium and to share 37.5% of the federal royalties from the wells with Louisiana and the other Gulf states. The money would help fund the state’s coastal restoration plans, which were later bolstered by the huge disaster settlement from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The arrangement made coastal restoration dependent on future revenue from an industry that continues to damage the coast.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
Clearing the Way for Taxpayer Funds
Congress first created a tax credit for carbon sequestration in 2008, but the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act opened the flood gates. It boosted the federal tax credit to $85 per ton of carbon dioxide captured and stored from industrial facilities and $180 per ton for carbon captured from the air and stored. Companies that reuse carbon dioxide for industrial products or enhanced oil recovery will receive $60 per ton.
The tax credits by some estimates could cost the federal treasury well over $100 billion, depending on the program’s popularity, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
At least 24 carbon capture applications are now pending in Louisiana. Many more are in preliminary stages, according to a Louisiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman.
Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
Environmental advocacy groups say the program is riddled with problems, including lacking third-party verification that the carbon is being stored as claimed. An earlier federal investigation by the U.S. Treasury found that 90% of the $1 billion in tax credits awarded to companies for carbon storage between 2010 and 2019 was incorrectly documented.
Globally, there are only about 40 commercial carbon capture, use, and storage facilities in operation. They capture 45 million metric tons of carbon annually—just over 1% of global emissions. The vast majority of this captured carbon is used to increase oil production from old wells.
The New Gold Rush
Carbon capture technology is now being used as a rationale to maintain oil and gas production.
Gregory Upton, executive director of the Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies, testified on Capitol Hill in September 2023 that the Biden administration’s plan to limit new offshore leases would jeopardize Louisiana’s carbon capture projects. “In my opinion, policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel supply in the U.S. put this decarbonization strategy at risk,” he said.
Indeed, many planned carbon capture projects are tied to natural gas.
For example, a $4.5 billion “blue hydrogen” plant proposed by the Pennsylvania-based company Air Products uses natural gas to produce hydrogen, which also generates carbon dioxide emissions. The company has proposed burying 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year below Lake Maurepas, and presumably would garner $510 million in tax credits over 12 years.
Communities Are Worried
Critics argue that using carbon capture as a transition technology will divert billions of dollars in federal resources away from more proven renewable energy development and require building thousands of miles of specialized pipelines.
Capturing and storing emissions also requires energy. Adding carbon capture to a power plant, for example, requires one-sixth to one-third more power production, according to a Congressional Budget Office report. The tax credit rules also don’t account for the emissions released to produce the natural gas or transport and store the carbon dioxide.
When Louisiana petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for regulatory primacy over these projects, the agency received 45,000 public comments. Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
The company Air Products triggered a public outcry when it began seismic testing with dynamite below Lake Maurepas, which had enjoyed no-dredging, no-drilling protection for decades.
Supporters of the industry, meanwhile, suggested to a state carbon capture task force that resisting even a single project would send a message that Louisiana is not open for business.
But, as I see it, the message seems quite the opposite. With a windfall of federal funding, Louisiana has put out the welcome mat.
Ned Randolph
Ned Randolph is an adjunct professor of environmental communications at Tulane University.
Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels—the very products warming the planet.
At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon dioxide from industries.
On the surface, these projects seem beneficial. Keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere prevents the greenhouse gas from fueling climate change. In practice, however, this may lead to a net increase in fossil fuel production and more emissions.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
That’s because many of these carbon capture projects will be handling emissions from facilities that rely on oil and natural gas—in fact, many of the projects are tied to major oil and gas companies through subsidiaries. Under new federal rules, the projects can receive generous tax subsidies. The more carbon dioxide the factories produce and capture, the more federal money the projects can receive.
The coup de grâce: Louisiana can authorize as many of these federally subsidized projects as it sees fit. The Environmental Protection Agency recently approved its quest to become only one of three states with regulatory “primacy” over such carbon storage wells.
Fossil fuel industry advocates are eager to get projects approved. “Louisiana has a chance with our geological structures to make a big splash in the pond for C02 in the world,” Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, told a legislative task force in December 2023.
Louisiana has taken advantage of disasters to boost the fossil fuel industry before. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated Louisiana’s marshlands and disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, Louisiana authorities pushed to expand drilling in federal waters in the name of hurricane recovery and coastal restoration.
In my book, Muddy Thinking in the Mississippi River Delta: A Call for Reclamation, I show how efforts to reduce such environmental destruction end up greenwashing industries that created the problem.
Using Disasters to Promote Fossil Fuels
Louisiana has been wrestling with environmental issues and coastal erosion since the early part of the 20th century, sped by a confluence of federal flood control levees on the Lower Mississippi River and oil and gas drilling.
Over the years, the fossil fuel industry drilled thousands of leaky wells and dug over 10,000 miles of pipeline and navigation canals. Coastal erosion accelerated, which also left oil and gas infrastructure exposed.
In the late 1990s, state leaders joined with the oil and gas industry on a public relations campaign to convince Congress to help fund a $14 billion coastal restoration plan. The effort stalled after Congress declined to approve the spending.
Then hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state in 2005. Oil and gas production in the region went offline, and U.S. energy prices surged.
Within days of Hurricane Katrina, Republicans in Congress were calling for lifting a 25-year drilling moratorium on the Gulf of Mexico’s Outer Continental Shelf.
Within the year, Congress had voted to lift the moratorium and to share 37.5% of the federal royalties from the wells with Louisiana and the other Gulf states. The money would help fund the state’s coastal restoration plans, which were later bolstered by the huge disaster settlement from BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The arrangement made coastal restoration dependent on future revenue from an industry that continues to damage the coast.
Carbon capture has similarly turned the oil and gas industry into a critical component of mitigating climate change while the industry continues producing products that are heating the planet.
Clearing the Way for Taxpayer Funds
Congress first created a tax credit for carbon sequestration in 2008, but the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act opened the flood gates. It boosted the federal tax credit to $85 per ton of carbon dioxide captured and stored from industrial facilities and $180 per ton for carbon captured from the air and stored. Companies that reuse carbon dioxide for industrial products or enhanced oil recovery will receive $60 per ton.
The tax credits by some estimates could cost the federal treasury well over $100 billion, depending on the program’s popularity, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
At least 24 carbon capture applications are now pending in Louisiana. Many more are in preliminary stages, according to a Louisiana Department of Natural Resources spokesman.
Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
Environmental advocacy groups say the program is riddled with problems, including lacking third-party verification that the carbon is being stored as claimed. An earlier federal investigation by the U.S. Treasury found that 90% of the $1 billion in tax credits awarded to companies for carbon storage between 2010 and 2019 was incorrectly documented.
Globally, there are only about 40 commercial carbon capture, use, and storage facilities in operation. They capture 45 million metric tons of carbon annually—just over 1% of global emissions. The vast majority of this captured carbon is used to increase oil production from old wells.
The New Gold Rush
Carbon capture technology is now being used as a rationale to maintain oil and gas production.
Gregory Upton, executive director of the Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies, testified on Capitol Hill in September 2023 that the Biden administration’s plan to limit new offshore leases would jeopardize Louisiana’s carbon capture projects. “In my opinion, policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel supply in the U.S. put this decarbonization strategy at risk,” he said.
Indeed, many planned carbon capture projects are tied to natural gas.
For example, a $4.5 billion “blue hydrogen” plant proposed by the Pennsylvania-based company Air Products uses natural gas to produce hydrogen, which also generates carbon dioxide emissions. The company has proposed burying 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year below Lake Maurepas, and presumably would garner $510 million in tax credits over 12 years.
Communities Are Worried
Critics argue that using carbon capture as a transition technology will divert billions of dollars in federal resources away from more proven renewable energy development and require building thousands of miles of specialized pipelines.
Capturing and storing emissions also requires energy. Adding carbon capture to a power plant, for example, requires one-sixth to one-third more power production, according to a Congressional Budget Office report. The tax credit rules also don’t account for the emissions released to produce the natural gas or transport and store the carbon dioxide.
When Louisiana petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency for regulatory primacy over these projects, the agency received 45,000 public comments. Residents raised fears that projects would contaminate underground aquifers or that stored carbon dioxide could escape through the state’s thousands of old oil wells.
The company Air Products triggered a public outcry when it began seismic testing with dynamite below Lake Maurepas, which had enjoyed no-dredging, no-drilling protection for decades.
Supporters of the industry, meanwhile, suggested to a state carbon capture task force that resisting even a single project would send a message that Louisiana is not open for business.
But, as I see it, the message seems quite the opposite. With a windfall of federal funding, Louisiana has put out the welcome mat.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
LATEST NEWS
Omar, Ramirez Among First in Congress to Decry 'Unconstitutional' Trump Strike on Boat
"They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law," the Minnesota progressive said of the Trump administration.
Sep 04, 2025
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Delia Ramirez on Thursday strongly condemned the Trump administration's deadly attack on a boat allegedly trafficking cocaine off the coast of Venezuela as "lawless and reckless," while urging the White House to respect lawmakers' "clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace."
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche," said Omar (D-Minn.), referring to President Donald Trump's day one executive order designating drug cartels including the Venezuela-based group as foreign terrorist organizations.
Trump—who reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat cartels abroad—said that Tuesday's US strike in international waters killed 11 people. The attack sparked fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US interventions over the past 200 years, and against a country that has suffered US meddling since the late 19th century.
"It appears that US forces that were recently sent to the region in an escalatory and provocative manner were under no threat from the boat they attacked," Omar cotended. "There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law."
Omar continued:
They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law. The US posture towards the eradication of drugs has caused immeasurable damage across our hemisphere. It has led to massive forced displacement, environmental devastation, violence, and human rights violations. What it has not done is any damage whatsoever to narcotrafficking or to the cartels. It has been a dramatic, profound failure at every level. In Latin America, even right-wing presidents acknowledge this is true.
The congresswoman's remarks came on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated a pair of Ecuadorean drug gangs as terrorist organizations while visiting the South American nation. This, after Rubio said that US attacks on suspected drug traffickers "will happen again."
"Trump and Rubio's apparent solution" to the failed drug war, said Omar, is "to make it even more militarized," an effort that "is doomed to fail."
"Worse, it risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes," she added.
Echoing critics including former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, who called Tuesday's strike a "summary execution," Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Thursday on social media that "Trump and the Pentagon executed 11 people in the Caribbean, 1,500 miles away from the United States, without a legal rationale."
"From Iran to Venezuela, to DC, LA, and Chicago, Trump continues to abuse our military power, undermine the rule of law, and erode our constitutional boundaries in political spectacles," Ramirez added, referring to the president's ordering of strikes on Iran and National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, the nation's capital, and likely beyond.
"Presidents don't bomb first and ask questions later," Ramirez added. "Wannabe dictators do that."
'Cruelty': US Appeals Court Blocks Order to Shut Down Alligator Alcatraz
"The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening!" said Florida Immigrant Coalition's deputy director.
Sep 04, 2025
Two judges appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump issued a Thursday decision that allows a newly established but already notorious immigrant detention center in Florida, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, to stay open.
Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida sought "to halt the unlawful construction" of the site. Last month, Judge Kathleen Williams—appointed by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida—ordered the closure of the facility within 60 days.
However, on Thursday, Circuit Judges Elizabeth Branch and Barbara Lagoa blocked Williams' decision, concluding that "the balance of the harms and our consideration of the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction."
Judge Adalberto Jordan, an Obama appointee, issued a brief but scathing dissent. He wrote that the majority "essentially ignores the burden borne by the defendants, pays only lip service to the abuse of discretion standard, engages in its own factfinding, declines to consider the district court's determination on irreparable harm, and performs its own balancing of the equities."
The 11th Circuit's ruling was cheered by the US Department of Homeland Security, Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who declared in a video that "Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we've always said, open for business."
Uthmeier's communications director, Jeremy Redfern, collected responses to the initial ruling by state and federal Democrats, and urged them to weigh in on social media. Florida state Sen. Shevrin "Shev" Jones (D-34) did, stressing that "cruelty is still cruelty."
In a Thursday statement, Florida Immigrant Coalition deputy director Renata Bozzetto said that "the 11th Circuit is allowing atrocities to happen by reversing the injunction that helped to paralyze something that has been functioning as an extrajudicial site in our own state! The Everglades Detention Camp isn't just an environmental threat; it is also a huge human rights crisis."
"Housing thousands of men in tents in the middle of a fragile ecosystem puts immense strain on Florida's source environment, but even more troublesome, it disregards human rights and our constitutional commitments," Bozzetto continued. "This is a place where hundreds of our neighbors were illegally held, were made invisible within government systems, and were subjected to inhumane heat and unbearable treatment. The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening! The only just solution is to shut this facility down and ensure that no facility like this opens in our state!"
"Lastly, it is imperative that we as a nation uphold the balance of powers that this country was founded on," she added. "That is what makes this country special! Calling judges who rule against you 'activists' flies in the face of our democracy. It is a huge tell that AG Uthmeier expressed this as a 'win for President Trump's agenda,' as if the courts were to serve as political weapons. This demonstrates the clear partisan games they are playing with people's lives and with our democracy."
While Alligator Alcatraz has drawn widespread criticism for the conditions in which detainees are held, the suit is based on the government's failure to follow a law that requires an environmental review, given the facility's proximity to surrounding wetlands.
In response to the ruling, Elise Bennett, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press that "this is a heartbreaking blow to America's Everglades and every living creature there, but the case isn't even close to over."
Healthcare Giants Have Raked in 'Sick Profits' From Trump Tax Cuts While Stiffing Patients: Report
The report found that seven of America's biggest healthcare companies have collectively dodged $34 billion in taxes as a result of Trump's 2017 tax law while making patient care worse.
Sep 04, 2025
President Donald Trump's tax policies have allowed the healthcare industry to rake in "sick profits" by avoiding tens of billions of dollars in taxes and lowering the quality of care for patients, according to a report out Wednesday.
The report, by the advocacy groups Americans for Tax Fairness and Community Catalyst, found that "seven of America's biggest healthcare corporations have dodged over $34 billion in collective taxes since the enactment of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that Republicans recently succeeded in extending."
The study examined four health insurance companies—Centene, Cigna, Elevance (formerly Anthem), and Humana; two for-profit hospital chains—HCA Holdings and Universal Health Services; and the CVS Healthcare pharmacy conglomerate.
It found that these companies' average profits increased by 75%, from around $21 billion before the tax bill to about $35 billion afterward, and yet their federal tax rate was about the same.
This was primarily due to the 2017 law's slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a change that was cheered on by the healthcare industry and continued with this year's GOP tax legislation. The legislation also loosened many tax loopholes and made it easier to move profits to offshore tax shelters.
The report found that Cigna, for instance, saved an estimated $181 million in taxes on the $2.5 billion it held in offshore accounts before the law took effect.
The law's supporters, including those in the healthcare industry, argued that lowering corporate taxes would allow companies to increase wages and provide better services to patients. But the report found that "healthcare corporations failed to use their tax savings to lower costs for customers or meaningfully boost worker pay."
Instead, they used those windfalls primarily to increase shareholder payouts through stock buybacks and dividends and to give fat bonuses to their top executives.
Stock buybacks increased by 42% after the law passed, with Centene purchasing an astonishing average of 20 times more of its own shares in the years following its enactment than in the years before. During the first seven years of the law, dividends for shareholders increased by 133% to an average of $5.6 billion.
Pay for the seven companies' half-dozen top executives increased by a combined $100 million, 42%, on average. This is compared to the $14,000 pay increase that the average employee at these companies received over the same period, which is a much more modest increase of 24%.
And contrary to claims that lower taxes would allow companies to improve coverage or patient care, the opposite has occurred.
While data is scarce, the rate of denied insurance claims is believed to have risen since the law went into effect.
The four major insurers' Medicare Advantage plans were found to frequently deny claims improperly. In the case of Centene, 93% of its denials for prior authorizations were overturned once patients appealed them, which indicates that they may have been improper. The others were not much better: 86% of Cigna's denials were overturned, along with 71% for Elevance/Anthem, and 65% for Humana.
The report said that such high rates of denials being overturned raise "questions about whether Medicare Advantage plans are complying with their coverage obligations or just reflexively saying 'no' in the hopes there will be no appeal."
Salespeople for the Cigna-owned company EviCore, which insurers hire to review claims, have even boasted that they help companies reduce their costs by increasing denials by 15%, part of a model that ProPublica has called the "denials for dollars business." Their investigation in 2024 found that insurers have used EviCore to evaluate whether to pay for coverage for over 100 million people.
And while paying tens of millions to their executives, both HCA and Universal Health Services—which each saved around $5.5 billion from Trump's tax law—have been repeatedly accused of overbilling patients while treating them in horrendous conditions.
"Congress should demand both more in tax revenue and better patient care from these highly profitable corporations," Americans for Tax Fairness said in a statement. "Healthcare corporation profitability should not come before quality of patient care. In healthcare, more than almost any other industry, the search for ever higher earnings threatens the wellbeing and lives of the American people."
Most Popular
We cover the issues the corporate media never will.
Please support our journalism.