Louisiana is proposing to give Hyundai up to $900 million in tax-free bonds to finance its massive steel mill in Ascension Parish. The borrowing would follow a $2.6 billion tax-incentive package the company has already received from the state. As The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s David J. Mitchell reports, officials used non-disclosure agreements to secretly negotiate the deals:
Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told officials with the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority in Baton Rouge that she and others found out about the planned bond issuance only 11 days earlier, when a notice popped up on a government website. “This whole process of funding Hyundai has been piecemeal and has been hidden,” she said during a public hearing.
The Louisiana State Bond Commission is scheduled to vote on the deal on Thursday.
Taking away the public’s power to expose polluters
The number of air-pollution monitors in the United States has decreased in recent decades, due to aging systems and reduced federal funding. Researchers and other citizen-led efforts have attempted to fill this gap by conducting their own air monitoring. But as Floodlight’s Ames Alexander and Brad Racino explain, industry is moving to ban that option:
Since 2024, lawmakers in Louisiana, Ohio and Kentucky have passed strikingly similar bills — backed by chemical or manufacturing trade groups — that curb the use of community-collected data in enforcement actions. The bills share a common thread: They block regulators from using air-quality data for enforcement purposes unless it meets EPA-approved standards. Similar bills in West Virginia have yet to pass.
Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality has only 29 continuous air monitors in one of the most polluted states in the country. But Louisiana became the first state to restrict public air-monitoring data. Invest in Louisiana’s Ned Randolph recently explained the real-world consequences of failing to measure and record toxic pollutants that are emitted in communities.
States should expand working family tax credits
Tax credits for working people and families, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, have a proven track record of making basic necessities more affordable and reducing poverty. Sam Waxman and Cassidy Sheppard of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explain why state-level tax credits will help families weather the economic fallout of the federal tax and budget megabill:
Many states are already having to make tough budget decisions as they are forced to take on substantial new costs for Medicaid and food assistance through SNAP — previously borne by the federal government — while balancing their own budgets. At the same time, millions of families will lose their health insurance and food assistance, putting the basics even further out of reach.
Sixteen states have enacted their own version of the CTC, while 32 states and the District of Columbia have an EITC. Louisiana’s EITC – at 5% of the federal credit – is one of the lowest in the country among the states that have established their own credit. The state does not have a state-level CTC.
More young people choosing trade school over college
It seems that more young people are shirking the path to a four-year college degree in favor of trade school. The Time-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Jan Risher explains her own anecdotal evidence of this shift:
In the last month, I’ve randomly met four 18-year-olds with no plans to go to college. One is a senior at Catholic High in Baton Rouge. Three want to pursue trade school — plumbing, auto mechanics, electrical work. The fourth graduated in May. She got her medical assistant license while she was in high school in Livingston Parish and now works full-time in a doctor’s office.
The trade-school trend is backed up by data:
[Louisiana Community and Technical College System executive vice president Chandler LeBoeuf] said 15 years ago, about 35% of the system’s students were in career and technical programs — welding, HVAC, electrical, healthcare, the whole list. Now that total is close to 50%. “It’s been a slow but steady growth,” he said.
Number of the Day
$317 million – Annual economic impact of Louisiana’s oyster industry. The state’s oyster season opens this month. (Source: Louisiana Oyster Task Force)