At Louisiana’s flagship university, oil companies can influence research and coursework for a price. One critic described the industry votes on research agendas, as described in the boilerplate document, as “an egregious violation of academic freedom.”
Two dozen carbon capture projects are proposed in Louisiana — but where is a bit of a mystery. A 2021 state law regulating carbon capture includes a provision allowing companies to claim a wide range of project information — including location — as trade secrets.
Commissioners approve rezoning of Greenfield property for heavy industrial use, despite a prolonged community push to keep the land’s residential zoning in this largely rural part of St. John.
Mayors from Louisiana and advocates from the Water Collaborative, Healthy Gulf, 1Mississippi, and the National Audubon Society asked Congress to invest in better water infrastructure and increase federal funding for farmer-led conservation.
They put out recycling bins and picked up cans during and after parades. In the end, this group of plucky nonprofit groups, with support from the city’s Recycle Dat! initiative, tripled the recycling totals for Uptown parades, diverting an impressive amount of trash from the River Birch landfill.
Advocates still hope to block the permits for Formosa’s proposed petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, a community at the heart of new research into the health effects of air pollution.
To rebuild marshes in the Barataria Basin requires terraces of sand, a map of nearby orphan oil wells and miles of pipe to carry dredged river sediment to degraded wetlands.
Some activists worry that the daytime state task force hearings in Baton Rouge on the issue are missing important voices from affected Black communities
In the same week, a judge again barred the parish from making the Greenfield Property industrial. And parish-council critic Joy Banner filed a First Amendment lawsuit.
Banner planned to ask the council why they were retaining a lawyer to defend its president from personal ethical concerns. But she was interrupted by the council chairman, who cited an invalidated statute and warned her that, if she spoke, she could face criminal prosecution.
