The latest effort to create a public warning system for spikes in air pollution was snuffed out by a Senate committee.
Senate Bill 35 would have required each of the more than 450 petrochemical plants in Louisiana to install monitors that alert nearby communities when air pollution reaches unsafe levels. The bill cleared the Senate Environmental Quality Committee last month but was blocked in the Senate Finance Committee by its chairman, Sen. Mack “Bodi” White, on Monday.
Louisiana state Sen. Mack ‘Bodi’ White R-Baton Rouge.
White, a Republican from Baton Rouge, said the costs of installing and operating the monitors are likely too much for the petrochemical industry to bear. According to a state Department of Environmental Quality estimate, the monitors would cost an average of $18,000 during the first year. That might cause some plants to pull up stakes and move to Texas, White said.
“If you overburden them, they will leave,” he said.
The bill’s supporters urged senators to also consider the costs to Louisianans living near the plants. Toxic air pollution from refineries and chemical plants has risen in the industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, harming health and property values.
“I’m asking you to think about protecting people and not the costs to the plants,” said Russel Honoré, a retired Army lieutenant general who now leads the Green Army environmental group. “These plants are doing well. That’s why they keep coming to Louisiana.”
Industrial plants at Norco burn off chemicals on Thursday, Sept. 2, 2021, four days after Hurricane Ida knocked out electricity across southeast Louisiana.
Honoré noted that Louisiana gives plants “beaucoup tax breaks” to draw them to the state.
The Louisiana Industrial Tax Exemption Program, or ITEP, has been “extraordinarily generous to industry compared to other states,” according an Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis report. ITEP granted $23 billion in subsidies to 1,400 companies over a 20-year period, a 2017 study by Together Louisiana found.
Under the bill, all facilities that produce toxic chemicals would have had to install and operate monitoring systems that trigger alerts when pollution levels threaten public health.
Louisiana’s current system for detecting air pollution spikes is limited to 44 DEQ-managed air monitors.
Senate Education Committee Chairman Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge.
Industry groups opposed the bill, saying the monitors would be expensive, and the data and alerts they’d produce could spark unnecessary fear among the public.
White “put the bill on hold,” a move that effectively killed it. With only three weeks left in the 2023 legislative session, there’s almost no path to a vote by the full Senate, said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Cleo Fields.
“Practically speaking, yes, it’s dead,” the Baton Rouge Democrat said.
The bill marks the fourth time Fields has proposed legislation aimed at requiring pollution monitors. A similar bill in 2021 would have put the costs of operating the monitors on the state rather than the plants. But legislators balked at the added taxpayer burden, which likely would have topped $4.5 million.
The Nutrien nitrogen phosphate facility in Geismar in the foreground, with several other plants in the background Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2019.
Shifting financial responsibility to companies was also a nonstarter for Senate leaders this week. White said Louisiana can’t afford to lose any more good-paying jobs.
“If we don’t have those plants, our quality of life will not be as good in Louisiana,” he told Fields. “I’m not saying your bill runs them out, but it doesn’t make us any friendlier.”
Fields pledged to revive the bill.
“I’ll propose this every year,” he said. “People have a right to know what they’re breathing.”
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