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W e d n e s d ay, a p r i l 9, 2025
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“It’s going to be a tough pill to swallow for communities like ours.” ARCHIE CHAISSON III, Lafourche Parish president
FEMA ends grants that help prepare for storms
148 applications in Louisiana worth $721 million spiked
$4 billion ammonia plant planned CF Industries expanding in Ascension Parish BY BLAKE PATERSON Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
A truck winds through high water and downed power lines along La. 1 south of Golden Meadow following Hurricane Ida in 2021. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is cutting a grant program that funds work to lessen damage from storms including projects like flood control and electrical grid hardening. BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration has ended a Federal Emergency Management Agency program heavily relied upon by Louisiana that paid to elevate homes, build levees and do other work to lessen damage from storms, calling it “wasteful and ineffective.” The end of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program effectively spikes 148 applications worth
$721,281,559 in Louisiana, according to FEMA’s financial obligations database. Louisiana, California and New York collectively receive about half of the program’s total budget. FEMA has stopped accepting applications for 2024 and is canceling projects on the drawing board from 2020 to 2023. Approved grant funds that have not been distributed will be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury, according to FEMA. Plus, the agency is looking for ways to claw back money already paid out. For
Louisiana, that could translate to about $282 million. “The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” an unnamed FEMA spokesperson said in a statement that accompanied the announcement. “It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.” The program was created during Trump’s first administration. His
ä See FEMA, page 6A
CF Industries, which operates the largest ammonia and nitrogen production facility in the world at a complex in Donaldsonville, is expanding its footprint in Louisiana with plans for a new $4 billion, low-carbon ammonia plant about 9 miles upriver from its existing facility on the west bank of Ascension Parish. The new Blue Point Complex, as it will be known, will be located near Modeste at the RiverPlex MegaPark and is expected to create 103 permanent jobs with an average annual salary of $110,000. It’s the second announcement in recent week of a major investment planned for the RiverPlex MegaPark, a massive, undeveloped tract of agricultural land that economic development officials have long sought to turn into an industrial park. Last month, Hyundai announced it would build a $5.8 million steel mill at the site. Gov. Jeff Landry and officials from Louisiana Economic Development announced the company’s decision to go forward with the project, first proposed in 2022, at a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol. “This investment in infrastructure is an investment in our future,” Landry said. “It is a future where Louisiana is finally leading not only our Southern neighbors, but the world when it comes to innovation and sustainability.” CF Industries’ plans call for building a plant that will produce “blue” ammonia, which has a lower-carbon footprint than conventionally produced ammonia. That’s not because of the way the ammonia is produced per se but because the carbon the plant emits is captured and stored in underground wells, a process called carbon capture and sequestration. The plant is one of several industrial projects that have been proposed for the state and are banking on carbon capture and sequestration to produce low-carbon
ä See PLANT, page 7A
Legislation filed to tax, regulate hemp-THC products BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN
and to add criminal penalties for selling to underage customers. Last year, a battle over how The Legislature could be in store to regulate the products — and for more conflict over hemp-THC whether to ban them outright — products during the coming leg- stretched into the final days of the islative session. Lawmakers have session. Ultimately, the Legislature did filed bills to raise taxes on them
Staff writer
WEATHER HIGH 77 LOW 52 PAGE 8B
not pass a ban. But lawmakers did lower the legal single-serving size from 8 mg of THC to 5 mg of THC, make it illegal to sell the intoxicating products to people under 21 and limit how bars sell hemp products like THC seltzers. THC, the compound in mari-
juana that gets users high, is also found in hemp, another cannabis plant, though at much lower levels than in marijuana. But many hemp manufacturers sell products with concentrated THC levels. So far, this year’s proposed changes do not include an outright
ban on such products. But two bills that would dramatically raise the consumable hemp tax are likely to face opposition from the industry. That tax now sits at 3%. House Bill 187 by state Rep. Bryan
Business ......................3B Commentary ................7B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................6D Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....3D-5D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
ä See HEMP, page 9A
100TH yEAR, NO. 283
Southern S Blue & Gold Spring Game 2025
spring football first glance
APRIL 12, 2025
GATES OPEN AT 12 NOON • GAME AT 1PM GOJAGSPORTS.COM