Gov. Jeff Landry, right, announced in March 2025 that Hyundai would locate a $5.8 billion steel plant in Ascension Parish.
ASCENSION PARISH - Two Louisiana environmental groups have filed lawsuits in Ascension Parish alleging that the parish and the nonprofit Ascension Economic Development Corp. (AEDC) have illegally refused to comply with public records requests about local industrial projects.
Rural Roots Louisiana and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade filed two lawsuits on Dec. 10 in the 23rd Judicial District Court. One of the legal complaints seeks the release of nondisclosure agreements between parish officials and the Louisiana Office of Economic Development (LED) regarding industrial developments such as the 17,000-acre Hyundai steel mill to be located on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
A second lawsuit alleges that the AEDC illegally refused to disclose cooperative agreements after the plaintiffs requested the information under the state’s public records law. The AEDC contends it is not subject to the public records law because it is a nonprofit entity, but the plaintiffs allege the economic development entity has received more than $300,000 in public funds annually from the parish, meaning it has to comply with transparency requirements.
“... The Louisiana Supreme Court has long held that even purely private entities, i.e. corporations not founded by government entities for a public purpose, are subject to the public records Law when they operate as instrumentalities of the government and receive public funding for those services,” the lawsuit against the AEDC states.
The other lawsuit, naming Ascension Parish as the defendant, alleges that at least one Ascension Parish Council member entered into a nondisclosure agreement with LED that bars him from releasing certain financial information provided by LED.
An Ascension Parish spokesperson said the parish does not comment on pending litigation, but the plaintiffs say parish officials justify their decisions not to comply with the public records request on the basis that the economic development information the plaintiffs are seeking is exempt under a 2024 Louisiana law, House Bill 461.
That law adds an exemption to the public records law when the documents sought pertain to a local government’s active negotiations “for the purpose of a proposed project involving the retention, expansion or attraction of further economic development,” according to the state Legislature analysis of the measure. Under the exemption, the records in question will remain confidential if such confidentiality is requested in writing at the start of negotiations.
The plaintiffs, however, argue that the parish officials failed to comply with the law’s requirements to establish such an exemption, including a requirement that a local government publish on its website a notice providing general information about each negotiation that required confidentiality.
“The public has a right to know what their elected officials are doing in furtherance of their duties while in office, and whether they are doing it lawfully, including whether they are acting in compliance with the Open Meetings Law … and, most critically, they have a right to know when their elected officials have entered into agreements to shroud their work, discussions and meetings in secrecy,” the lawsuit says.
LED has touted the $5.8 billion RiverPlex project as an “ultra-low carbon steel production mill” that will provide a total of 5.400 new jobs in the region and support the car company’s automotive manufacturing activities across the nation.
But the plaintiffs have expressed concerns about potential tax breaks and the Hyundai project’s impact on “environmentally fragile” land in the parish.
