Louisiana lawmakers are rolling out tax breaks, legal protections and other incentives for aerospace companies as speculation grows that a major space firm — possibly Elon Musk’s SpaceX — is eyeing more than 136,000 acres in Vermilion Parish.
Bills with incentives that include tax breaks and protections, like the early dismissal of lawsuits over flight activity, have been signed into law. Separately, a bill that passed the state Senate with a 37-0 vote and was sent to Gov. Landry for approval shields aerospace companies from litigation over things like noise and light.
“We look at some laws [other states] had in place to see what programs they had to allow aerospace to win, and we saw where Louisiana didn’t have the same.”
Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois
“We are saying Louisiana wants you, and we want to make sure that’s absolutely clear in law,” state Rep. Tony Bacala (R-Prairieville) said to Fox 8 of aerospace company owners.
The timing of Louisiana’s warm welcome to space exploration lines up with ongoing discussion on the purchase of thousands of acres in Vermilion Parish.
State Sen. Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville) confirmed active talks for buying over 136,000 acres in the rural areas of Pecan Island and Freshwater City, in a report for VermilionToday.com — but did not say which space company. The location is about 60 miles south of Lafayette and 10 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.
There has been so much SpaceX speculation that Lafayette real estate firm owner Jim Keaty reached out to “government officials, longtime Pecan Island locals, energy insiders [and] hunting-lease holders” to try and get clarity, then wrote about it in an April blog post.
Keaty, who has been in Louisiana real estate for over 20 years, owns a hunting camp near the land that might go to an aerospace firm.
“A few are quietly confirming it,” Keaty wrote, “but not a single official document has surfaced.”
Passed and proposed bills
The final days of the legislative session that closed June 1 were fruitful for supporters of courting the aerospace industry to Louisiana.
Two tax-based incentive bills have been signed into law. House Bill (HB) 1179, sponsored by Bacala, adds aerospace manufacturing to Louisiana’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program. HB 1088, also authored by Bacala, is a tax rebate for aerospace facility equipment.
To be eligible for the rebate, an aerospace firm must create at least 200 direct, permanent, full-time jobs and commit at least $1 billion in new capital investment in Louisiana.
HB1033, which adds aerospace facilities to the state’s “critical infrastructure,” has also been signed into law, as well as HB1250, which gives aerospace companies a way to seek early dismissal of certain lawsuits with complaints against spaceport operations unless the issue is so massive that the suit will likely succeed.
A bill authored by Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro and signed into law, HB1071, exempts certain aerospace-related records, including blueprints, technical data and security information, from disclosure under Louisiana’s public records law.
Any space firm that maintains any International Traffic in Arms Regulations information, or has a contract with the US Department of War, is eligible, according to the Current.
Supporters of the aerospace-friendly bills say the package positions Louisiana to compete with neighboring states for space race business.
“Be it Texas, Florida, Alabama or Mississippi, we look at some laws they had in place to see what programs they had to allow aerospace to win, and we saw where Louisiana didn’t have the same,” Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois told Fox 8.
Aerospace projects in other states offer lessons for Louisiana lawmakers, who advanced the aerospace package with little public discussion, according to a report from the Current.
HB1098, which has been sent to Gov. Jeff Landry, would limit lawsuits against certain aerospace companies over environmental and quality-of-life impacts tied to aerospace flight activity.
The bill, sponsored by McFarland, protects space race firms from lawsuits over issues like noise, light, odor, vibration and smoke, and blocks injunctions to stop facility operations.
With the bulk of the package officially state law, and the rest just needing Gov. Landry’s signature, it’s down to which horse in the space race is headed for Vermilion Parish.
There are only a few companies that can meet the qualifications for the entire package of aerospace incentives, according to reporting by Dean Boudreaux in the Current.
Mainly, it’s the big players, like Musk and his SpaceX, and Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos.
Concern in Vermilion Parish
SpaceX completed a similar project in South Texas.
The communities near existing SpaceX facilities offer Louisiana residents a preview of the potential economic, environmental and quality-of-life impacts.
Residents of communities near Starbase, the company town established by Elon Musk in Boca Chica, Texas, and the location of SpaceX manufacturing facilities, have filed a class-action lawsuit against the company claiming sonic booms and exhaust from Starship launches are damaging their homes.
Another potential issue for people living near an aerospace facility, real estate company owner Keaty wrote in his post, is that longtime residents can be priced out by the economic growth.
Within five years of the arrival of Starbase at the southern tip of Texas, near where the Rio Grande and Gulf of Mexico meet, housing prices doubled in the city of Brownsville.
The city said it added around 24,000 jobs and saw over $13 billion in regional economic growth, but community members with deep roots had to move away, according to Keaty.
Boudreaux from the Current spoke with people in Vermilion Parish with concerns, including William P. “Judge” Edwards III, former president of Vermilion Corp.
Edwards is worried about the impact of space rockets on the region, but acknowledges he will likely have little legal recourse.
“The state has said ‘no problem,’” Edwards told the Current, “‘we’re not going to sue you, and nobody else in Louisiana can either.’”
