ExxonMobil to make $240M upgrade at Baton Rouge refinery
ExxonMobil has made a final decision to invest $240 million to upgrade its refinery in Baton Rouge, state officials said Wednesday.
The project will improve processing capability, increase flexibility for meeting market demand, advance overall site competitiveness and install technology for a voluntarily 10% reduction of volatile organic compound emissions, a news release said. Construction is expected to begin later this year.
Around 1,300 existing jobs will be retained, and ExxonMobil estimates the projects will support more than 600 construction jobs on-site over three years, the release said. The investment also would provide more than 20 full-time job opportunities for graduates of the North Baton Rouge Industrial Training Initiative, a program launched by ExxonMobil in 2012 to provide no-cost, fast-tracked industrial craft training for community residents.
The program’s returns were also unimpressive. If measured by job creation, the program cost the state at least $211,600 per job, according to a calculation by the Houston Chronicle.
“No one had really questioned this program,” said Greco, of Central Texas Interfaith. The reauthorization was a once-in-a-decade chance to challenge it. “We knew in our guts that the program was just a blank check, but we also are very sober about the realities of the Texas legislature.”
In Texas, the legislative sessions last only five months, every two years. The clock was ticking.
An unlikely coalition that emerged from across the political spectrum including the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation, the progressive Every Texan, and Greco’s group, which does nonpartisan political work among religious groups began to organize against the subsidy.
DeSmog
Dec 20, 2018 @ 13:56
Louisiana plans to collect no industrial property tax from the $15.2 billion Driftwood liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal planned for its southwest corner, state officials announced last week.
Critics say this tax break is worth $1.4 to $2.4 billion, making it one of the largest local corporate tax exemptions in American history even larger than those offered to Amazon for its much sought-after second headquarters.
Proposed by the natural gas firm Tellurian, the Driftwood terminal, which would liquefy and export 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, is one of over a dozen gas export terminals proposed around the U.S. and fueled by a glut of shale gas released by fracking. The final investment decision for Driftwood is expected in early 2019, as are decisions on two other proposed Gulf Coast export terminals.
December 23, 2020
St. James Parish, Louisiana is a small black community at the end of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, they demand a safe and open evacuation route. Given the level of toxicity in this parish, it has earn the name of Cancer Ally. Photo by Fernando Lopez for Survival Media Agency.
On All Saints’ Day, Nov. 1, religious leaders from multiple denominations gathered in a sugar cane field in St. James Parish where evidence suggests enslaved African Americans were buried. In 2018, archaeological consultants for Formosa, a company that plans to build a giant plastics manufacturing facility on the site, discovered unmarked gravesites.
These faith leaders organized and won two major environmental victories in Louisiana greenbiz.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from greenbiz.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.