By Natalie McLendon

A Louisiana Senate bill that would have required chemical plants to monitor air quality passed through the Committee on Environmental Quality in April but was ultimately blocked by the Finance Committee this week. 

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality estimates there would be 457 facilities that would have been responsible for installing air pollution monitors and notifying nearby residents when air quality presented a public health threat. 

Senate Bill 35 would have cost each facility approximately $18,000 or about $8 million for all facilities in the first fiscal year, an amount that Finance Committee Chairman Mack “Bodi” White (R-New Orleans) said would cause chemical facilities to leave Louisiana and head for Texas, according to the Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate.

A legislative fiscal note indicated this estimated cost did not include “initial costs for facilities to purchase and set up air quality monitors or any annual maintenance associated with the monitors. The department reports that the monitors needed for each facility would vary.”

The bill had bipartisan support. Bill sponsor Sen. Cleo Fields (D-Baton Rouge) told Louisiana Illuminator:“We’ve got big hurdles ahead. Industry is a big monster to reckon with, so to speak. And all this cost is on them, not on the state, and that’s the way it should be.”

SB 35 would have created an estimated 48 new jobs at LDEQ at an initial salary cost of $4.6 million. LDEQ currently has 38 air quality monitoring sites across the state, according to a legislative fiscal note.

James Hiatt, executive director of the environmental group For a Better Bayou, told the Southwest Louisiana Journal that it would cost chemical plants more than $18,000 overall because “it will provide the data that proves how horrible the pollution is around these facilities. They know that their greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change. They know they must do something but clearly won’t do it alone.”

Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré, leader of the Green Army, tweeted that White “don’t think @exxonmobil can afford $18,000 a year to pay for fence line air monitoring. His job is to see the impact on the state budget, not protect @exxonmobil.”