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Louisiana's economic development strategy of the past eighteen months has often been discussed in silos. Data center announcements in Richland Parish. AI facility decisions in Rapides. Advanced manufacturing commitments in Northeast Louisiana. Each celebrated separately, each impressive on its own. But they're not really separate at all. They're pieces of something larger: a deliberate diversification away from energy-dependent extraction and toward technology-forward product

Faith Technologies Incorporated announced this month what may be the most significant private investment Northeast Louisiana has seen in years: an $80.5 million commitment to build a sprawling 500,000-square-foot Excellerate manufacturing facility in Ouachita Parish, creating at least 200 direct jobs and rippling across the region with over 500 indirect positions. Construction is already underway, with the facility expected to open by spring 2027. For Monroe, a city that's we

New details emerged this week about how New Orleans landed a spot in Elon Musk's Boring Company tunnel competition, and what the city actually proposed to get there. Documents obtained by The Times-Picayune show that Mayor Helena Moreno submitted a four-page proposal in February to The Boring Company's Tunnel Vision Challenge — a competition the company launched in January inviting any entity, public or private, to pitch a one-mile tunnel concept. The company pledged to fund

Governor Jeff Landry stood at England Airpark on Tuesday and made an announcement that Central Louisiana's economic development community has been waiting years to hear. Applied Digital Corporation — a Dallas-based company that designs, builds, and operates data centers for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing — will develop Delta Forge 1, a $3.6 billion AI factory campus in Rapides Parish. It is the largest economic development project in the region's moder

The numbers coming out of Baton Rouge over the last two years are the kind that would have seemed implausible a decade ago. Since Governor Jeff Landry took office, Louisiana has secured more than $90 billion in capital investment and nearly 80,000 new job opportunities statewide. In 2025 alone — the largest capital investment year in state history — Louisiana announced more than $61 billion in new projects. The state has won Business Facilities' Platinum Deal of the Year awar

Louisiana families know what it feels like to stretch a budget. They know what it costs to fill a prescription. And most of them have no idea that a significant reason American drug prices are so high is that wealthy foreign governments — our own allies — have spent decades rigging the system to avoid paying their fair share. That imbalance is now squarely in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, and Louisiana has every reason to pay close attention. A recent analysis f

By Sean Corkery One of the first things I did when I turned 18 was open a brokerage account and buy my first stock. The rules were clear, the broker had to be registered with FINRA, material risks had to be disclosed in the prospectus, and fraud carried real legal consequences. These aren't bureaucratic hurdles, they are the bedrock of a system that made American capital markets the deepest and most trusted in the world. Now Congress is considering legislation that would exem

Louisiana’s economic challenges are well known in the business community: slow population growth, inconsistent job creation, and difficulty attracting outside investment compared to neighboring Southern states. While recent tax reforms have improved the state’s standing, they have not yet addressed the core issue shaping long-term competitiveness—how Louisiana taxes income. For business leaders and site selectors, tax structure is not just a line item. It is a signal. It refl

Something unusual is happening in the wetlands south of Pecan Island, and in the committee rooms of the Louisiana Legislature, and in the quiet corridors of the Landry administration. Hunting leases are being cancelled. ExxonMobil is shelving a major carbon capture project. A coordinated package of aerospace incentive bills materialized in the Louisiana Legislature within 48 hours of the March 31 filing deadline, carried by two of the most powerful committee chairmen in the H

here is a version of Louisiana's economic story that is always about what's next — the next LNG terminal, the next petrochemical plant, the next foreign manufacturer choosing a greenfield site along the Mississippi River corridor. That story is real and it matters. But this week in Arabi, St. Bernard Parish, a different kind of economic signal went into the ground: a groundbreaking that looked backward as much as it looked forward, and that may say more about Louisiana's unde

For decades, Louisiana has imposed one of the most economically damaging and outdated taxes in America: the inventory tax. At a time when states across the South are competing aggressively for manufacturing projects, logistics hubs, distribution centers, and industrial investment, Louisiana continues taxing businesses simply for holding inventory on shelves and in warehouses. Forty-one states do not impose this type of tax at all. That matters. The inventory tax punishes comp

Thanks to the more than $300 million services contract to Green Tug Towing , a joint venture of Harbor Docking & Towing and Saltchuk Marine , for the design and construction of four new tugs to be built at C&C Marine and Repair in Belle Chase and delivered to Louisiana LNG in 2028, Woodside and its contractors have now committed more than $1 billion to Louisiana suppliers for the foundational development of this LNG project. Jeff Landry , Louisiana Governor, highlight