The offshore energy industry at Port Fourchon yields a $3.4 billion economic impact to our state and generates $657 million in household earnings. With our energy production, we spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year to rebuild land lost to coastal erosion and wetlands, critical to storm resilience. All of this is a big deal for our small communities in the Bayou Region.
Now, the focus on carbon capture and storage technology brings us another opportunity for new investment that can support us — through CCS offshore — and also give other areas in our state that may not have traditionally been seen as energy corridors the opportunity to share in this prosperity.
There are over $20 billion in investments announced already through CCS, a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions from sources like power plants and industrial facilities. Statewide, mostly in parishes outside of our Bayou Region, CCS could bring 4,000 permanent jobs with an average annual salary of $80,000-$90,000. For a state whose leadership is focused on reversing the outward migration of young professionals and families —those numbers are a game changer.
Recently, former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour wrote an op-ed about the importance of CCS to boost his state’s economy. With our neighboring states eager to make CCS a reality, now is not the time for our legislators to put up needless roadblocks. We are at least five years ahead of our neighbors. Louisiana must seize this moment.
CHETT CHIASSON
executive director, Greater Lafourche Port Commission