WHEN: Thursday, September 17, 9 am CT

WHAT: The Louisiana State Bond Commission lists on its September 17, 2026 meeting agenda (as of September 16) two proposed bond offerings intended to provide funding for the Hyundai steel plant, the anchor tenant in the RiverPlex MegaPark industrial complex on the west bank of Ascension Parish. Those two bonds are:

1. A $900 million dollar bond proposed by the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority (LPFA): This offering is an outlier for the LPFA. According to the authority’s web site, its bonds over the last several years have an average value per project of $100 million dollars (excluding the $1.3 billion bond offering for the Lake Charles I-10 bridge). All but one of the 15 bond offerings since 2024 have been for schools, health care, public safety, or  infrastructure.
2. A $400 million dollar bond and $40 million preliminary bond authorization proposed by the Port of South Louisiana (POSL). This bond issuance is being challenged in court on grounds that the POSL failed to provide public notice of the bond decision to Ascension Parish residents as required by law. An emergency injunction request has been filed (by the organizations detailed in the WHO section) to prevent this bond from appearing on the agenda until the legal questions can be resolved. The injunction is pending in the 40th Judicial District Court. More information about the lawsuit is available on this case page. 

WHO: Representatives of Rural Roots Louisiana, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and their legal team, including attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights, will attend the hearing.

WHERE: Louisiana State Capitol, Senate Committee Room A-B, Baton Rouge

WHY: The Hyundai steel plant is a newly created joint venture (JV) between Hyundai and POSCO, a South Korean steel manufacturer. The Hyundai-POSCO JV has no track record,  no credit rating, and has provided no financial statements to the public. Despite this tenuous position, the state of Louisiana is proposing over a billion dollars in bonds at this meeting for the benefit of the corporation. In addition to these bond offerings, the Industrial Development Board of Ascension Parish has authorized seeking up to $5.8 billion in bonds and the state of Louisiana is also paying for much of the construction and project  infrastructure. State and parish officials say that the steel mill is a $5.8 billion project without disclosing the total amount funded by Louisiana taxpayers across these various agreements, financings, and tax exemptions.

Twenty-three public officials have signed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with Louisiana Economic Development, preventing the public from getting a full picture of the financial commitment that the Louisiana state government has made to the project.  More information is available at RiskyRiverPlex.com

The RiverPlex MegaPark would destroy the character of West Ascension Parish and transform it into an industrial wasteland. Residents, advocates, and legal and financial experts are working together to protect the area and the people who live there and center local history, recreation,  ecology, and small businesses as an economic engine for the area.

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