September 17, 2026, Baton Rouge, LA – The Louisiana State Bond Commission today approved two bond issuances totaling more than $1.3 billion for the Hyundai-POSCO Steel Louisiana ("HPLS") project in Ascension Parish. After testimony from six Louisiana residents against the bond offering to the Port of South Louisiana, Ken Brass, a State Representative from Ascension Parish, took the unusual step of making a single motion to combine the two bond offerings for Hyundai and vote on them simultaneously: the $900 million bond request from the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority and a $400 million dollar bond request proposed by the Port of South Louisiana. The motion to combine the agenda items prevented public testimony on the $900 million bond offering. Both bonds are intended to fund a Hyundai steel plant, the anchor tenant in the RiverPlex MegaPark industrial complex on the west bank of Ascension Parish.

“I am a Modeste resident. I am in opposition to the state giving Hyundai any bonds,” said Twila Collins, who is also a member of West Ascension-based Rural Roots Louisiana. “Hyundai is a billion-dollar company. If they have that kind of money, why do they need ours?”

Bond Commission members took the opportunity to speak from the dais to opponents, extolling the local jobs that the facility would bring.

“I have a niece and nephew in industry, but they can’t get jobs in Donaldsonville,” said Ms. Collins. “My nephew is an operator, and he has to go to another parish to get work. They don’t hire from Donaldsonville and our area. All of this is promises and nothing guaranteed.”

State Representative Ken Brass was at the dais advocating for the project. He was among the Louisiana officials who signed a non-disclosure agreement (dated 8.23.24) with Louisiana Economic Development, preventing him from discussing the project with constituents.

The commission failed to address concerns about the rushed process shrouded in secrecy, pending litigation, and Hyundai Steel's weakening finances before approving $1.3 billion in bond requests.

The decisions came despite a formal written objection submitted to the Commission by Rural Roots Louisiana and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, raising serious concerns about secrecy, financial risk, and legal failures in the process.

"The Commission approved requests by these agencies to issue over a billion dollars in tax-exempt bonds for a project subject to litigation and negotiated in secret to benefit a private company in a risky market," said Pamela Spees, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. “By approving these bonds anyway, the Commission answered none of our questions. Louisiana taxpayers and the people of Ascension Parish are the ones who will pay the price for their failure."

The comment letter details how the HPLS project, now estimated at more than $2.6 billion in combined state and local incentives, on top of a separate $5.8 billion bond authorization from the Ascension Parish Industrial Development Board, has been negotiated largely behind closed doors. Twenty-three public officials have signed non-disclosure agreements with Louisiana Economic Development, and residents have had to file public records requests and lawsuits simply to learn what their government agreed to on their behalf.

West Ascension Parish communities, some facing displacement and others facing years of heavy industrial construction, emissions, and traffic, have had no role in decisions that will devastate their communities.

“This is not economic development, it’s destruction,” said Anne Rolfes of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “These deals with Hyundai have no enforceable mechanisms for employment and are lopsided giveaways from Louisiana taxpayers to a corporation that’s not even from here. These bonds should not be issued, and we will keep fighting to prevent politicians from our impoverished state from using our tax dollars to support a wealthy corporation.”

Background

• The Port of South Louisiana's $400 million bond request remains the subject of active litigation. Plaintiffs Rural Roots Louisiana and Louisiana Bucket Brigade allege the Port never properly published legal notice of its original August 2025 resolution authorizing the bonds and that when the Port claimed it had, no such notice actually existed. The case is pending in the 40th Judicial District Court, and an emergency injunction request was filed to keep the item off the Commission's agenda until the legal question is resolved.

• The comment letter raises pointed questions about whether HPLS, a newly formed joint venture with no operating history, no credit rating, and no audited financial statements, can be relied upon to repay the bonds. 

• The letter also notes that governing agreements allow Hyundai broad discretion to delay, suspend, or reduce its commitments, including its payments in lieu of taxes to Ascension Parish, raising the question of what happens to bondholders, taxpayers, and public infrastructure investments if the project stalls or is abandoned.

• As of the letter's filing on September 16, 2026, HPLS had not received an air permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, and the Port had not received the required U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit to build the dock the bonds would finance. 
• The letter also challenges LPFA's characterization of the project as a tax-exempt "solid waste disposal facility," questioning whether that designation properly shields the bonds from Louisiana's private activity bond volume cap that, if exceeded, could crowd out financing for other Louisiana housing, infrastructure, and economic development projects statewide.

More information about the litigation is available on this case page. Learn more information about the project at RiskyRiverPlex.com. 

The comment letter submitted to the Commission by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of Rural Roots Louisiana and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade is available here, and here is a link to a recording of the hearing.