“The members of the group are not acting out of fear, but rather, the recognition that it is important that we inform a balanced, fact-based discussion, and one that recognizes that the best future for Louisiana is one that takes into account both the economy and the environment,” Wolfe wrote in an email to Floodlight. Matt Wolfe, vice-president of communications at Greater New Orleans Inc, one of the groups leading the sustainability council, said the council wasn’t created in response to any specific project.

“If they could do this with no money, imagine what would happen if they in fact had money,” said Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, one of the recipients of money from the Bloomberg campaign, an $85m effort in Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania targeting 120 new proposed petrochemical facilities. Now, those same groups are receiving millions of dollars from Michael Bloomberg and his Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, and the Louisiana energy and chemical companies along with the states’ business-boosting groups have, in turn, created the Louisiana Industry Sustainability Council – originally called the Industry Defense Council.

The growing concerns have caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency, which earlier this year sued a manufacturer of neoprene in the state for not doing enough to reduce its cancer-causing air emissions. In recent years, the activists have successfully fought construction of two multibillion-dollar plastics facilities and what would have been the nation’s largest methanol plant.

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