Latest news with #JohnBelEdwards
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Company delays multibillion-dollar Ascension Parish blue hydrogen project
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Air Products confirmed to Louisiana First News that the multibillion-dollar blue hydrogen project in Ascension Parish has been delayed amid conversations with possible investors. An Air Products spokesperson said the earliest the project could begin production is 2028 or 2029. 'Our Louisiana team remains focused on the project, and we continue to work with local and state officials to secure the necessary permits for the entire Louisiana Clean Energy Complex,' spokesperson Christina Stephens said. The project hailed by former Gov. John Bel Edwards as a landmark clean energy initiative was announced in October 2021 as a $4.5 billion industrial facility called the Louisiana Clean Energy Complex. According to Air Products, 170 permanent jobs are expected to be created. A project overview of the complex said it would produce over 750 million standard cubic feet per day of blue hydrogen for pipeline customers along the Gulf Coast and blue ammonia for global markets. Lawsuit challenges Louisiana's approval of CO2 pipeline in Maurepas Swamp Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of deaths over 15 years: Study 3 Doors Down frontman Brad Arnold announces Stage 4 cancer diagnosis Jennifer Aniston's alleged stalker, gate crasher facing felony charges Kennedy reintroduces bill to support Louisiana crawfish farmers Trump announces trade agreement with UK Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Australian company commits to $17.5B LNG export terminal in Louisiana
Woodside Energy's Pluto liquified natural gas facility in Western Australia. (Woodside Energy Ltd. photo) An Australian fossil fuel company committed Tuesday to build a $17.5 billion liquefied natural gas export terminal in Louisiana, following up on plans first announced 10 years ago. Woodside Energy Group said it has reached a final investment decision to proceed with the project in Calcasieu Parish formerly known as the Driftwood LNG Terminal. Woodside purchased Driftwood less than a year ago, betting on a project that has encountered several stops and starts since 2017, partly the result of volatility in the fossil fuels market. Plans include new production and processing facilities in Lake Charles that will create an estimated 16.5 million metric tons of LNG for the global fuels market. Woodside announced later in the day it had reached a deal with BP to provide natural gas for its Louisiana facility, Reuters reported. Terms of the deal were not made public. Gov. Jeff Landry touted the Woodside commitment as the largest single foreign investment and greenfield project in Louisiana history. In doing so, the Republican governor invoked a slogan his Democratic predecessor, John Bel Edwards, frequently used. 'Our 'all of the above' approach to energy is working,' Landry said in a statement. 'We have four active LNG terminals in Louisiana – more than any other state. With more than 30,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, it is clear that when it comes to LNG, Louisiana is the place to be. We are not only promising President Trump's agenda, we are delivering it!' Construction began at the Driftwood site in 2022, and the company said its first batch of liquified natural gas is expected to be produced in 2029.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Louisiana spent $2.4B to improve Medicaid. A lot of the money went to administrative functions.
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor has questioned spending in the state's Manage Care Incentive Payment program for Medicaid. (Photo by) Louisiana spent nearly $2.4 billion over five years on hospital programs meant to improve health care outcomes for people in the Medicaid program. Yet hundreds of millions of dollars of that funding went to administrative functions not directly related to improving patients' lives, according to a report from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's office released Monday. The Manage Care Incentive Payment program [MCIP] allows the six private health insurance companies who manage Louisiana Medicaid to receive a 5% higher rate per enrollee if they provide better outcomes for Medicaid recipients and deliver health services efficiently. It is supposed to promote services such as cancer screenings, blood testing for diabetics, identifying childhood obesity, smoking cessation and reducing emergency room trips for Medicaid patients. But the majority of Louisiana's MCIP funds have gone toward activities that do not enhance the health of Medicaid beneficiaries, Legislative Auditor Michael Waguespack said in a letter attached to his report. The auditor raised questions about spending in the program from September 2019 through March 2024. Gov. John Bel Edwards was in office for all but the final three months of that period. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE During that time, the health department paid out $437.2 million of the program's $2.39 billion for submitting reports correctly, meeting deadlines and holding annual meetings – functions the auditor said are not directly related to improving Medicaid patients' health. Additionally, the health department spent just $440.2 million (18%) of the total funding on reaching health care goals that the auditor could measure and verify. The remaining $1.5 billion (45%) was spent on goals that could not be assessed by an outside party, according to the report. The auditor also concluded that $1.1 billion (45.3%) of the $2.39 billion in total funds were used for activities other than payments to the hospitals that provided the program services. The state health department has agreed to make changes the auditor recommended to promote accountability in the Medicaid improvement program. But leaders with the Quality and Outcome Improvement Network, which is part of Ochsner Health and ran one of the programs in question, strongly disagreed with the auditor's conclusions, issuing a 26-page rebuttal. 'A performance audit should address the performance of the program, and the Report does not,' network executive director Lane Sisung said in response. In practice, Louisiana's largest hospital systems were left in charge of executing MCIP, though the health insurance companies who run Medicaid received $71.8 million from the health department before passing off the rest of the money to the entities offering the services. '[The state health department] has not monitored how the [health insurance companies] or [networks set up by hospitals] have used MCIP program funds despite having the authority to do so,' Waguespack wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Sisung, in the response from the Ochsner network, said the auditor underestimated the impact of spending money to set up the services made to improve health outcomes. Some investment was necessary up front in order to see improvements in bloodwork for diabetics, for example. '[Managed Care Incentive Payment] teaches a person to fish, rather than handing them fish,' Sisung wrote. But the state's approach to running the incentive programs likely also drove up administrative costs. Ochsner and the other major hospital systems in Louisiana did not want to work together, so the state created two independent networks to tackle Medicaid improvements. The Quality Improvement Network, or QIN, involves hospitals Ochsner owns and manages. The Louisiana Quality Network, or LQN, is made up of other hospital systems, including Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health, LCMC Health and Willis-Knighton. The state health department gave each network different goals and public health problems to tackle that did not overlap with each other. For example, the Ochsner network was to focus on improving diabetic outcomes and lowering emergency room visits, while LQN worked on improving breast cancer screenings and early autism detection. The auditor appeared particularly frustrated with the QIN run by Ochsner, which refused to turn over all the financial documents the auditors office requested. Waguespack said the lack of transparency from QIN potentially violates the Louisiana Constitution, which prohibits certain types of payment structures for public programs. Sisung strongly disagreed with this assessment in the network's response. Representatives from the Louisiana Quality Network struck a far more agreeable tone to the auditor's suggestions for improvement but also pushed back on some of his assertions. In their joint response, network leaders said the federal government, which provides for most of the program's money, allows for the current structure of the incentive payments, and that the state may not have the authority to impose tighter restrictions. 'Federal law does not dictate how providers or contractors 'use' Medicaid payments once received in exchange for services provided or incentive milestones met,' they said in a letter to Waguespack.
