(The Center Square) – Some Louisiana Democrats who helped pass a massive data center tax break in 2024 now say they regret the vote or would have scrutinized the legislation more closely, after the incentive helped bring Meta and a wave of other projects to the state.
House Bill 827 became Act 730 and authorized a massive tax exemption for data centers investing in the state. Except for four Republicans in the House, the law passed both chambers almost unanimously.
“Knowing what I know now, I would have likely voted differently on House Bill 827,” Rep. Kyle Green, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told The Center Square.
Since the laws passage, several data centers have taken advantage and secured billions of dollars worth of tax breaks, including Amazon, Anthropic and Meta. Louisiana Economic Development called the law “instrumental” in courting Meta and “putting Louisiana in the game for major data center investment.”
“For Meta, it was a true go/no-go factor, and the legislation brought Louisiana in line with best practices already being used by states successfully competing for these projects,” Iliana Ledet, LED Chief Economic Competitiveness Officer, told The Center Square.
Originally, the law was only aimed at fiber-optic cables in underserved areas, but was later amended in the House to help land Meta’s data center in Richland parish. In order to secure the exemption, the law requires securing approval from Louisiana Economic Development and an investment of at least $200 million.
“Since then, we’ve seen what we actually signed: one of the largest, most generous tax giveaways in the country, going to some of the largest companies on earth, while the strain on our power grid gets pushed onto ordinary ratepayers.” Green continued.
Less than seven months after the bills passage, Meta announced its Richland Parish data center.
Initially pitched as a $10 billion project with at least 500 permanent jobs, Meta has since expanded its planned investment to more than $50 billion and says the site will support about 1,000 permanent jobs and 7,500 construction jobs at peak.
Anthropic and Amazon would soon after announce their own projects, making similar promises.
Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Baton Rouge Democrat who also sits on the Louisiana Democratic Party’s executive committee, expressed similar reservations.
“I probably would have looked at it a lot carefully and did my due diligence on what data centers would mean for Louisiana,” Marcelle told The Center Square. “I think it might enhance communities and others maybe not. It depends on the deals that they’re doing and what’s going on with energy.”
During debate in 2024, Democrats did ask some questions about how far Louisiana should go.
Rep. Vanessa LaFleur, D-Baton Rouge, questioned Turner and then-Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson about how Louisiana’s proposal compared with other states. Turner argued Louisiana needed to match incentives offered by neighboring states to compete for projects.
“We just need to follow what neighboring states have done, like Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee,” Turner said. “That way, if we have any data centers wanting to relocate Louisiana, we’re following the same guidelines and are competitive.”
Marcelle similarly said at the time that she was “not suggesting we don’t do the rebate,” but questioned whether local governments could play a larger role.
Rep. Edmond Jordan, chairman of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and representing Baton Rouge, rejected the characterization that his 2024 vote represented an endorsement of the data center industry.
“That was not a vote in support of data centers,” Jordan told The Center Square, pointing to the bill’s origins in fiber optics. Jordan, up for reelection in 2027, also questioned whether the bill was responsible at all for bringing data centers to the state.
The final version lawmakers voted on, however, explicitly included the new data center program, and the fiscal note issued before the House vote described it as an unlimited state and local sales tax rebate for qualifying data centers.
The data center boom has also brought questions that received far less attention when HB 827 passed: how enormous new electricity loads will affect other customers, how much water the facilities will require and how much information about projects should remain confidential.
Those concerns reached the governor’s office in June, when Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order directing LED to develop additional criteria in order to receive the tax exemption. The action came amid growing disputes over the power infrastructure needed to serve the projects.
Meta and Entergy have maintained that the Richland Parish project is structured to benefit rather than burden other electricity customers.
Meta says its energy agreements are expected to save Entergy Louisiana customers $2.65 billion over 20 years and that the company pays the costs of the energy, water and related infrastructure it uses.
Exempting companies from taxes or handing them cash payments is a strategy Louisiana has been quick to deploy, using them to help land Hyundai’s steel mill in Ascension parish, a microchip facility in Ruston in collaboration with Louisiana Tech University, and SpaceX’s newly announced spaceport in Vermillion.
Louisiana Economic Development, Gov. Landry and the Republican party more broadly contend that these deals are worthwhile investments with significant returns, a claim that may be supported by a new analysis from the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, which shows that Louisiana led the region in GDP growth.
