McNeese State faces scrutiny from enviro-commies for ties to LNG industry

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One of Louisiana’s top public universities has prompted concerns about “corporate capture” over its expanding relationship with the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, despite environmental warnings about pollution and prolonging fossil fuel use.

As the US’s LNG boom gained momentum in south-west Louisiana, McNeese State University courted the industry to help launch a new LNG Center of Excellence currently under construction, hired a director doubling as an LNG industry lobbyist, and approached federal regulators to co-locate their own research center at the university, according to emails obtained via public records requests by DeSmog and the Guardian.

A divestment movement aimed at pushing back on the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long creep into classrooms of all levels has grown in recent years out of concerns that industry-sponsored academic research could be a vehicle for climate obstruction. But near the Texas border in Lake Charles, Louisiana, McNeese State University welcomed industry right on in.

McNeese’s leadership team and the LNG industry tout this partnership as mutually beneficial, offering the university funding while providing the industry with educated workers, relevant research, and input on policy. However, alumni, environmental advocates, and researchers say the move raises alarms about the impacts of the LNG build out on communities and potential conflicts of interest.

Jennie Stephens, a professor of climate justice at Maynooth University in Ireland, who co-authored a first-of-its-kind review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industry ties to higher education, said the McNeese LNG center is part of a larger pattern of private sector interests capturing public universities.

“It’s a classic example of academic capture where the private interests use the public infrastructure for their own profit-seeking motives rather than the needs of the community or the state,” she said after hearing details of the reporting by DeSmog and the Guardian.

The university’s LNG center aims to serve as a “hub for research, workforce development and safety, and as a depository for best practices for the industry”, according to its former executive director Jason French, speaking in 2022. This May, the university broke ground on the 23,000 sq ft facility, which will include classrooms for students in what it calls the nation’s first LNG business undergraduate certificate and “industrial grade training facilities” that also will be open to LNG employees, according to a press release.

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In the background of McNeese’s interest in creating its LNG center has been the possibility of convincing federal regulators to locate their own research center also at the university, the emails and documents show.

In 2021, Congress passed the Pipes Act of 2020, requiring the US Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to create an LNG center.

Senator John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana – who received more than $26,000 in campaign donations from Tellurian between 2019 and 2024 – advocated for the PHMSA LNG center and drafted the legislation in a way that required that the center be located near LNG facilities along the Gulf coast. The following year, the university received a $2.8m grant from the US Economic Development Administration to build the university research center at McNeese to “enhance” the LNG industry.

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In her criticism of McNeese’s plans, Stephens highlighted concerns about tax dollars supporting public universities that deepened relationships with industries that have environmental and health impacts.

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“McNeese State University, like most universities, relies on philanthropy to meet its mission. And, like most universities, McNeese engages with and studies the industries that create job opportunities for its students,” Rousse said in an emailed statement to DeSmog and the Guardian. “However, no supporter, corporate or otherwise, will ever direct our professors or make unilateral decisions about what is best for the university and its students.”

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Roishetta Sibley Ozane, a graduate of McNeese and a local environmental justice leader, said fossil-fuel project developers often find support in wealthier, white community leaders who are less likely to be affected by pollution from the proposed facilities. “But the people most impacted by these projects are the last consulted,” she said.

Naomi Yoder, with the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, said it was inappropriate for McNeese to hire an LNG industry insider to run an academic center. “The influence of the fossil-fuel industry in education right now in south-west Louisiana is already extreme. This recent arrangement is only a continuation and reinforcement of the ‘school to petrochem’ social pipeline that is already deeply ingrained in southwest Louisiana,” they said.

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