Louisiana
How are President Trump’s federal job cuts, grant freezes affecting Louisiana? Here’s what we know.
Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng was frantic.
It was the end of January and Lee Sheng, a Republican, was in Washington, chairing a task force on federal disaster funding, when the White House’s budget office issued a memo temporarily freezing trillions of dollars in federal assistance.
Back in Louisiana, her staff logged on to web portals where the federal government tracks grant funding and found the information on their awards had been grayed out.
“We were freaking out,” Lee Sheng said. “I was frantically on the phone that day because we were getting locked out of our systems.”
The White House argued the freeze was necessary to ensure federal spending complied with a blitz of executive orders from President Donald Trump that barred funding for diversity efforts, clean energy projects and other progressive initiatives. But the directive sparked chaos and confusion among state and local governments, schools and organizations that rely on federal funding, and triggered several lawsuits.
Two days after it was issued, the White House rescinded the order. But the episode has become emblematic of the uncertainty that’s filtering down to Louisiana and other states.
‘Large-scale reductions’
Trump has moved swiftly in the first month of his second term to reshape and shrink the federal government, with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk leading the cost-cutting effort through the newly created Department of Government of Efficiency.
The cuts have upended the lives of Louisiana workers and impacted businesses — though it’s unclear how many.
Much of Trump’s agenda has been carried out through executive orders. As of Feb. 20, the White House had issued 70 such orders — surpassing every other president in the past four decades. Trump ordered agencies to “initiate large-scale reductions in force” and directed them to lay off to lay off nearly all their probationary workers, who generally have less than one year on the job and have yet to gain civil service protection. Many of those orders are facing pending challenges in federal court.
Trump and his allies argue the actions are necessary to root out excessive government spending and ensure the federal bureaucracy is responsive to the president’s agenda.
Louisiana politicians weigh in
Though jobs and programs in Louisiana are being impacted, most of the state’s GOP lawmakers in Congress are staying silent. U.S Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, one of the few Republicans to comment on the actions, said he would prefer the Trump administration take a more surgical approach and “go at this with a scalpel, not with a chainsaw,” but said he remains supportive of the president’s agenda.
“I respect what [the Department of Government Efficiency] is trying to do. If there’s people not working, let’s uncover that and let’s get those folks off the payroll. Taxpayers are paying those salaries,” Cassidy said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.
Still, Cassidy added, “if it’s people that our state and our country depends upon, then we need to preserve those jobs, and I think that is their intent.”
But some people in Louisiana, including the state’s two Democratic members of Congress, say the changes are too fast and too haphazard, upending people’s lives and causing unnecessary pain.
“It’s just a bad, bad way of governing,” said U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge. “It has really put the county, in my view, in chaos.”
Businesses in limbo
The upheaval in Washington, D.C., has left some small businesses in Louisiana in limbo.
Richard Woods was awarded a $229,000 grant in December from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to install solar panels at his reclaimed wood business in Livingston Parish.
The panels, Woods said, would have generated enough power to cover his business’s energy needs, saving him money on his electricity bill.
Trump, on his first day in office, ordered the USDA to freeze funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature clean-energy and health-care law, and that included the Rural Energy for America Program, which provides funding for agricultural producers and rural small businesses.
That’s how Woods’ Albany Woodworks received his grant, and by early January, he had started to interview solar companies. But federal officials told him the reimbursable grant was “temporarily on hold and they don’t know when it won’t be.”
“There is so much uncertainty,” Woods said. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to execute any kind of business plan. Everything’s in the toilet.”
Federal jobs
Christy Hoover and her family moved from North Carolina to Natchez, Louisiana, in July for a job documenting and promoting the work being done at the Cane River Creole National Historical Park.
She and her husband, a retired military veteran, bought 10 acres of land and enrolled their children in school. Then, earlier this month, she learned she no longer had a job.
Hoover, who was born in Louisiana, said she wouldn’t have moved to Natchitoches Parish if not for the job. Unless she can find remote work, she’s not sure she can afford to stay.
“The economic growth here is completely stunted,” she said.
There were around 19,500 civilian federal workers in Louisiana as of Sept. 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data. That means the federal government employs roughly 1 in every 100 workers in Louisiana.
It’s unclear how many of those workers have lost their jobs so far. But employees at several federal agencies who live or work in the state have said they were fired in recent weeks.
That includes workers at the National Finance Center in New Orleans; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Southern Regional Research Center in New Orleans; the Southwest Louisiana Wildlife Refuge; the Kisatchie National Forest; and the New Orleans federal immigration court.
On Thursday, the Trump administration began layoffs of about 800 of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s approximately 13,000 employees, several national news media outlets reported. The agency is responsible for the National Weather Service which forecasts hurricanes and severe weather like the recent snowstorm.
Sen. Cassidy said even he didn’t know how many federal employees in Louisiana had been affected. He acknowledged that the Trump administration has made missteps in its job cutting strategy. He pointed to the firing of workers at the USDA focused on containing the bird flu.
“There’s going to be some mistakes, and they know that and they’re trying to respond to those mistakes,” Cassidy said.
At a congressional committee meeting last week, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, criticized the Trump administration for firing more than a dozen independent inspectors general at government agencies as part of his purge of the federal workers.
“If Mr. Musk and my Republican colleagues are sincere about wanting to rid our government of fraud, waste and abuse, it seems to me the last thing you would want to do is to remove individuals that have proven that that is their core task,” Carter said.
With Trump scheduled to give a speech before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Carter invited Chante Powell, an auditor laid off at the National Finance Center in New Orleans, to be his guest.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – South Louisiana’s coast has long served as a natural buffer between communities and rising water.
But since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost nearly 2,000 square miles of coastal land.
Dr. Torbjorn Tornqvist, a professor at Tulane University, said Louisiana is one of the most vulnerable coastal areas in the world because of climate change, sea level rise and subsidence.
“Louisiana is arguably one of the most vulnerable… perhaps the most vulnerable coastal zones in the world when it comes to climate change and sea level rise… and there are several reasons for that but one important reason is that we have high subsidence rates, and that means sea level rise here is a lot faster than the average around the world,” Tornqvist said.
Tornqvist is the lead author of a recently published study examining the long-term impacts of sea level rise across south Louisiana.
He said the issue is no longer limited to communities closest to the Gulf Coast.
“People are leaving the coast of Louisiana, but it’s going to accelerate over the course of the century. And those people are going to have to go somewhere, and it’s likely that a significant number are going to look at a place like Baton Rouge to move to,” Tornqvist said.
Since Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana has invested billions of dollars in large-scale restoration projects designed to reduce flood risk and strengthen the coast.
Some researchers believe those projects are important but not permanent fixes.
“We have…right now we have a pretty high-quality flood protection system that’s obviously way better than it was during Katrina and we should certainly keep investing in upkeep, but we also have to recognize that’s only going to take us so far,” Tornqvist said.
State officials say those investments remain critical as Louisiana adapts to future flood risks.
Micheal Hare, executive director of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said the state’s coastal plan is designed to balance restoration work with protection projects, including levees.
“Our 2023 master plan certainly incorporates the best science available to us to then come up with a balanced approach between how do we effectively spend money on restoration as well as money on protection projects like levees,” Hare said.
Hare said those projects will continue to evolve as future risks change. CPRA and the Army Corps of Engineers are re-evaluating portions of the West Bank and Vicinity levee system in New Orleans to meet projected future flood risks within the next half-decade.
“Morganza to the Gulf is a great example, location communities came together, they started funding it…so that protection is critical…It will constantly be maintained and constantly elevated to meet the new levels of threats and risks that are out there,” Hare said.
Coastal officials and researchers agree that what happens along Louisiana’s coast will continue to affect communities far beyond the shoreline for generations.
“And so maybe you don’t live behind the levee, but I promise you want those coastal communities to stay there and to keep working, and to stay productive and engaged…so that we don’t have to have these flood fights further north or lose parts of our economy,” Hare said.
Tornqvist said the decisions made now could shape the future of Louisiana communities.
“What’s really important to recognize is that the next few decades are basically going to decide the long-term future of cities like Baton Rouge,” Tornqvist said.
Louisiana has always lived with water. As the coast changes and sea levels rise, the challenge is how communities across south Louisiana continue adapting for generations to come.
From the Gulf Coast to Baton Rouge, the future of Louisiana’s coastline is a conversation that impacts the entire state.
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Louisiana ranks among the top 10 most affordable states to retire, according to a new study from Retirement Living, a national journal of retirement research.
Researchers analyzed each state’s housing costs, living expenses and tax friendliness to compile the ranking. Louisiana, they say, is the eighth most affordable state for retirees.
In Louisiana, the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $932, the median home sale price is $255,000, monthly grocery spend per capita is $272, the average price per gallon of regular gas is $4, the average Medicare Advantage monthly premium is $13.35 and the average effective property tax rate is 0.55%.
West Virginia is the most affordable state to retire, followed by Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Indiana and Kansas. Researchers describe the South as “the sweet spot for an affordable retirement.”
The most expensive state to retire, meanwhile, is California, followed by Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Utah, New York and Minnesota.
Read Retirement Living’s full report here.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – With hurricane season approaching, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is bringing the community together to prepare before a storm forms.
“We can’t stop disasters from happening. We can’t stop hurricanes from happening. But what we can do is equip our communities with the resources that they need to prepare for these storms ahead of time,” said Jayda Morris, CPRA outreach manager.
The agency hosted an event featuring interactive storm simulations and a full model of the Mississippi River.
“If you do it now, like on a sunny day like today, you’re ready to go for the rest of the season,” Jay Grymes said.
El Niño may reduce storms, but Louisiana still at risk
State Climatologist Jay Grymes said an El Niño pattern may reduce the number of storms in the Atlantic but warned against a false sense of security.
“In those 25 years, Louisiana, some part of the state has been impacted by 29 storms. That’s one a year, regardless of El Niño. So that should tell you something,” Grymes said.
He said the bigger concern is storms that can form in the Gulf with little warning.
“If we’re going to get a storm, it very possibly could be one that bubbles up in the Gulf and doesn’t give us five or seven days to track it coming our way. It gives us 40 hours to get ready for a landfall. So it’s imperative that you go ahead and do it now,” Grymes said.
Preparation goes beyond stocking water
Preparing now includes walking through yards, checking trees, and knowing whether everyone in the family can survive two weeks without power.
PhD students with the LSU College of the Coast and Environment gave the community a virtual reality experience that puts users inside a storm.
“If they wear the goggles or play with the Apple Vision Pro, they can understand how high will the flood be, and they can know how dangerous is the hurricane scenario,” said Yixuan Wang.
The VR simulation uses real historical data to show users what compound flooding looks like in New Orleans and surrounding areas. The goal is to make the science real for people who can’t picture what a flood map means.
“It’s just to let you understand the environment. We will add the audios, the different sound of the wind and the storm. And you can see how tense of the rainfall around you,” Wang said.
Organizers said the event is about making sure that when a storm threatens the area, families already know their plan.
Information from the event is available on CPRA’s website. Hurricane season runs through Nov. 30.
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