The final official act in a sprawling, seven-month effort to bring Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Louisiana took place in a nondescript room at the Vermilion Parish Courthouse.
On Aug. 25, two hours before Gov. Jeff Landry stepped onstage at Magdalen Place, Abbeville’s largest reception venue, to announce the $100 billion project that’s set to forever reshape parts of coastal Louisiana, the seven-member Vermilion Parish Industrial Development Board met for the second time ever.
The agenda for the public meeting had been posted on the courthouse door 24 hours earlier, though nobody seemed to notice. It included several routine items and one that was anything but: a vote authorizing a property tax break that would turn out to be the largest in state history, for “Project Osprey,” the code name for the SpaceX deal.
Approval of the $24 billion tax incentive was the final step in a sprint by Landry and his deputies to try to win the biggest industrial project the state has ever known. Conducted largely in secret, it involved more than two dozen state officials and the cooperation of several state agencies, utilities and businesses. State legislators approved seven new laws. The incentive deal had to be struck. And at the same time, the Landry administration needed to secure control of a 120,000-acre property wrapped up in one of the state’s most complicated legal battles…