Official invokes secrecy for talks

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Mar 10, 2009 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Louisiana’s economic development department said Monday it’s pursuing two more major business prospects, but will do so confidentially.

LED published a pair of legal announcements Monday for Project Lemon and Project Carrot — code names for business expansion or recruitment deals the department wants to pursue without public scrutiny.

A state law, first enacted in 2004 and extended last year through mid-2012, allows LED to shield details of a negotiation if the business prospect requests it in writing and the department’s secretary decides that disclosing records could have a negative effect on the negotiation.

On Monday, LED Secretary Stephen Moret said Louisiana would be out of the running on both Projects Lemon and Carrot were it not for confidentiality. Both prospects requested it.

The state tally of confidentially negotiated projects now stands at about 16, Moret said. The state can keep the projects confidential for up to two years.

Secrecy isn’t necessary for every negotiation, Moret said.

“But certainly for the vast majority of large projects that are competitive across multiple states, having confidentiality is something we really consider to be absolutely essential,” he said. “It’s required for us to even have a chance to participate.”

One of the two latest business prospects is considering a new product line it wouldn’t want its competition to know about, Moret said. One of the two could be eligible for cash assistance from the state’s more than $400 million megafund for economic development — something that requires a capital investment of $100 million or more and the addition of 500 or more jobs.

In the state’s case, Moret said he doesn’t want other states to have advance knowledge of what kind of incentives Louisiana is offering the prospect in negotiations. If that were known, he said, Louisiana’s competitive position would be compromised.

Moret said the prospects also don’t want their competition to know how much they’re considering in capital investment and what locations they’re pondering. Opening up the process would be a deal-killer, he said.

“They would rather not consider Louisiana and protect the confidentiality of their project rather than risk the confidentiality of the projects and have their competitors know what project they have in mind,” Moret said.

The state law governing the process prohibits the state from invoking the confidentiality shield for recruiting a hazardous waste facility, or any waste project.

The law — Louisiana Revised Statute 44:22 — considers the project no longer confidential when the prospect decides not to pursue a project in Louisiana, the negotiation ends or a proposal affecting the negotiation is submitted to a public body.