Most of 6th District field sees need for more petrochemical industry limits

GONZALES – Nearly every candidate running in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District said the local petrochemical industry needs to be reined in more during an event Tuesday night.

Republicans Monique Appeaning, Larry Davis and Michael Mebruer joined Democrats Chauna Banks, Pat Forbes and Lindsay “Rubia” Garcia as well as Libertarian Rufus Craig at a candidates forum at the Ascension Parish Courthouse. 

The Ascension Parish alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the local chapter NAACP chapter sponsored the appearance.

The two leading Republican candidates in the race — state Sens. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, and Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia — were invited but did not participate in the forum. 

U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, decided not to run for his 6th District seat again after the Louisiana Legislature reworked the district lines to favor a Republican candidate. 

U.S. House primary elections in Louisiana will take place Nov. 3, with runoffs on Dec. 12 if necessary.

Higher standard

Regardless of their party, most candidates at the forum expressed some level of frustration with the local petrochemical plants that operate in Ascension Parish. 

Appeaning and Mebruer, both Republicans, said the international corporations who own the plants should not be receiving tax breaks and they would support a repeal of such options.

“Those (federal carbon capture) tax credits are a problem because it’s incentivizing the pollution that’s taking place right now,” Appeaning said.

Garcia and Forbes, both Democrats, said the plants should be subject to stricter environmental regulations to protect the public from cancer-causing emissions.

“We need to have real-time, fence-line data on a regular basis and have a nationwide rule put in place by the EPA in order to monitor fence-line data commissions and the like,” Garcia said. 

Rufus Craig, the Libertarian in the race, said the public needs the ability to sue the petrochemical industry for cancer and other health problems their plants can cause. 

“If we want to stop the cancer, the carcinogenic substances that cause these cancers, we should be able to sue the bastards to make them pay for it,” he said. 

Split on healthcare gaps

Democrats and Republicans were divided on how to deal with ongoing gaps in the American healthcare system. 

Forbes and Garcia said they were in favor of restoring funding cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance program that assists low-income people and those with disabilities. They also support bringing back public subsidies for individual health insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act to make the coverage more affordable.

Forbes also said he felt work requirements that will be imposed starting next year on tens of thousands of Medicaid recipients in Louisiana, many who already have jobs, would be too burdensome.

“I’m quite certain that the people who voted for the (work requirements) that said, ‘Let’s make people fill out paperwork,’ I’m pretty certain that they never had to come from their second or third job and fill out paperwork so they could make sure they had healthcare coverage for their family,” Forbes said.

Appeaning and Davis said Congress must focus on combating fraud in the Medicaid program instead. 

Republicans tough on immigration

Appeaning and Davis said they thought immigrants who entered the country illegally should be punished, though neither explicitly said they agreed with President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

“They are taking money away from your families that have worked in this country for 250 years, including the ancestors of slaves,” said Davis, a Black man, who also expressed anti-immigrant sentiments when he signed up to run for office in August. 

Banks, Forbes and Garcia said they disagreed with Trump’s harsh immigration enforcement tactics.

“It does remind me of what happened with ancestors that were removed from Africa and put on a slave ship. … It’s inhumane,” said Banks, a Black woman.

“The nanny that is cleaning houses and the like is not the problem,” Garcia said. 

Craig, the Libertarian, said immigration enforcement efforts should focus on punishing the employers who hire immigrants who entered the country illegally instead of the immigrants themselves.

“If you really want to stop the immigrants from coming to this country, instead of arresting the immigrants, let’s arrest the gringos that gave them the job,” he said.