Donaldsonville, Louisiana — Yesterday, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) posted the final, approved air permit for Hyundai’s proposed steel plant. Hyundai promised a state-of-the-art, clean facility, but the proposed plan falls short of those promises and would still bring thousands of tons of pollution to Cancer Alley, a region already overburdened with dirty air and water.

Throughout 2026, Sierra Club, working with experts and local groups, submitted a series of comments to LDEQ in an effort to bring to light the errors, miscalculations, and omissions in the permit application. Hyundai Steel made some changes to its permit application as a result of those comments, updating plans to electrify some components of the facility, which will lower levels of pollution.

Still, the final air permit issued by LDEQ yesterday fails to require Hyundai to significantly reduce pollution by electrifying additional components or blending in green hydrogen, nor does it require best-available technology for controlling toxic dust. Astoundingly, LDEQ found that this massive new greenfield facility would have “no adverse impacts” and therefore failed to include an environmental justice analysis, even though Ascension Parish already experiences toxic pollution at levels exceeding 96% of the rest of the country. (Hyundai Steel initially included, but then completely removed, the environmental justice analysis from the permit application.) LDEQ also did not do any independent analysis of alternative sites to determine if there is a location that would be less harmful to surrounding communities.

In response, Sierra Club Industrial Transformation Campaign Director Matthew Miles Goodrich issued the following statement:

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