BATON ROUGE, La. – Six federal grants announced recently will inject nearly $9 million into Louisiana to make critical infrastructure improvements needed to support current and future business development, health care and flood risk reduction.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced two of the six Economic Development Administration awards Tuesday (Nov. 14), representing $4.4 million of public investment in the state:
“Thank you to President Biden and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo for recognizing the important role that Louisiana’s life sciences sector plays in creating jobs across our state and improving health care around the world,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said. “This award will support the Baton Rouge Health District’s efforts to create a world-class research and healthcare cluster in our state capital. And the award in West Monroe advances our continuing efforts to make Louisiana more resilient through flood risk-reduction projects inland as well as along the coast. Once again, the EDA demonstrates how the federal government and states working together can transform communities.”
Tuesday’s announcement comes on the heels of the EDA’s Nov. 9 awarding of four grants totaling more than $4.5 million to support technology entrepreneurship in Louisiana.
Nationally, the “Build to Scale” grants will invest more than $53 million in 60 organizations to create or expand programs that support technology entrepreneurship, catalyze innovation and fuel economic growth.
“Louisiana’s technology sector has experienced steady growth over the past decade, and was recently recognized as having the No. 1 Tech Talent Pipeline in the U.S.,” Gov. Edwards said. “These awards will help us to sustain that growth by investing in the tech businesses of the future, and the maturing innovation ecosystem that supports them.”
###