New LLC. Old Industry Game.
Questions are growing about media packets, industry ties, and Louisiana’s CCS messaging war.
Across Louisiana’s carbon capture fight, one allegation keeps surfacing again and again: media outlets, radio hosts, and political voices are receiving “packets” loaded with FOIA materials, screenshots, social media posts, recordings, and carefully curated background meant to shape the story before the public ever hears the other side.
That raises a fair question.
Who is building the narrative machine?
And why does a newly registered consulting firm now appear in the middle of a public network already tied to Industry Makes, major trade associations, and Louisiana’s industrial lobbying world?
According to a Louisiana Secretary of State filing shared with CO₂ Chronicles, LA Matters Consulting, LLC was registered on January 5, 2026, and lists Desiree Lemoine as the registered agent. On its face, it appears to be a fresh Louisiana entity, not an old company being reactivated.
That timing matters.
On her own website, Lemoine presents LA Matters Consulting as a public-affairs and advocacy firm focused on lobbying, issues management, strategic communications, and public relations. The same page says she worked with statewide trade associations on legislation to improve Louisiana’s carbon capture and sequestration rules, says she became campaign manager for Industry Makes in 2022, and identifies her as its executive director. Her site also lists ties to a long roster of Louisiana business and industry groups, including LABI, GBRIA, LAIA, LCA, LCIA, LMOGA, and LOGA. (LSU)
That is not a minor overlap.
Industry Makes describes itself as a “trusted source of industrial communications,” says it was “born out of collaboration,” and openly states that its purpose is to present a “united industrial front” in response to anti-industry messaging. It also describes itself as a co-branding toolkit for businesses and associations that want to advocate together. That is not the language of a neutral educational effort. It is the language of organized message management. (Industry Makes)
Then there is the LSU connection.
LSU’s Center for Energy Studies bio says Lemoine has been with The TJC Group since February 2013 and that in early 2022 she was elected to serve as campaign manager for Industry Makes, a 501(c)(4) that was “born out of collaboration between business and industry” to advocate for industrial growth in Louisiana. The same LSU bio says she more recently worked with statewide trade associations on legislation affecting Louisiana’s CCS rules. (LSU)
So the question is not whether these worlds touch.
They do.
The real question is why LA Matters needed to be set up now, under her own name, as a one-person consulting vehicle, while she is already publicly tied to Industry Makes and long tied to The TJC Group.
Is LA Matters simply a personal consulting shop?
Or is it a more useful vehicle for work that benefits from distance — political research, media handling, narrative shaping, opposition-style packet building, or strategic communications that might be harder to publicly run through Industry Makes itself?
That is where this becomes important.
If Industry Makes were directly tied to aggressive media packeting against grassroots groups, citizen leaders, or local opponents of CCS, it could tarnish the polished image it works hard to project. But route that same work through a private LLC, and the optics change. Industry Makes keeps the respectable public brand. The rougher tactics seem to come from somewhere else.
Same network. Different wrapper.
So the real question is not just who is doing the work, but whether a one-person consulting entity provides cover for the industry interests that benefit from it.
Because structure matters. “Collaboration.” “Advocacy.” “Economic growth.” Those words may sound harmless. But citizens have every right to ask whether they are being used to dress up a coordinated influence campaign aimed at discrediting grassroots opposition to carbon capture, eminent domain abuse, and government overreach.
There are still key facts the public has not been given.
Who funds LA Matters?
Who are its clients?
What work is being done through that LLC that could not simply be done through Industry Makes?
Who is assembling the packets now circulating through Louisiana media circles?
And why are ordinary citizens standing up for their land, water, and constitutional rights being treated like political targets?
At this point, the public record does not answer all of those questions.
But it does show this much: LA Matters, Industry Makes, and The TJC Group are not random names floating in separate orbits. Public biographies and public-facing descriptions place them in the same advocacy ecosystem — one that has openly worked to shape industrial messaging and Louisiana CCS policy. (LSU)
That alone is reason for scrutiny.
Because when media narratives arrive prepackaged, when citizens become targets, and when the same small circle keeps appearing around the messaging, the public has every right to stop and ask who built the machine — and who it was built to protect.
The next time you read an article attacking grassroots organizations, their leaders, or the citizens daring to speak up, stop and consider the source before you believe the spin.
As the 2026 legislative session unfolds, CO₂ Chronicles will continue doing the independent reporting Louisiana citizens deserve. If you believe watchdog journalism still matters, please consider making a donation to help us keep exposing what others will not.
