"The state is tied for dead last in renewable energy adoption. Little surprise, with so much fossil fuel money flowing to its commissioners."
"This past April, days before a Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) meeting at a remote lakefront resort, the state’s largest power company dropped a bombshell. Entergy asked the panel to vote, four months ahead of schedule, on an ambitious resilience plan that would cost nearly $2 billion.
A consumer watchdog group and the state’s refineries and chemical plants formally objected, saying the process was “unnecessarily fast-tracked” and that Entergy had provided “insufficient information” to evaluate the plan, which included replacing and strengthening utility poles and power lines and protecting substations from flooding.
Despite these objections, the item was added to the commission’s agenda. “This is (a) wholly undemocratic process,” James Hiatt, who drove two hours to be at the meeting, told the PSC. “Why does it need to be rushed through today?”
Hiatt is the founder of an environmental advocacy group, For a Better Bayou. He said the list of resilience projects was illegible on the PSC’s website.
Shortly before the meeting, big industrial power users, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, agreed not to oppose Entergy’s resilience plan after a deal was reached to shift millions of dollars of its costs onto residential and commercial ratepayers."
Miranda Green, Pam Radtke, and Mario Alejandro Ariza report for Floodlight November 3, 2024.
SEE ALSO:
Part 1: "Utility Regulators Take Millions From Industries They Oversee. What Could Go Wrong?" (Floodlight)
https://floodlightnews.org/utility-regulators-are-taking-millions-from-i...
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