Make Data Centers Pay

Electricity prices in Louisiana are up about 50% since 2020, and they're on track to climb another 40% by 2030. That's before the first big data center even switched on. The bill was already broken. Data centers are throwing gasoline on a fire that's already burning.

Four giant data-center campuses are already announced across the state, Meta in Richland Parish, Amazon in Caddo and Bossier, Hut 8 in West Feliciana, and Applied Digital in Rapides, served by three different utilities. And the state's own economic-development office says there are eight to twelve more in discussion, several still under wraps. This is about the rules that govern the whole wave, and right now those rules are broken. The Meta deal is just the biggest example: ten new gas plants, about 7,400 megawatts, like adding more than 30% to all the power-generating capacity Louisiana has today, for one customer.

Two reasons. First, the utilities put out 800-page filings written dense on purpose, armies of lawyers and engineers who'll bore you to death so they get what they want. Second, the commissioners who are supposed to catch it take campaign donations from the utilities they regulate. Advocates have been fighting this for years; most ratepayers just don't know it's happening. And most commissioners don't understand the regulatory policy well enough to push back, so they rely on the utilities to explain it. The utilities write the rules, submit the answers, and grade their own papers. That's how anybody signs off on a rule that leaves 75% on us.

There are three kinds of people who sit in that seat. The unqualified look at what the utilities propose and just say yes or no. The decent ones turn to someone else to parse it, then say yes or no. The best ones write the rules themselves. That's the whole job. I'm the only licensed professional engineer in this race. I consulted for this Commission. I understand these filings. When I find a charge that doesn't make sense, like the $12.8 million a year they bill us for energy nobody even used, I can pull it out and kill it. You don't talk your way into a better grid.

Entergy earns a guaranteed 9.7 percent on everything it builds. So Entergy's answer to every problem is the same: build more, as big and as expensive as possible. That is how they maximize profit. It is not what produces the cheapest power for you. When this deal came up, nobody had to compare the $12.9 billion plan against the alternatives, because the Commission waived competitive bidding. Here is what a real comparison would have put on the table. These options stack, they are not either-or, and most of them share one thing: they earn Entergy little or nothing, which is exactly why Entergy didn't propose them.

Ten options, cheapest first. Skim the headlines; the details are there when you want them.

Notice the pattern. The cheapest options on this list, flexibility, efficiency, smarter rates, fuller use of what we've already built, earn Entergy nothing at all. The options Entergy does pursue are the ones that add to the asset base it earns a return on. What's cheap for us is almost exactly upside-down from what's profitable for them. That is not a scandal about any one person. It is the incentive structure working as designed, and it is why the competitive bidding the Commission waived was the one referee that mattered. Price the options on the record. Then build what wins.

What's the stack worth to you? Some of it lowers your bill directly. Most of it stops the next increase before it reaches you: Louisiana's grid is 76 percent gas, and every unnecessary new gas plant deepens our exposure to a fuel whose export capacity is set to nearly double. A federal study modeled that exposure at up to $120 a year per household's energy costs, passed straight to your bill with no vote. It's the same math as my full savings roadmap: count the cuts and the increases that never hit you.

Here's what's actually on the table in December. Meta just announced its Louisiana investment will top $50 billion. It is all in on Louisiana, and seven of the ten plants meant to power it still are not approved. Entergy has asked the Commission to approve seven more massive gas plants, on top of the three already approved, for the expanded Meta deal. The filing runs about 1,200 pages. The price tag is $12.9 billion, and under the guaranteed-return system we pay it back, with interest, for 30 years. The vote is scheduled for December 16, 2026, 43 days after the election, before the commissioners you elect in November are even seated.

We should not be fast-tracking the more expensive option. A new report from Lazard, the Wall Street firm whose cost numbers the whole industry uses, came out July 13: gas-plant construction quotes have roughly doubled in five years, and gas leaves us exposed to fluctuating fuel costs. Entergy's own application confirms it. $12.9 billion for seven plants works out to about $2,400 per kilowatt, double what these plants cost five years ago. They are buying at the very top of a panicked market, with no bid. The Lightning Amendment let this deal skip the competitive bidding that would have priced these billion dollar costs against alternatives. As Commissioner, I would force Entergy to find the most affordable fuel source.

A one-month deferral creates the leverage to fix that. Before any vote, the Commission should price the full stack of alternatives on the record, and make Meta's promise to pay its full cost binding, with enforcement teeth. New gas turbines are back-ordered industry-wide for years. Entergy says its equipment is secured; the Commission should make them prove it, on the record, with the reservation agreements and delivery schedule for all seven units, and price the alternatives that can start delivering in one to two years before signing anything.

If elected, I'll push to defer this vote until I take office, where we can force Entergy to choose the most affordable, reliable source of power, which happens to be clean energy, and which cuts our dependence on a fuel whose price swings with the world market. Your November vote is the referendum on whether this deal gets rubber-stamped or gets scrutinized.