The Alliance is pleased to call E Source a new supporter and ally, and honored to have been included amongst these organizations with energy assistance missions.
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On September 17, 2021, the LDNR submitted its application to EPA for permitting authority. Only two states, Wyoming and North Dakota, have been granted permitting authority by the EPA after a considerably longer review time than Senator Cassidy wants for the LDNR. Neither of those states have LDNR’s poor track record in managing underground wells.
The Energy Future New Orleans Coalition sent a letter the New Orleans City Council today urging the new Council to fulfill its commitment to take up in earnest a management audit of Entergy New Orleans, LLC. In the wake of Hurricane Ida, which rendered much of the city powerless for a week-and-a-half, the Council voted on September 23, 2021 to adopt motion M-21-342. That motion directed the Council Utility Regulatory Office (“CURO”) to develop a request for qualifications (“RFQ”) for a firm to conduct the audit. CURO issued the RFQ on December 8, 2021, and it has now been two months with no further action. We understand now that the RFQ has failed to garner a single response, a worrisome confirmation that the audit services market does not believe the Council has shown serious commitment to this effort. The record before the Council documents the multiple Entergy failures and misplaced priorities that warrant prompt action on the audit. Get up to date on the full story in our letter to the Council. The Alliance for Affordable Energy is excited to be teaming up with Tipitina's for a benefit show and raffle on Saturday, March 19th, 2022. Join us for fun, drinks, and music to support your local consumer and environmental advocate. The legendary trombonist Fred Wesley of the J.B.’s will headline a New Orleans All-Star team including Adam “Shmeeans” Smirnoff of Lettuce, Sam Kininger of Soulive, Russell Batiste & Friends, and Billy Iuso. Get tickets - for only $30 - online at: bit.ly/AAEtickets 
Joint Statement of the Louisiana Policy Table of Gulf South for a Green New Deal on the Louisiana Climate Action Plan
However, the LCAP has significant limitations: it is not, in fact, a plan, but rather an unprioritized list of recommendations that provides no analysis of the relative greenhouse gas emissions reductions of the measures included. Submit comments before the DEQ meeting on the air permit for the Magnolia Power Gas Plant!1/29/2022
Learn more about what's going to be discussed tomorrow and why this meeting is definitely one to watch on our FB Live segment Coffee Talk. Join hosts Logan Burke and Jessica Hendricks for a quick rundown on all matters LPSC.
Louisiana has lost 23% of its oil and gas jobs in less than two years
By Jesse George, AAE New Orleans Policy Director
Dear Advocate, The holidays are a joyous time for celebration and reconnection, yet many of us- myself included- are just counting down the days to some much deserved time off. How are we supposed to lead the energy transition while feeling so depleted? Often this sparks conversations about self-care, the importance of setting boundaries and taking breaks but sometimes that just feels like a loss of momentum. It feels like something is missing. It’s joy. Joy gives us the energy for change.  By Jessica Hendricks, AAE State Policy Director The Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) has come into focus over the past week or so, namely around a proposed withdrawal from MISO and the enormous costs associated with storm damage, but there was also a pretty significant win that you may have missed. As we will continue to say, the LPSC needs to prioritize finalizing the Energy Efficiency rules, recognizing that we are now entering Program Year 8 of the Quick Start program, the Commission did approve the program extension BUT WITH DOUBLE THE BUDGET! 
By Andy Kowalczyk
By Jessica Hendricks, AAE State Policy Director If your electric bill seems higher than it was last year, it is and you are not alone. Bills are up, in some cases even $20 more per month than where they were last year and as we continue to pry ourselves out of this economic recession, many folks just can’t keep up. Just last month, at the LPSC meeting, a Ville Platte resident went before the Louisiana Public Service Commission to make a formal complaint about how high utility bills are in his community. Although unacceptable, here are a few reasons why- Fuel Costs
Usually line itemed as FAC (Fuel Adjustment Charge) on bills, this is a 100% pass through from the utility to the customer of costs associated with the fuel needed to generate electricity. As many know, natural gas prices are significantly higher than they were last year, and Louisiana relies heavily on natural gas power plants. The high cost of natural gas is causing a spike in the FAC on customer bills. Further, if you’re a SWEPCO or Cleco customer (or a customer of a utility that buys power from Cleco, like DEMCO and the City of Alexandria), you’re soldering the costs of an expensive lignite mine and power plant. The Oxbow Mine and Dolet Hills Power Station in Northern Louisiana are nowhere near cost effective anymore and the companies are in the process of retiring both facilities. The associated retirement costs have yet to go through a full prudence review by the LPSC meaning customers are on the hook for the expensive fuel costs, albeit subject to potential refunds in the future should the LPSC determine those costs were imprudent. Rates
This is the amount charged per kWh. Louisiana has prided itself for years in having the lowest ‘rates’ in the country, around $0.08-$0.09/kWh. However, recent rate cases and Formula Rate Plan extensions approved by the LPSC have some utilities charging over $0.13/kWh which is above the national average of $0.12/kWh. Usage
You’ve probably heard us say, “we’ve got the lowest rates, but highest bills”. A lot of that came down to usage and the costs associated with sustaining high usage. As mentioned above, we no longer have the lowest rates yet we still have some of the highest usage. Sure, we’ve got long hot summers, but so do our neighboring states. Yet they mitigate energy usage with long-term, robust energy efficiency programs. The LPSC has been working on these programs for over seven years and have yet to finalize them, while Louisianan’s pay the price on their monthly bills. Riders and Surcharges
This is likely where interim cost recovery from storm damage is going to start to show up. Whether it was Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta, or Winter Storm Uri, some of our utilities have already started recovering them subject to a prudence review. Costs of new power plants may also be lurking here.  Growing up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, my family prepared for each hurricane season by clearing debris and stocking our pantry with water and canned food in late May. In October, we stopped watching the Gulf of Mexico. These days, we prepare a whole month earlier and can’t fully relax until December. What used to be a summer to early fall hurricane season is now half the year, and it’s growing in both length and ferocity.
If we’re going to have any chance of saving our land, Louisiana needs real climate action and a serious investment in renewable energy. The petrochemical, oil and gas industries are threatening to hijack the process by spreading a myth about carbon capture — a myth that’s catching the ear of Gov. John Bel Edwards. But it’s not too late to tell a new story. To confront this challenge, Edwards created the Climate Initiatives Task Force with the goal of creating a plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions in Louisiana by 2050. This task force includes advocates for climate equity and justice, as well as many representatives of the chemical, oil and gas industries. Since 2020, the task force members have been grappling over questions like whether Louisiana can afford to refuse the permitting and construction of new industrial facilities. This task force and the governor of Louisiana should be asking the opposite question: can we afford to proceed as we have been? More importantly, can we look to industry to solve a problem that they created?!
**UPDATE: This meeting was postponed. At the Wednesday October 27, 2021 Special Meeting the Council approved both resolutions. YOU DID IT! Thanks to the public outcry over increases to Entergy rates the Council approved a resolution to protect people and keep bills down. ALSO, the Council opened a new docket on resilience and storm hardening for our energy system. This is where we work out how to put power where the people are and keep folks safe. We need this effort across the state too!
 Entergy’s failures with regard to Ida are only part of a larger pattern of corporate corruption and dysfunction. Entergy has demonstrated repeatedly that it is committed to a way of doing business that is unaffordable to ratepayers and unable to provide the kind of reliability and resilience that are becoming more and more necessary in the face of climate disaster.
At its regular monthly meeting on Sept. 23, 2021, the New Orleans City Council passed a slate of resolutions opening investigations into ENO’s transmission planning and its planning and response around Hurricane Ida, as well as commissioning an independent management audit of the company. New Orleanians — who already experience one of the highest energy burdens of any city in the nation — should not be required to pay a single dime more to ENO at least until the audit and investigations are complete. We need city council members who understand the awesome authority they wield over Entergy, and who have the courage to act boldly in their regulation of the company. The future habitability of our city quite literally depends on it. Critics say utility wants to maximize profits and works to undermine regional power sharing model.
The idea behind the regional sharing model is to protect customers from major outages during ever-intensifying storms by delivering cheaper, more reliable electricity from other parts of the country. But former regulators and energy consultants say Entergy has never embraced the idea and, in some cases, works to undermine it so it can avoid competition.
An Entergy-Run Transmission Grid is Bad for Affordability Climate Resilience, and Efficiency9/15/2021 By Andy Kowalczyk  As New Orleanians sat in the dark for days or evacuated our homes, it seemed like everyone was asking one question: how did the grid fail so dramatically in our city and throughout Louisiana? And how did the grid go down not only this summer during Hurricane Ida, but also in February during Winter Storm Uri?
The sad fact is that our electric utility Entergy's behavior, and the attitudes of many consultants and regulators in Southern states, has followed a standard of profit-seeking and neglect for the transmission system. Nearly a decade ago, Entergy Corporation -- along with its subsidiary companies throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi -- began an experiment. The premise was to incorporate a company with vast market power, to join an organization whose priority is to plan a more affordable and reliable energy system, called the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO). The plan looked good on paper, given that Entergy was under U.S. Department of Justice antitrust investigation. The DOJ had voiced serious concerns about the utility’s anticompetitive business practices, and suggested that Entergy join a Regional Transmission Organization, that could encourage greater cooperation with other utilities, power generation owners, and stakeholders throughout the South and the Midwest. But without following through on a recommendation from the DOJ for Entergy to sell off its transmission business to a transmission-only company, it remained to be seen whether the grid would continue to be run for profit, or public good. NEW ORLEANS – Sept. 14, 2021 – The coalition Energy Future New Orleans (EFNO) is calling on the New Orleans City Council to hold Entergy accountable for its mismanagement and neglect of rusting and aging equipment which led to a city-wide power outage following Hurricane Ida, and follows a host of failures by the utility corporation. Today, attorneys for EFNO members filed a motion with the City Council that seeks:
 We’ve been told a lot of things we now know aren’t true, like renewables are too expensive. Climate change isn’t real. If you let us build a new gas plant it will keep the lights on. Hurricane Ida left hundreds of thousands in southeast Louisiana without power despite years of promises by Entergy that our communities would not have a repeat of power grid failures if they could just build that plant in New Orleans East. We have already learned that the promise of power coming back without outside transmission was false.  Entergy's new gas power plant couldn't stop a grid collapse. Community groups want to give local solar and batteries a chance. Utilities are paid a guaranteed rate of return on capital investments including power plants, giving them an incentive to convince regulators to approve big power plants rather than enabling customer-sited distributed energy such as rooftop solar. For Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, this failure to prioritize community resilience in the face of deadly storms is “beyond frustrating.” Burke said in a Monday phone call, “Had we taken the time and initiative to plan for distributed generation, distributed solar-plus-storage and more energy efficiency, people would be more prepared to shelter safely and comfortably.” A year-long study by U.S. Department of Energy labs found that microgrids in New Orleans could offer critical “lifeline support” to gas stations, grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential neighborhood services.  As the Gulf South rebuilds following Hurricane Ida, we know people across the region will need help, including funding for lodging, food, basic necessities, and even gas money. There are incredible organizations working to move funds to the ground immediately. We trust the following folks:
 On Friday, July 16, 2021, Entergy New Orleans (“ENO”) submitted a formal application to the New Orleans City Council (“the Council”) requesting an increase in electric and gas rates, citing shortfalls in revenue, despite its parent company, Entergy Corporation, reporting record profits of almost $1.4B in 2020. If the Council grants ENO’s request, average residential ratepayers would see an increase of approximately $25 more per month on their bills, based on 1000kWh of monthly usage.
In an unfortunate article in The Advocate that appeared on the same day as the application, ENO spun its request as the result of renewable energy costs, specifically a solar power project that it developed without prior Council approval. However, a closer look at ENO’s public filings reveal that the bulk of the increase is a result of investment in gas infrastructure, including the expensive and unpopular gas-fired power plant in New Orleans East. Meanwhile, the cost of renewable energy such as solar power continues to decrease. |
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