In 2022, decades of advocacy by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to address poor air quality near industrial facilities took a significant leap forward. 

That’s when the Biden Administration awarded more than $50 million through the Inflation Reduction Act to increase air quality monitoring in some U.S. communities historically overburdened by pollution.   

A year later, LEAN, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, got $500,000, which it used to deploy a fleet of mobile air monitoring vehicles. For three months earlier this year, the cars cruised up and down the Mississippi River, collecting continuous air quality data along a 300-mile route in southwest Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.” 

MaryLee Orr, LEAN’s executive director, has called the project a “dream” come true for her and the organization she founded in 1986. 

“I get teary-eyed because for me, it’s been a lifetime of trying to find this kind of technology that communities could have,” Orr said during a virtual community meeting in January to roll out the project.

Now Louisiana will likely become one of the first states to push back on such community-led efforts. A Republican-backed bill headed to the governor’s desk will implement standards prohibiting data collected through some community air monitoring programs like LEAN’s from being used in enforcement or regulatory actions tied to the federal Clean Air Act. 

“(Lawmakers) are making one hurdle after another to stop communities and discourage them from collecting any data by saying even if you collected it, we’re not going to count it; it’s not going to be important,” Orr said.

The industry-backed bill passed the House Wednesday on a 75-16 vote. The amended version returns to the Senate Monday, where an earlier version passed by an overwhelming majority.  

What’s happening in Louisiana could be an indication of what’s to come elsewhere. A similar measure is up for consideration in the West Virginia Legislature. 

Meanwhile, millions more in IRA grants are up for grabs for community-based groups, state, local and tribal agencies to do their own air monitoring in low-income and disadvantaged areas. 

Localized air monitoring efforts allow marginalized communities overburdened by polluting industries to force transparency about the air they breathe and push state leaders to hold industry more accountable for harmful emissions.

Proponents of the new standards in Louisiana frame it as an attempt to bring more uniformity and standards to community air monitoring. But in a letter to one lawmaker, Region 6 Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Earthea Nance said the law would conflict with federal law, which states that “various kinds of information other than reference test data … may be used to demonstrate compliance or noncompliance with emission standards.” 

Environmental advocates view the bill as a way to protect industry’s bad actors. 

“The petrochemical industry is working with Louisiana legislators to inhibit community air monitoring because they know full well that they are polluting the air,” said Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. 

Since it was established in 2000, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has offered residents living near industrial facilities a low-cost, air monitoring tool approved by the U.S. EPA. The group’s name comes from the industrial-size buckets that contain monitoring equipment that members use to collect their own air samples around industrial facilities in their neighborhoods. 

“It shows that they are scared of science and scared of the facts,” Rolfes said. “The power is on our side.”

Sponsor mum on bill 

Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzalez, whose legislative district includes three of the most heavily industrialized parishes in southeast Louisiana, sponsored the bill. It mandates that any air monitoring data used for enforcement and regulation must come from the most up-to-date EPA-approved equipment. 

Analysis of that data can now only be conducted by labs approved by the state, which currently lists 175 accredited labs. 

According to Stacey Holley, chief of staff for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the accreditation process can take between nine months and a year. The time is shorter for labs and research facilities wanting to amend their existing accreditation, she said.

Lambert did not return multiple emails or calls seeking comment on his bill. During a previous committee hearing, Lambert said the measure would ensure the public had accurate air quality information in this “age of the internet and disinformation.”

The Louisiana Chemical Association said the new standards don’t stop anyone from doing community air monitoring. 

“Senator Lambert’s bill encourages that any air monitoring being conducted by individuals or organizations adhere to basic standards that EPA and LDEQ follow when testing air quality in the community,” Greg Bowser, president and chief executive officer of the statewide lobbying group, said in a statement. “These are the same standards a facility must meet when it complies with air monitoring requirements under their approved permits.” 

Opponents say they need to do their own monitoring because the LDEQ is apathetic to concerns around air quality and the agency is slow to respond to spikes in pollutants detected by community air sensors.

“Essentially, every time a community member reports an air quality problem, whether it’s a dust cloud or toxic odors, DEQ doesn’t respond immediately,” said Kim Terrell, a research scientist and director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in New Orleans. “Part of that is that the agency is underfunded and understaffed. And part of that is that responding to residents’ complaints aren’t as big of a priority as they should be.” 

Holley did not respond to inquiries related to those allegations. 

In earlier committee testimony, Terrell said community-based air monitoring provides the best indication of air quality within certain geographical areas. She told lawmakers that reliable data can come from sources besides what the bill deems as the “gold standard” of air quality monitoring. 

“There are other types of monitoring technologies that can provide useful data beyond the very limited techniques that are required in that bill,” she said. 

Rolfes views the new standards and the most recent actions of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who took office in January, as troubling signs that Louisiana leaders want to dial back accountability and enact a pro-oil and gas industry stance.  

“The legislators involved in this are showing us that … the petrochemical industry is worth more than the health of people in this state,” she said. 

Mobile monitoring fills gaps

LDEQ’s air monitoring system consists of 40 stationary air quality sensors across a sprawling state that has among the highest emissions of toxic and greenhouse gasses in the country. 

Terrell said LDEQ’s monitors are often insufficient to capture “real time” air quality data because many are too far away from “fence line” communities, don’t measure certain harmful pollutants or are unable to detect spikes depending on their position and wind flow.

She added that the kind of 24-hour, seven days a week air monitoring LEAN’s program did is a way to bridge those gaps. 

LEAN was among four entities awarded a total of $2.4 million for community air monitoring in Louisiana. The other recipients were LDEQ, the Louisiana State University Health Foundation and the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. 

Adrienne Katner, associate professor at LSU’s School of Public Health, said the new standards won’t directly impact the nearly $500,000 the university received for a project collecting air quality data for a road construction project along Interstate 10 and the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans. 

But, added Katner, “We are concerned it might affect how we release the data should one of the community groups we work with want to take that data and file a complaint about air quality in the area.” 

LEAN spent about $250,000 in 2023 to hire Aclima, a San Francisco-based pollution mapping company, which used its fleet of mobile air monitoring vehicles — Orr calls them “Harry Potter cars” — to collect samples around the clock for three months. The route included more than 20 cities in south Louisiana along the Mississippi, many of them majority Black and overburdened by industrial pollution.  

The Aclima monitors sucked in air every second and uploaded the data for its science team to analyze and map for the public. The mobile monitors measured carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, fine particulates, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, black carbon and at least five other toxic emissions. 

Monitoring uncovers ‘surprises’ in air quality

Earlier this year, LEAN’s mobile monitoring detected a methane leak in St. Charles, Louisiana that Orr said would have likely gone unnoticed. LEAN alerted state officials about it. 

Orr said a full report of Aclima’s findings would be released in the coming months. 

“I think there are going to be some surprises for people,” she said. “I think there are some areas where maybe people wouldn’t have expected things to be high, and they are. And then I think there’s places where you thought there might be huge, bigger numbers, and there weren’t.” 

Should the governor sign Lambert’s bill into law before then, the findings likely would be disregarded by LDEQ. That’s because Aclima — named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies for its hyperlocal air pollution and greenhouse gas mapping —  is not listed among the laboratories accredited through LDEQ. 

Orr said LEAN has no plans to abandon its citizen monitoring effort. The group will use the rest of the IRA funds to install stationary air sensors. 

“They’re saying they are not taking away air monitoring, but it seems like they want to take the teeth out of it,” Orr said. “They’re taking away the thing that seems to scare the people who are behind this bill, and that’s people having the right to know what they’re being exposed to.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

Lawmakers take aim at community air monitoring in Louisiana  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

To make south Louisiana’s oil and gas infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather, Entergy Louisiana wants to build a $441 million floating natural gas power plant as the land around it continues to vanish from a combination of sinking and sea-level rise.  

A top Louisiana utility consumer advocate noted the “loop of irony” of adding even more greenhouse gasses to a region already suffering massive land loss because of climate change. 

Entergy says the plant is necessary because in 2020, Hurricane Zeta took out a major transmission line serving the area, according to its filing with the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The company says the plant would be cheaper than building a new transmission line through wetlands and marshes, and it would not be “prudent or economic” to buy power on the open market. The company did not provide the cost to replace its downed transmission line.

Entergy Louisiana says its proposed 112-megawatt Bayou Power Station could disconnect from the grid and use the plant’s power to provide electricity to 7,000 residential, industrial and commercial including Port Fourchon, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port and residents in Golden Meadow, Leeville and Grand Isle. The power station would have black-start capability — or the ability to rapidly start up and ramp down without being connected to other parts of the energy grid. 

“This Project will directly address critical oil and gas customers in the system at Port Fourchon,” Entergy’s filing to the PSC. “The interconnection of the Project will add a resilient power source to the (Entergy Louisiana) grid and enable storm restoration options, following a significant weather event.” 

The promises being made mirror those its sister company, Entergy New Orleans, used to convince the New Orleans City Council to approve a 128-MW natural gas plant in eastern New Orleans that came online in 2020. Entergy New Orleans said the $210 million plant would come online quickly after a storm to provide the city with power.

But that didn’t happen. After Hurricane Ida struck in August 2021, the entire city went dark, and it took almost three days for the New Orleans gas plant to become operational. The utility said using the plant’s quick-start capability wasn’t the safest way to restore power to the city.

 “And so the question now is why should the Louisiana Public Service Commission approve (Bayou Power Station) seeing what happened only a handful of years ago,” asked Logan Atkinson Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

Burke noted the Bayou Power Station would cost twice as much as the New Orleans plant and produce less electricity. 

The power generation portion of the project is estimated at $374.3 million, or roughly $3,318 per kilowatt, an amount twice as much as most other power generation costs, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. If the Public Service Commission approves the plant, the costs would trickle down to all of Entergy Louisiana’s 1.1 million customers through increased rates and charges. 

In addition to approval of the plant within 120 days, Entergy has asked the PSC for permission to bypass the competitive bid process and hand the contract to its preselected contractor, Grand Isle Shipyards.

“An RFP (request for proposals) wouldn’t have produced a more qualified vendor at a better cost,” said David Freese, a spokesman for Entergy Louisiana. The plant would be built at the company’s shipyard and moved to Leeville for installation.

Before it narrowed its options, Entergy also considered combined-cycle gas turbines, solar and simple-cycle combustion turbines, Freese said. Offshore wind was not considered because of the costs of building a transmission line to the offshore turbines, the intermittent nature of wind and the potential impact of hurricanes on those turbines, he said.

Coastal researcher Alex Kolker, an associate professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium who specializes in oceanography, geology and climate science, said the region is prone to storms and extreme weather that is being made more intense by climate change. 

Utility consumer advocate Burke said it appears the company is doubling down on its reliance on fossil fuels, ignoring the inherent climate risks. 

“It’s very clear that we are in a in a loop of irony at this point where the hotter it gets, the more water there is, and the less land there is as a result of oil and gas extraction, all while Louisiana is so interconnected to those international oil and gas systems,” Burke said. “So we ‘need’ to build something that is incredibly vulnerable in a place that is vulnerable because of oil and gas.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

Louisiana energy company plans to float above climate damage — literally is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

During a summer’s afternoon in 2022, a 450-foot fireball exploded at a liquefied natural gas terminal south of Houston, rocking sunbathers on Quintana Beach, adjacent to the Freeport LNG terminal, and rattling homes for miles around.  

Eighteen months later, residents around the plant have yet to receive any information directly from Freeport LNG about what caused the explosion, or what to do if it were to happen again, said Melanie Oldham, one of the founders of Better Brazoria, an environmental and public health advocacy group who felt the blast in her living room, 3 miles from the terminal. 

John Allaire frequently hears the internal alarms go off at Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass LNG terminal, just a mile from his home on the Gulf Coast in southwest Louisiana, but he never knows what’s causing them. He said when he asked about the alarms, a Venture Global executive told Allaire to call 911 if he was concerned. 

The Biden administration recently paused permitting for new LNG terminals to consider the macro implications such as climate change and national security of the U.S. becoming the world’s largest exporter of the super chilled, super condensed methane gas. But those living near the eight terminals already operating in the U.S. and the seven that are under construction have more immediate concerns — their safety. 

Unlike other industrial facilities, such as chemical plants and oil refineries, LNG operators don’t have to share with the general public information such as what chemicals are being used onsite and how an accident could impact the people who live around the facility. 

“If people knew the risks around LNG, there would be so much public outcry that this buildout wouldn’t happen,” said Naomi Yoder, who researched the safety of LNG facilities as a staff scientist at the environmental watchdog Healthy Gulf.

The LNG industry says its operations are safe. On the website for the Center for LNG, a  lobbying group, three paragraphs explain the safety of the emerging export industry. It points out that the U.S. Energy Department itself says “The physical and chemical properties of LNG render it safer than other commonly used hydrocarbons.” The Center for LNG did not respond to multiple requests for more information on LNG safety.

But the information needed for the public to verify that claim is often confidential because LNG terminals are considered critical infrastructure and could be terrorist targets. Companies also can shield information they consider to be trade secrets.

Even some of the computer models used to determine the risks of potential accidents at LNG terminals are proprietary. So scientists such as Jerry Havens — a professor emeritus of chemical engineering at the University of Arkansas who worked on the original safety standards for LNG import terminals — can’t verify their findings. And Havens is skeptical.

“What it means is that these places are being built shiny and new and approved with 1,100 and 1,200-page reports. But they are neglecting a major hazard. These calculations need to be checked.”

The risks around the terminals are made even more opaque by the fact the LNG industry is regulated by three federal agencies: the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Coast Guard.  

One of those agencies, PHMSA, is using regulations from the 1980s — before the United States started exporting LNG and when the fuel was mainly used as a backup for gas-fired power plants. 

“There’s not sufficient information to know what the full risks are, and the repercussions of no one understanding are huge,” said Elizabeth Calderon, an attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization.

Law allows plans to stay mostly secret 

The secrecy around the safety information for LNG terminals is a contrast from refineries or petrochemical plants that are regulated under the federal Emergency Planning Community Right to Know Act. Under that law, facilities that handle chemicals are required to prepare risk management plans for the Environmental Protection Agency. Portions of those plans, including off-site scenarios, are made available for the public to view at federal courthouses. 

But in 1998, the EPA exempted facilities “used to liquefy natural or synthetic gas or used to transfer, store, or vaporize LNG in conjunction with pipeline transportation” because the facilities are not considered “stationary.” PHMSA confirmed it does not enforce the Right to Know Act. 

PHMSA and FERC do require developers and owners of LNG facilities to create and regularly update their emergency response plans, but the public availability of those plans on FERC’s website is uneven. Some, like for Freeport LNG, are available and updated regularly. But others, such as for the operating Corpus Christi LNG, could not be found by Floodlight. 

And while 11 pages of its 170-page plan for under-construction Venture Global Plaquemines is publicly available, not even a redacted version could be found for Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass terminal, which is already operating.  The information that is available in those plans, and in material distributed by companies such as Freeport LNG emphasize the low risk of an accident. 

Yoder said ideally, the plans would contain a “worst case scenario” for the LNG storage tanks and tankers that describes a potential blast radius and risks to people within each radius.

“All the important stuff is redacted,” said James Hiatt, a fisherman and environmental activist who lives in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. “They tell us that all of it is proprietary information and it’s national security. They won’t tell us what the risk is. People deserve to know if they are safe in their homes.”

As industry grows, so do accidents

Dick Gremillion, director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for Calcasieu Parish, says he isn’t overly concerned with the risks of LNG compared with the multiple other refineries and petrochemical facilities in the Lake Charles area. The region is home to several oil refineries, including one lightning struck in 2023, and chemical plants, where explosions are common.

Chuck Watson, founder of Enki, a company that models the risks of natural and manmade hazards, agrees the likelihood of an LNG accident is quite low. But, he added, “The problem is if you have an accident, the consequences are quite high.” 

A 2009 report from the Congressional Research Service suggests the safety record of the industry is mixed. It cites 13 serious accidents in the world involving LNG, including a 2004 fire at a terminal in Algeria that killed 27 workers. The report concludes that import terminals pose safety challenges because “LNG is inherently hazardous and its infrastructure is potentially attractive to terrorists.”

Regional concerns about LNG have been heightened by a string of incidents at facilities since the U.S. began exporting the fuel in 2016. The 2022 accident south of Houston, in which a segment of pipe exploded, occurred because Freeport failed to identify hazards or to implement changes from a 2021 hazard analysis. Worker fatigue from overtime was listed as a contributing cause. 

In 2018, PHMSA ordered Cheniere Energy to shut down two LNG tanks at its Sabine Pass, Texas, plant and fined it for failing to deal with known leaks in its double-hulled tanks. And in 2022, Calcasieu Pass was cited by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality for exceeding permitted release levels 139 times. 

“Operational problems, procedures, lack of controls, proper controls, lack of adequate training. These types of things keep happening at LNG facilities,” Allaire said. “The potential is there. There is human error and these kinds of things keep happening. Something is going to happen here in the U.S.”

Potentially deadly problems

Havens, the retired chemical engineering professor, has been sounding the alarm for years on one specific accident that could happen at a liquified natural gas LNG terminal — a vapor cloud explosion in zero wind conditions. These can occur when a large amount of flammable refrigerants, which are used to superchill the gas, leak and create a cloud of vapor. 

Without wind to disperse the gas, the clouds can become larger and more dangerous. If ignited, these vapor clouds can explode at a much higher pressure than a typical chemical explosion

The industry acknowledges the potential for vapor cloud explosions in permit applications and environmental impact statements. In almost every case, the risk of vapor cloud explosions is limited, according to those analyses, because it would stay within the perimeter of the terminals.

But Havens argues those calculations don’t, among other things, account for zero or low wind conditions. 

“The risk has been calculated away,” Havens said. “They are actually ignoring a catastrophic risk.”

A British industrial safety agency says the risks of such explosions can be reduced by installing a small number of sensors. 

PHMSA has commissioned research into the issue and says the concerns about vapor cloud explosions in zero-wind conditions might be addressed as part of its long-promised update to LNG safety regulations. The agency says its notice of proposed rulemaking for those updates will be issued in May, but it has promised the updated rules for at least two years. 

Tankers carry risks

When LNG import facilities were being proposed in the early 2000s, there was a public outcry over the potential that terrorists could target the ships as they traveled through populated areas. The Coast Guard and state and local police responded by escorting the tankers in and out of Boston Harbor with machine guns.

Along the Gulf Coast, however, the presence of Coast Guard escorts is not evident, said  Allaire, who can watch the tankers pass by his property two or three times a week. 

The Coast Guard requires each LNG owner to develop safety plans, including having an incident commander aboard each vessel in the event of an accident. The agency, however, did not directly answer whether it still escorts LNG tankers, saying it screens every vessel for safety or security risk and conducts operations to address identified risks.

Watson, the risk modeler, is concerned about yet another danger: leaking LNG onto the water. When the gas, which is supercooled to -260 F, hits the warm water, the gas could warm and rapidly expand, creating a shock wave that could travel miles. If that gas ignited, it would cause vast destruction, Watson warns.

Watson conducted risk modeling for the Elba LNG terminal downriver from Savannah, Georgia. He found if there were a major rupture of a tanker ship or storage tank, heat from the resulting rapid phase transition could cause second degree burns up to 1.5 miles away. 

Who’s in charge? 

Confusion around which federal agency regulates which aspect of the LNG industry makes it hard for the public to get information, said Yoder, who is now GIS data manager at the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University. 

“Honestly, when we asked PHMSA about the emergency response plans and about the risk assessments, they’re like, ‘OK, talk to FERC,’ ” Yoder said. “And then when we asked FERC, they say ‘You need to talk to PHMSA,’ and then we go back to PHMSA. They say, ‘Oh, well actually you should talk to OSHA.’ I mean it’s just absurd.”

Although “the law is not very clear on who has what authorities,” former FERC chair Richard Glick insists the overlap does not create blindspots in regulation.

But Glick said he wasn’t aware until shortly before he left FERC in 2022 how little residents around the terminals know about emergency planning. 

“The developer and the government are naturally concerned about making sure that certain information is unavailable to terrorists,” he said. 

“On the other hand, people who live in these communities have very legitimate reasons to be concerned about these facilities — whether it be evacuation plans, whether it be just plans about what’s going to be put in there, what the dangers of explosions, and all sorts of other potential issues are,” Glick added. “In my opinion, they weren’t necessarily receiving the information they should receive.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story misstated James Hiatt’s parish of residence.

Secrecy around gas export terminals leaves public in the dark on dangers is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A consulting firm has charged state taxpayers over a half-million dollars while trying for 13 years to write energy efficiency policy for the Louisiana Public Service Commission. On Wednesday, it approved giving the firm more money and time because the work is still not complete.

In 2010, the LPSC hired Roswell, Georgia-based consulting firm J. Kennedy & Associates to write the agency’s rules for energy efficiency resource standards (EERS), a policy many other states have enacted to require and incentivize utility companies to implement various energy saving measures and technologies. 

Texas adopted the first EERS standards in 1999. Since then, more than 30 other states have successfully implemented EERS programs, with Virginia being the most recent, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. 

Louisiana’s energy efficiency policy is supposed to be part of what’s called the “Quick Start” program, but as Commissioner Craig Greene said at Wednesday’s LPSC meeting, “after 13 years, we can’t call it Quick Start anymore.”

Phil Hayet, a consultant with J. Kennedy & Associates, appeared before the commission to request a roughly $140,000 budget increase on top of the $591,000 the firm has charged since it took on the rulemaking contract 13 years ago. The firm would use the additional money if it needs to continue its work beyond the end of the year. 

Unhappy with the continuous delays, Greene initially moved to reject the budget expansion, saying he feels Hayet has disregarded the commission’s input on what the rules should say. 

“He’s failed to produce an actual rule to be voted on and, in fact, at times even hampering the resolution of this docket,” Greene said. 

The first phase of Quick Start, which the commission adopted in 2012, was voluntary for utility companies and was supposed to last just two years. The rules encouraged utilities to spend small amounts on rudimentary initiatives such as customer rebates for more efficient light bulbs. 

The second phase rules, which the consulting firm is still writing, are supposed to encompass long-term comprehensive efficiency regulations. For example, the rules might require utilities to upgrade to more efficient transmission technologies or to use certain power generation sources during peak load times. 

In every case, the utility companies would be able to recover the costs of implementing the new policy from their customers and have been doing so for years. Entergy Louisiana customers can find the energy efficiency fees on their bill described as “Rider EECR-QS” and “Rider EECR-PE.” 

Despite this, many of Louisiana’s utilities have opposed the LPSC’s adoption of energy efficiency standards. There is an inherent conflict for an investor-owned utility company to encourage its customers to purchase less of its product by becoming more efficient. 

That opposition has been one of the reasons why the consulting firm has delayed its work. There were different members on the commission when Quick Start first began, and they appeared content with allowing the utility companies to lead the way in how the program should be managed. 

After Greene was elected, he began researching the issue and in 2019 started pushing for a policy that uses a third-party administrator to run the program and set the individualized energy efficiency goals for each utility. In May, four of the five commissioners voted to publish a draft rule for an energy efficiency policy that relies on a third-party administrator.

However, the utility companies bombarded the consultant with lengthy filings in opposition to the proposal. Greene said this caused the consultant to back away from the proposal in an effort to try to appease the utilities. 

“Four out of the five of us said, ‘Let’s move in the direction of the commission-led TPA [third-party administrator],’ and it seems like you just didn’t go in that direction,” Greene told Hayet.

Greene pointed out that one should expect nothing less than to see the utility companies oppose projects they believe might dampen their profits. 

In addition to charging energy efficiency fees, utilities want to be able to recover lost revenues on energy they don’t sell because of efficiency improvements. The current draft policy wouldn’t outright deny this, but it would place the burden on the companies to show their revenue losses came directly from energy efficiency. 

Entergy Louisiana called the policy “draconian,” while Cleco Power called it “Frankenstein-esque,” according to public comments the companies filed with the LPSC.

In an email Thursday, Entergy Louisiana offered additional comments on what it called the commission’s “strawman proposal” because of its use of a third-party administrator. 

“Injecting an unknown third party will cause confusion to the customers and result in a loss of momentum in terms of EE [energy efficiency] adoption and acceptance,” Entergy spokesperson Brandon Scardigli said in an email.

The company also opposes the standards because they lack measures of accountability and transparency because they include no cost-effectiveness requirements or energy savings targets, Scardigli said.

The Alliance for Affordable Energy, which has positioned itself opposite the utility companies on this issue, actually agrees with Entergy on that last point about energy savings targets, executive director Logan Burke said. 

Rather than setting actual energy use targets, the policy would measure benchmarks in accordance with how much a utility company spends on energy efficiency. This could be problematic because a company could, in theory, just purchase higher priced equipment as a way to artificially help meet its energy efficiency goals, Burke said. 

The states with the highest ranked energy efficiency standards use actual energy savings targets that utilities are required to meet. Because the Quick Start program uses spending as a measurement, many experts in the field don’t consider it a true energy efficiency resource standard, Burke said. 

Organizations such as the National Conference of State Legislatures and Colorado State University’s Center for the New Energy Economy have excluded Louisiana from its lists of states with energy efficiency resource standards.

Hayet, the consultant, said he did a ton of research to put together four drafts of what has now become a nearly 40-page rule. For his part, Hayet scrapped much of his earlier work when the commission changed its approach to the program four years ago. He did acknowledge utility companies don’t like the current proposal but said there were several legal issues the companies pointed out that needed to be corrected. 

A significant portion of the consulting firm’s allotted budget was for audits Hayet had to perform on the individual energy efficiency programs the utility companies themselves created for the first phase of the Quick Start program, he said. Hayet told LPSC commissioners he hasn’t charged for any of the research and writing he did this year on the second phase rule proposal. 

“Essentially, we’ve worked at no cost to the commission this past year,” Hayet said. 

He declined to offer additional comments to the Illuminator in an email Thursday, but Hayet assured the commissioners his draft of the policy would align with their wishes. The proposal is about 90% complete, he said, and he hopes to have it done by December. 

“Commissioner Greene, I respect you more than you will ever know, and I think that you do an excellent job,” Hayet said. “…I’m not just saying that.”

Greene ultimately withdrew his motion, and the commission voted to approve Hayet’s request. 

“I appreciate the work you’ve done,” Greene said. “I’ve just felt frustrated with not getting it across…I needed to hear from you that you’re committed to getting this across the finish line.”

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and Twitter.

Louisiana consultant spent 13 years drafting energy efficiency rules — and still hasn’t finished is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The following commentary was written by David Wooley, director of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley. See our commentary guidelines for more information.

The Gulf Coast’s power grid and economy share a common need: diversity. Diverse electric generation supplies increase power system reliability and resilience in the face of rising demand and extreme weather. Diverse economic activity supports employment, expands the tax base and boost overall prosperity. Offshore wind could help achieve both goals for the Gulf Coast region — if state governments act.

Offshore wind is surging, with over 700 gigawatts in the global development pipeline. European nations plan to install at least 120 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and 300 gigawatts by 2050. China added nearly 20 gigawatts of offshore wind in the last two years alone. 

Those rising tides are also lifting American boats. On Aug. 29, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale for three areas on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico. In July, the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind plant began construction off the northeast coast. Twenty-nine U.S. ports are being refurbished to support offshore wind turbine construction and maintenance. Factories are going up across the U.S. to produce offshore wind energy components.

A new report — 2035 and Beyond: Abundant, Affordable Offshore Wind Can Accelerate Our Clean Electricity Future — shows our coastlines have the world’s highest-quality offshore wind resource. The new report details a pathway for offshore wind to provide up to 25% of total U.S. electricity generation by 2050, while producing large economic benefits and without increasing electricity costs. It could help meet rising electricity demand from electrification of transportation, industry, and buildings — which will triple U.S. electricity demand by 2050.

The U.S. is currently targeting 30 gigawatts of installed offshore wind generation by 2030. Our new research shows that offshore wind technology can be 10 to 15 times larger than that by 2050. Offshore wind along the Eastern seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, and Pacific Coast can supply more than 1,000 gigawatts of generating capacity with operational characteristics comparable and complementary to existing power plant production (i.e., more than 50% capacity factor). This would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs nationwide and attract billions in investment to revitalize port and manufacturing communities. 

The Gulf of Mexico is particularly well-suited for offshore wind deployment. The region could host more than 100 gigawatts of new offshore wind by 2050. With its existing manufacturing, port, and logistics infrastructure, and skilled workforce, the region could become a hub for new offshore wind generation. Many of the requisite offshore wind labor skills, ships, and port facilities can be adapted from existing Gulf offshore oil and gas industries. The Gulf of Mexico hosts most of the U.S. shipyards able to build wind turbine installation vessels. The region is already producing ships, turbine foundations, and steel components for offshore wind farms on the east coast. 

New research by Cambridge Econometrics finds that offshore wind could employ 20,000 workers in the Gulf region by 2040 and 60,000 in 2050. Billions of grant and tax-credit dollars are available to repurpose existing infrastructure for jobs and clean energy production. The areas appropriate for offshore wind development in the Gulf are so vast that large amounts of offshore wind generation can be developed without interfering with fisheries, existing offshore infrastructure and sensitive marine ecosystems. 

But offshore wind has far wider benefits than just jobs. Wind energy produced offshore can add large amounts of new electric power generation to bolster electric grid reliability — particularly important given Texas’ recent blackouts and near misses. Offshore wind in Gulf waters tends to kick up when solar production drops at sundown, and offshore wind turbines are less affected by extreme cold and heat events than land-based renewable and gas generation.

Several policy changes can achieve this potential. In the near term, the federal government must accelerate the identification and assessment of offshore wind sites, and leasing and permitting in federal waters. But state leadership is also needed to tap the Gulf Coast’s offshore wind potential.

Louisiana has shown its neighbors how to get started. Its 2022 Climate Action plan set a target of 5 gigawatts of installed offshore wind capacity by 2035, prioritized planning for transmission and workforce needs, established an interagency working group to address permitting, and enacted legislation to secure state tax revenues from offshore wind developed in state waters. Ports there have responded to the policy signals by making changes to accommodate offshore wind development and ships are being built in the state’s shipyards. Plans are in place to establish an offshore wind technology research, training, and technology demonstration center, but even all this isn’t enough to establish the state as an offshore wind hub. 

A recent roundtable event organized by C2ES recommended, among other things, that the state take three steps. First, map out the unique roles each of Louisiana’s ports could play in the offshore wind industry. Second, open public utility commission dockets to consider how to interconnect and provide transmission support for new offshore wind projects. Third, undertake initiatives to prepare its workforce for offshore wind development. 

Meanwhile, Texas stands in stark contrast, turning a blind eye to offshore wind energy, despite being desperately short of electricity during extreme winter and summer weather. The ultimate result may be that Louisiana’s ports and industries become the region’s offshore wind port and manufacturing hub for project development in waters off the Texas coast. 

Texas’ policymakers could take a better approach by actively coordinating infrastructure and supply chain development with Louisiana, and pushing together for federal dollars to de-risk port and vessel construction through revenue guarantees for port and ship owners.

Punishing heat waves gripped the Gulf this summer, straining the electric grid to its limits. It’s a harbinger of things to come. Offshore wind can supply large new power supplies and help make electric power systems more reliable. The Gulf Coast states could be global leaders in this new industry, building a stronger economy and more resilient grid along the way. 

Commentary: Gulf Coast could strengthen electric grid and economy with offshore wind is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.