LISLE, Ill. – International Motors, LLC (International) and IC Bus, LLC (IC Bus) are proud to announce that First Light Illuminated School Bus Signs (ISBS) and Fully Illuminated Stop Arms (FISA) are now standard on the Next Generational IC Bus Electric CE Series School Buses.
Effective immediately, the ISBS and FISA options are available for factory install on all IC Bus school bus models currently on order and will be standard on all new Electric CE Series school bus orders moving forward. That standard position will expand to internal combustion engine CE Series unit orders in August 2025.
These First Light products provide uncompromised visibility, assisting IC Bus in its efforts to offer innovative features that lead to safer bus stops. Adding these First Light products to the existing standard safety systems and technologies provides another valuable tool for customers who own and operate IC Bus vehicles throughout North America.
“Safely transporting the children of our communities is a responsibility that IC Bus takes incredibly seriously. When IC Bus introduced the Next Generation of the CE Series in July 2023, it was clear that safety was our number one priority,” said Charles Chilton, Vice President and General Manager of IC Bus. “The improved driver visibility and dash-integrated safety systems were just a step in the journey. Making these First Light products standard equipment was a natural progression, considering their visibility impacts.”
First Light’s ISBS and FISA products have proven to greatly reduce stop arm violations by enhancing motorists’ recognition and reaction times as they approach a stopped school bus. Both the ISBS and FISA are visible beyond 1,000 feet and readable beyond 300 feet, giving oncoming motorists additional visibility and time to stop appropriately.
About International:
Based in Lisle, Illinois, International Motors, LLC* creates solutions that deliver greater uptime and productivity to our customers throughout the full operation of our commercial vehicles. We build International trucks and engines and IC Bus school and commercial buses that are as tough and as smart as the people who drive them. We also develop Fleetrite aftermarket parts. In everything we do, our vision is to accelerate the impact of sustainable mobility to create the cleaner, safer world we all deserve. As of 2021, we joined Scania, MAN and Volkswagen Truck & Bus in TRATON GROUP, a global champion of the truck and transport services industry. To learn more, visit www.International.com.
*International Motors, LLC is d/b/a International Motors USA LLC in Illinois, Ohio, and Utah.
A coalition of U.S. power companies is demanding “immediate action” from the Trump administration to roll back federal regulation of toxic coal ash and rescind recent enforcement actions.
A Jan. 15 letter to Lee Zeldin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, outlines specific steps the federal government should take to relieve power companies of their obligations to prevent coal ash from contaminating groundwater. The letter, which was obtained by Canary Media and has not previously been reported on, is signed by executives representing a dozen power-plant operators that collectively hold over half a billion cubic yards of the dangerous material, a byproduct of burning coal in power plants.
“These are powerful corporations asking for the administration to do their bidding even if those actions put health and the environment at risk, which they certainly will,” said Lisa Evans, senior attorney for Earthjustice, which compiled groundwater monitoring data in 2022 revealing the scope of coal-ash pollution that will remain in the U.S. even after a transition to clean electricity.
The companies represented in the letter are Duke Energy; Vistra; Southern Illinois Power Cooperative; Ohio Valley/Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corp.; Talen Energy; Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities; Gavin Power LLC; City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri; Basin Electric Power Cooperative in North Dakota; and the Lower Colorado River Authority.
The federal government lacked specific coal-ash regulations until 2015, when the Obama administration adopted rules following a long, contentious process. The standards omitted “legacy” coal ash stored in landfills and repositories that had closed before the rules took effect, and they were barely enforced until 2022, when the Biden administration made them a priority.
After years of litigation by environmental advocates, EPA last spring expanded cleanup requirements to include legacy impoundments, closing a major loophole that helped power-plant operators skirt responsibility for toxic pollution at scores of sites nationwide. Those rules are currently in effect but are being challenged in federal court by Republican attorneys general and power-industry groups.
The industry letter calls on the EPA to drop its legal defense of the legacy impoundment rules. It also asks the agency to rescind its prohibition on scattering coal ash to build up land, a practice companies call “beneficial reuse” that experts say can be extremely dangerous. In Town of Pines, Indiana, for example, this practice led to a massive Superfund cleanup.
The letter demands EPA revoke its closure order and guidance on coal ash at the Gavin Power Plant in Ohio, noting that the case could provide precedent for lawsuits concerning other sites. The EPA’s decision on the Gavin plant affirms that the 2015 rules prohibit leaving coal ash in contact with groundwater; industry groups filed a lawsuit arguing the rules actually do not mean that.
The letter also calls for the Trump administration to review other previous EPA enforcement at specific sites, “in light of new priorities.” And it calls for review of contracts awarded for coal-ash enforcement.
A Duke Energy spokesperson declined to comment. Vistra and Southern Illinois Power Cooperative did not respond to messages and emails sent Monday evening.
Evans disputed the letter’s contention that federal coal-ash regulations are not “practical and based on demonstrated risk.”
“Their claims are nonsense and unfounded,” Evans said. “For the Trump administration, it doesn’t matter whether these arguments have any merit; it matters who is asking.”
The vast majority of coal-ash sites nationwide are contaminating groundwater, companies’ own data shows. Duke Energy has excavated ash from a number of sites in North Carolina, following criminal charges related to the 2014 Dan River spill. Talen’s coal ash in Montana is putting the Northern Cheyenne Tribe at risk. American Electric Power, former owner of the Gavin plant, bought out the entire town of Cheshire, Ohio, because of pollution from the plant.
The industry letter also calls on Zeldin to “quickly rescind” a new EPA rule that would force fossil-fuel plants to install technology to drastically scale back their emissions. Dozens of states and companies are challenging that rule in federal court. As a Congress member from New York, Zeldin frequently voted against environmental protections. He also pledged to overturn the state’s ban on fracking during an unsuccessful run for governor.
The letter says the rules “threaten the reliability of the power grid, jeopardize national security, are a drag on economic growth, increase inflation, and hinder the expansion of electric power generation” needed for AI and other technologies.
Prior to Trump’s reelection, the EPA was increasingly prioritizing coal ash. In 2023, the agency announced coal ash was among six top enforcement priorities for fiscal years 2024 through 2027, saying failure to comply with the rules can cause significant “harm to human health and the environment … through catastrophic releases of contaminants into the air or contamination of groundwater, drinking water, or surface water.”
To change rules enshrined in federal law, the EPA would need to initiate a lengthy rulemaking process that includes public comment. Any new rules would need to meet standards in the Administrative Procedure Act, including having a “rational basis,” as the act says. If the agency were to adopt rules that failed to meet these criteria, advocacy groups would likely sue.
“You can’t just revoke a rule and replace it with one that’s friendly to industry,” said Evans. “If the reality is coal ash is contaminating groundwater at nearly every site in the country, it’s going to be hard for the Trump administration to write a rule that allows utilities to continue to pollute.”
States took on the mantle of combating climate change during the first Trump administration. Now they need to redouble the work during the second.
That’s the message that Caroline Spears, executive director of Climate Cabinet, has for state lawmakers following Trump’s victory on Tuesday.
As an advocacy organization that helps state and local leaders “run, win, and legislate on climate change,” Climate Cabinet supported more than 170 candidates in Tuesday’s election. As of midday Wednesday, when Spears spoke to Canary Media, she was feeling cautiously optimistic about the races her group had focused on: “About a third of them we won, about a third of them we lost, and about a third of them are still too close to call.”
Getting climate-committed candidates into state offices can make the difference between a state enacting or preserving climate policies and it blocking or rolling back such policies, she said. For example, the 2022 midterms saw Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota secure Democratic “trifectas” — control of the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature — leading to significant climate legislation being passed and signed into law in those states.
State lawmakers and regulators have the ability to order local utilities to shut down or reduce emissions from fossil-fueled power plants and expand the share of electricity they generate from zero-carbon resources like wind, solar, geothermal, and nuclear power.
During the first Trump administration, “we saw states really taking charge,” said Jeff Deyette, deputy director of clean energy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “I think that momentum has been maintained over the past eight years. This could be another boost to continue to push those state leaders … to protect what they have.”
All told, 25 states and Washington, D.C., have now instituted some form of target for achieving either economywide net-zero carbon emissions, 100 percent renewable or carbon-free electricity, or both. This chart, compiled in mid-2024, includes all of these states except Vermont, which in June 2024 passed a law mandating 100 percent renewable energy by 2035 for all utilities and by 2030 for its largest utility, Green Mountain Power.
(Raymond James)
How the 2024 election changed the state policy landscape
Clean energy and climate policies aren’t necessarily partisan issues, said Heather O’Neill, CEO of trade group Advanced Energy United. “We see the potential for broad agreement in states of all political stripes and persuasions,” as utilities grapple with rising electricity demand from data centers, factories, electric vehicles, and broader economic growth. “Advanced energy technologies are a low-cost solution to all of these challenges,” she said.
She cited the example of Texas, a red state that’s deployed more wind and utility-scale solar power than any other state and is set to pass California for having the most grid-connected batteries by year’s end. Those resources are “working to keep the grid reliable,” O’Neill said, as shown by the role that solar and batteries played in averting grid emergencies this summer.
But to date, Democratic control has been a prerequisite for passing aggressive climate or clean-energy legislation in almost every state that has done so. The exception is North Carolina, where the GOP-controlled legislature passed a law in 2021 mandating that Duke Energy, the state’s biggest utility, cut carbon emissions 70 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Heading into the election, 17 states had Democratic trifectas and 23 states had Republican trifectas. No state appears to be on a path to form a new Democratic trifecta as a result of the election; rather, Democrats have lost full control in Michigan and might do the same in Minnesota.
“We were in defense mode in Minnesota and Michigan,” Spears said.
In Michigan, Republicans gained a majority in the state House of Representatives, while Democrats retained a majority in the state Senate and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer still has two more years in her term. That means the state is likely to protect a slate of climate bills passed in 2023, including a mandate for the state’s two big utilities to reach 80 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and 100 percent by 2040.
The situation in Minnesota is still up in the air. As of Thursday evening, the state House was evenly split between parties, with two remaining races set for automatic recounts due to razor-thin vote differences. But Democrats retained their majority in the state Senate, and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz remains in office. Even if Republicans end up narrowly controlling the House, they likely won’t be able to overturn the state’s 2023 law requiring power utilities to use 100 percent clean electricity by 2040 or a slate of bills creating incentives for electric vehicles and converting homes and buildings to more efficient electric heating.
In Pennsylvania, a state where Democrats were thought to have a chance at forming a new trifecta, Republicans appear set to retain their majority in the state Senate. Democrats could maintain their thin majority in the state House, but the outcome depends on three races that have yet to be called. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed a carbon cap-and-invest program that would collect funds from power plants and use them to lower electric bills and support clean energy projects, but it’s unlikely to pass without Democratic majorities in both houses of the state legislature.
The clearest victories for candidates backed by Climate Cabinet in this election cycle have been in North Carolina and Wisconsin, Spears said — though their wins did not give Democrats legislative majorities.
In North Carolina, Democrat Josh Stein, the state attorney general who won his race to succeed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, will, “unlike his predecessor, have a veto pen that works, because we broke the supermajority” in the state House, she said. Republicans used that supermajority to override Cooper’s veto of a bill that weakened the efficiency requirements in building codes for new homes in the state.
Voters also chalked up some climate wins with state ballot measures in Tuesday’s election. Californians passed a $10 billion climate bond that included $850 million for clean energy infrastructure — the largest of a number of local and state climate and environmental bonds passed across the country, which together will invest $18 billion. And Washington state voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have rolled back its landmark 2021 climate law.
Turning pledges into action
For the states that have already managed to get climate goals on the books, living up to those commitments is now even more urgent.
State climate mandates must be followed up with continuous action from regulators, utilities, and private-sector actors to translate into actual emissions reductions. Right now, it’s far from clear that the states with decarbonization goals are on track to achieve their targets.
A 2023 report from the Environmental Defense Fund found that the 24 states with ambitious targets were on track to cut emissions only 27 to 39 percent by 2030, well below the 50 percent reductions they’re aiming for. Since then, more states have found themselves falling behind on their climate targets, including the two most populous — the Democratic strongholds of California and New York.
California is lagging on its goal of reducing carbon emissions 48 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, according to a June report. Meanwhile, New York state has yet to finalize a cap-and-invest strategy to hit its target of 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2040 and is off track to hit its utility-scale solar and wind targets, although it has achieved its goals for distributed and community solar projects.
For the energy transition to continue despite the headwinds of a second Trump administration, these two leading states — and the others that have enshrined decarbonization goals in law — need to do all they can to deliver on their climate commitments.
All of this makes it far cheaper and easier for states to achieve their clean energy targets and emissions-reduction goals.
It’s unclear which of the Biden administration’s climate accomplishments will remain intact — but what is clear is the ever more urgent need for states to push forward on their climate goals, however difficult that may become.
The Biden administration has enacted the most consequential federal clean energy and climate policy in U.S. history, giving the nation a fighting chance at reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to deal with the climate crisis. Former President Donald Trump, who has won the 2024 presidential election, has pledged to undo that work.
Though Trump’s executive powers will allow him to slow the energy transition in a number of ways, the extent to which he rolls back Biden’s clean energy accomplishments will be dictated in part by whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. The GOP flipped the U.S. Senate, but votes are still being counted in key House races as of Wednesday morning.
Here’s what clean energy and climate experts say is most likely to be lost under a second Trump administration — and what might survive.
What Trump has said about energy
Trump’s rhetoric presages a worst-case future. He has called climate change a hoax and the Biden administration’s climate policies a “green new scam.” He has said he wants to repeal the landmark Inflation Reduction Act and halt the law’s hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits, grants, and other federal incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles, and other low-carbon technologies.
Trump has also made “drill, baby, drill” a call-and-response line at his rallies, pledging to undo any restraints on production and use of the fossil fuels driving climate change. U.S. oil and gas production is already at a record high under the Biden administration.
“He has pledged to do the bidding for Big Oil on day one,” Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, said during a recent webinar.
“Oil and gas lobbyists are drafting executive orders for him to sign on day one,” Reagan added, citing news reports of plans from oil industry groups to roll back key Biden administration regulations and executive orders.
A Trump administration would be all but certain to reverse key Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, and the oil and gas industry, all of which analysts say are necessary to meet the country’s climate commitments. It’s also almost sure to lift the Biden administration’s pause on federal permitting of fossil-gas export facilities.
Trump has also promised to withdraw the U.S. from international climate agreements (again), including the Paris agreement aimed at limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“We know that Trump would take us out of the Paris agreement, and that would be the last time his administration uttered the word ‘climate,’” Catherine Wolfram, an economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics in the Biden administration’s Treasury Department, told Canary Media. “Losing that global leadership would be one of the greatest losses of a Trump presidency.”
What will happen to the Inflation Reduction Act?
Trump won’t have the power to enact all of his promises on his own. Some of the decisions must be made by Congress, including any effort to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act or to claw back unspent funds from that law or the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
Complete repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act would be highly disruptive to a clean energy sector that has seen planned investment grow to roughly $500 billion since the law was passed in mid-2022.
It would also undermine clean energy job growth, which has increased at roughly twice the pace of U.S. employment overall. A recent survey of clean energy companies found that a repeal of the law would be expected to lead to half of them losing business or revenue, roughly one-quarter losing projects or contracts, about one-fifth laying off workers, and about one in 10 going out of business.
“We found that especially rural areas and smaller rural communities would experience the largest negative impacts of repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Shara Mohtadi, co-founder of S2 Strategies, said in an October webinar presenting the survey data. “These are the regions of the country that have seen the biggest uptake in the economic benefits and the manufacturing jobs coming from other countries into the United States.”
These on-the-ground realities have driven expectations that large swaths of the law’s tax credits would be likely to survive even with Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Trump would face pushback within his own party to undoing the law entirely.
In an August letter to current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), 18 House Republicans warned against repealing the clean energy and manufacturing tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which have “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the 18 House Republicans wrote. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”
Republicans would need a roughly 20-seat majority to overcome opposition from these party members opposed to a full repeal, said Harry Godfrey, head of the federal investment and manufacturing working group of trade group Advanced Energy United.
“I don’t envision Republicans holding the House with 20-plus seats,” he said.
Godfrey also doubted that a Trump administration would be eager to undermine the domestic manufacturing boom that the law’s tax credits have spurred. He noted that at the October 1 vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance, the Republican Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate, emphasized the need for the U.S. to “consolidate American dominance” in key energy sectors and industries now dominated by China.
While Vance went on to falsely accuse the Biden administration of failing to bolster U.S. industries against China, the goal of emphasizing domestic competitiveness could lead Republicans to avoid undermining progress in that direction, he suggested.
The presidential election may well decide the future of the United States’ ambitious new clean energy agenda, but a handful of smaller, less-discussed races will have a more immediate and direct impact on the energy transition in several different states.
Public utility commissions regulate the monopoly utilities that operate in each state, voting on such matters as what power plants utilities can build and how much money they can charge their captive customers. Each state’s PUC contains three to five commissioners, making the officials some of the most powerful people in the U.S. energy transition. In most states, governors appoint these leaders — but in 10 states, voters elect them.
This November, eight of those states have active races for at least one PUC commissioner: Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Georgia canceled its 2024 PUC elections because the state’s bizarre hybrid structure for PUC elections has resulted in a lawsuit claiming voter discrimination: PUC commissioners each represent one of five districts, but they are elected statewide, so the members of each district don’t get to decide who represents them.
Utilities recognize the importance of supporting candidates who share their interests, and spend money accordingly. But most regular people often feel little personal connection to the races or the arcane bureaucracy that unfolds at the commissions, and it can be hard to focus on these details against the raucous political backdrop of a general election.
“These PUC commissioners have the power to determine people’s utility bills, the quality of their utility service, and how their utilities are making investments in different forms of energy,” PUC advocate Charles Hua told Canary Media. “Yet, few people can name their state’s PUC commissioners or explain what they do.”
After stints at the Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Hua launched a nonprofit called PowerLines this fall to promote greater public awareness of the pivotal roles PUCs play in the clean energy transition. As a nonpartisan entity, PowerLines can’t endorse candidates, but Hua sees plenty of value in simply increasing participation in PUC elections.
That information gap around PUCs leads to “down-ballot dropoff,” in which voters select candidates in the better-known races but leave the PUC section blank, Hua said. That means voters miss out on “a democratic vehicle to engage with the public officials that are meant to serve the public interest through effective utility regulation.”
(Powerlines)
The implications for good utility regulation are especially high this year for anyone interested in the transition to cleaner energy, not to mention equity and affordability.
Commissioners control how much electric and gas utilities can charge customers, at a time of soaring energy bills. They’re also uniquely positioned to help get the U.S. grid on track to meet climate goals, at least on a state-by-state level, by approving more cheap, clean energy instead of letting utilities continue to expand fossil-fueled infrastructure. And PUCs can direct utilities to rebuild their grids in a more resilient way following destructive extreme weather like hurricanes Helene and Milton.
PUC commissioners wade through the technocratic morass of utility regulation and make choices that affect Americans’ pocketbooks. That’s why Hua says it’s so important for those who have the opportunity to vote in PUC races to do so, and to keep an eye on what their commission does the rest of the time.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Arizona and Louisiana, two states where the stakes for the clean energy transition are particularly high this year.
Arizona could return to ambitious clean energy policy
Three of five seats are up for the Grand Canyon State’s PUC, which is called the Arizona Corporation Commission. Anna Tovar, the lone Democrat on the commission, is not running for reelection, nor is Republican James O’Connor. Republican Lea Márquez Peterson is running for another four-year term.
Arizonans get to vote statewide for the slate of PUC commissioners, and the top three vote-getters each win a seat. There are three Democrats and three Republicans running, and Arizona’s closely contested recent election cycles mean anything could happen — the commission could swing in a more pro–clean energy direction, or toward more fossil-friendly regulation.
That’s significant, because the ACC’s recent past illustrates the power of elected PUCs more clearly than perhaps in any other state. In 2018, the all-Republican commission boldly rebuked the planning proposal from the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service. Then the commissioners went further, imposing a moratorium on new gas plant construction, based on conservative principles: With the energy sector changing so quickly, they wouldn’t let utilities charge their customers for a bunch of expensive gas plants when other quickly maturing options could prove more cost-effective.
Those commissioners later developed their own clean energy standard, and nearly approved it, which would have been a rare instance of a proactive clean energy target coming from a PUC instead of a legislature. But the commission’s debate dragged on as state politics became increasingly contentious, and the proposal was ultimately voted down 3-2 in January 2022. Early this year, the commission voted to end the meager renewable energy standard that had been on the books for 15 years.
In AZ Central’s survey of PUC candidate views, Democrats Ylenia Aguilar, Jonathon Hill, and Joshua Polacheck each affirmed that they want Arizona to tap into more of its renewable power potential. If elected, they could push to revive the clean electricity standard, although that would be a long shot. They could also push to strengthen policies for energy efficiency and distributed energy.
That’s not to say the Republicans oppose clean energy — they just equate binding clean energy targets with adding costs for customers, which they oppose.
For instance, Márquez Peterson says she “supports the voluntary commitments made by our utilities for 100 percent clean and affordable energy by 2050 for Arizona.” She also wants to “avoid costly mandates and corporate subsidies.” Republican Rachel Walden told AZ Central that “forced energy investments and climate goals put the ratepayer last and thwart free market principles.”
This line of argument leaves it to utilities to pursue their own corporate targets. As it happens, solar power in dry, sunny Arizona is ridiculously cheap, and the utilities have jumped on the trend. But the lack of a long-term roadmap for the state leaves room for more gas construction in the meantime, and complicates the kind of long-term planning needed to achieve a carbon-free grid in the coming decades.
Whoever wins, the commission is sure to face capacious gas-plant proposals from utilities to meet soaring demand for data centers and new chip factories (plus some lithium-ion battery manufacturing) in the Phoenix area.
Louisiana to replace swing vote on energy issues
Louisiana’s PUC just did something the state government never accomplished: pass a modern energy-efficiency program to save households money. Now one of the architects of that program is retiring, and voters can pick his replacement.
Advocates had pushed for such a program for years, but it finally passed thanks to two commissioners with seemingly dissimilar perspectives: progressive Democrat Davante Lewis, who campaigned on climate justice; and Republican Craig Greene, a former LSU football player and orthopedic surgeon who supports market-based reforms. They both found common ground in the desire to push the state’s monopoly utility to invest in measures to reduce wasteful energy consumption and thereby save customers money. The commissioners recently selected a third-party administrator to run this program.
“Commissioner Greene has been an important champion for things like energy efficiency, and has even taken steps to move renewable energy forward in the state,” said Logan Burke, executive director of the Louisiana consumer advocacy nonprofit Alliance for Affordable Energy. “The seat he is in has historically been considered a ‘swing’ vote between the two red and two blue districts.”
But Greene decided not to seek reelection as a commissioner, which in Louisiana is a part-time role. That means his seat in District 2 is up for grabs: If Greene’s successor doesn’t share his support for the efficiency measures, it could jeopardize the fledgling, long-awaited program. And this swing vote could prove decisive in decisions on new power-plant construction to meet an expected surge in electricity demand.
Democrat Nick Laborde is competing with Republicans Jean-Paul Coussan and Julie Quinn for the seat. Some 70 percent of voters in this district picked Donald Trump for president in 2020, according to the local outlet Louisiana Illuminator.
Laborde has business experience running a consulting firm and serving as product manager at NOLA Crawfish Bread, an unusually delicious experience for a prospective utility regulator. He has said he supports more renewables and wants to “make utilities pay more instead of raising your bill.”
Coussan’s campaign website doesn’t say much about his views on the energy system, but he does promise to regulate as “a true conservative watchdog, and someone who understands the importance of the role that affordable and reliable energy plays in bringing jobs to our state.” That assertion could mean Coussan would stand up to utility attempts to raise rates on customers; then again, utilities in Louisiana and elsewhere have used an emphasis on “reliability” to push for expensive gas-plant construction in circumstances of dubious value.
Quinn promises to “rein in unnecessary utility company spending that results in rising utility rates,” and to “oppose liberal-thinking Green New Deal initiatives that are unrealistic and costly.” But one target of Biden administration clean energy funding has piqued her interest: Quinn would like to “explore micro-nuclear facilities to lower utility rates.” No commercial microreactor has been built on the U.S. grid, much less lowered anyone’s rates, despite years of trying.
The Alliance for Affordable Energy does not endorse candidates, per the rules governing 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Instead, the group focuses on get-out-the-vote efforts and education about the commission, Burke told Canary Media. She’s also keeping an eye on what candidates say about transmission planning and expansion, which could open up vast new supplies of clean energy for the state.
“If we don’t get the transmission planning we need, we’ll just get 40 more years of new gas plants,” Burke said. “That won’t help anyone but Entergy,” the state’s largest monopoly utility.
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