The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution on Thursday, calling on the Milwaukee County Sheriffs Office (MCSO) to work with the community to create a regulatory framework for the use of facial recognition technology. MCSO is currently exploring an agreement with Biometrica, a data company that provides facial recognition technology to local police departments.
“Facial recognition technology has been proven to disproportionately affect communities of color and young women,” said Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez. “The more facial recognition technology, the more people are able to criminalize people executing their First Amendment rights. I feel this is an issue not left or right.” Miguel Martinez also expressed concerns about the use of facial recognition technology to aid immigration enforcement or to surveil protests.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
Privacy concerns have been heightened during the Trump administration’s surge in immigration enforcement and crackdowns on dissent. In Milwaukee, several people were arrested by federal agents after attending regular hearings at the county courthouse. In April, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested and accused of obstructing federal agents after she directed a man sought by immigration officers out a side door in her courtroom that led into a public hallway.
MCSO leaders said they aim to use the technology to identify people after violent crime incidents.
Nevertheless, members of the public and some elected officials raised concerns about the technology. The resolution contains language stating that facial recognition technology can be inaccurate and could negatively affect certain groups including people of color, LGBTQ people, activists, immigrants and people seeking reproductive health care.
The resolution states that the county board supports pausing any future acquisition of facial recognition until regulatory policies can be developed. It also calls on the county’s Information Management Services Division, Corporation Council and MCSO to collaborate with “relevant stakeholders” including privacy and free speech advocates, in developing that policy framework. Out of this collaborative effort will eventually emerge recommendations to the county board as to whether facial recognition technology:
Should be prohibited or strictly limited without the informed knowledge and consent of the individual being scanned, except under narrowly defined circumstances, such as during active criminal investigations,
Whether the types of data collected by the technology should be defined and limited, as well as strict retention periods for data,
Prohibit facial recognition data from being shared with third parties, unless authorized through a rigorous, transparent approval process which itself would be subject to oversight,
And whether departments using facial recognition should be required to submit annual reports detailing its use, including metrics of deployment, effectiveness, and analysis on the impact on communities of color, immigrants and other vulnerable groups.
The resolution passed by the county board calls for a final recommendation to be established no later than May 2026. By December 2025 the county board expects a status update, according to the resolution.
Local advocacy organization JOSHUA held a prayer vigil outside Green Bay Correctional Institution. | Photo by Andrew Kennard for Wisconsin Examiner
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers included a prison accountability office in recommendations for the upcoming state budget. That proposal was tossed out by the state Legislature, along with hundreds of others made by Evers. And so far, prison reform advocates haven’t found a Republican sponsor for a separate bill.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
The proposed Office of the Ombudsperson for Corrections would conduct investigations, inspect prison facilities and make recommendations to prisons in response to complaints. The proposal would cost about $2.1 million from 2025-2027.
Deaths of prisoners, staffing problems and lawsuits have drawn attention to serious problems in Wisconsin’s prison system.
“How many more millions of dollars are we going to spend in fighting lawsuits, dealing with litigation?” said Susan Franzen of the Ladies of SCI. The prison reform advocacy group wants to see independent oversight of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
“We’re willing to spend that money, but we’re not willing to take a million dollars to put something in place that can help start addressing these things and eventually get proactive, so we don’t have all this litigation going on against the Department of Corrections,” Franzen said.
“Unfortunately, [Evers] sends us an executive budget that’s just piles full of stuff that doesn’t make sense and spends recklessly and raises taxes and has way too much policy,” Joint Finance Committee co-chair Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said in May, after the committee killed more than 600 items in Evers’ budget proposal. “So, we’ll work from base and the first step of that today is to remove all that policy… and then begin the work of rebuilding the budget.”
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has already partnered with Falcon Correctional and Community Services, Inc., a consulting and management firm, for a third-party review.
The Falcon partnership includes a comprehensive study of the Division of Adult Institutions’ health care program, behavioral health program, correctional practices and restrictive housing practices, the Examiner reported. The study was projected to take six months.
Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac), vice chair of the Assembly Committee on Corrections, said “our first priority” is addressing staff shortages in various areas, ranging from guards to social workers.
For the most recent pay period, the DOC reported a vacancy rate of 16% for correctional officers and sergeants at adult facilities. Columbia Correctional Institution has the highest vacancy rate among adult facilities, at 35.4%. Waupun and Green Bay Correctional Institutions have vacancy rates over 20%.
The second priority O’Connor listed in an email to the Examiner is the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for facility reorganization.
“Based on the pressing financial requests for address[ing] critical staffing shortages and housing issues, I do not see [the governor’s recommendation for an ombudsperson office] getting passed or funded,” O’Connor said.
Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) criticized the potential structure of the ombudsperson’s office, Wisconsin Public Radio reported in February.
“De facto lifetime appointments (which the ombudsperson appears to be), almost a dozen new bureaucrats, and millions of dollars are not creative solutions,” Felzkowski said, according to WPR.
Would the ombudsperson be independent?
To Franzen, “it feels like we’re back to square one, with the original plan of trying to get a bill, and we’ll keep trying,” she said.
Ladies of SCI Executive Director Rebecca Aubart said she is still hopeful about finding a Republican to sponsor an ombudsman office.
Aubart said she’s heard support for oversight of the DOC, , “but it just appears that nobody’s willing to stick their neck out to be the one to sponsor it,” she said.
The Examiner reported in October that 20 states had an independent prison oversight body. Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab, wrote about independent oversight in an essay published by the Brennan Center in 2021.
“They can identify troubling practices early, and bring these concerns to administrators’ attention for remediation before the problems turn into scandals, lawsuits, or deaths,” Deitch wrote. “They can share best practices and strategies that have worked in other facilities to encourage a culture of improvement.”
The proposed Office of the Ombudsperson for Corrections was described in a summary of the governor’s corrections budget recommendations. It would be attached to the Department of Corrections.
Officials in the Evers administration said the office would operate in a “‘functionally independent’” manner, Wisconsin Public Radio reported in February.
Franzen said she’d rather it be completely separate from the DOC, but would support any movement toward some type of oversight at this point. Aubart said independence is a “cornerstone to any ombudsman.”
What would the office do?
The proposed office’s powers include conducting investigations, having witnesses subpoenaed, inspecting facilities at any time and examining records held by the DOC.
If the ombudsperson made a recommendation to a prison regarding a complaint from a prisoner at the facility, a warden would have 30 days to reply. The warden would have to specify “what actions they have taken as a result of the recommendations and why they are taking or not taking those actions.”
If there was reason to believe a public official or employee has broken a law or requires discipline, the ombudsperson could refer the issue to the appropriate authorities.
The ombudsperson would report to the governor at the governor’s request. Each year, the ombudsperson would submit a report of findings and recommended improvements to policies and practices at state correctional institutions, as well as the results of investigations.
Mark Rice, transformational justice campaign coordinator at the advocacy coalition WISDOM, said he also wants to see an additional mechanism to hold the Wisconsin Department of Corrections accountable.
“Currently incarcerated people, and people who have loved ones who are currently incarcerated, need to really be more at the center of decision-making,” Rice said.
The co-chairs and vice-chairs of the Joint Committee on Finance did not respond to the Examiner’s requests for comment.
Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, the largest immigrant detention center on the East Coast, was the sight of a May demonstration against the Trump administration's immigration policies. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pledged Thursday to make more visits to immigration detention centers across the country to carry out oversight of the Trump administration’s crackdown.
The members detailed their visits to various detention centers over last week’s recess. Many people they visited in those centers were arrested while attending their court hearings or had no criminal record, they said.
“What we and our colleagues witnessed was the system being used to punish people simply for being an immigrant, and we all know that cruelty is the point with this president,” said New York Democratic Rep. Nydia Velázquez.
Continued oversight of immigration detention centers will only become more important, members of the all-Democrat caucus said, if congressional Republicans succeed in passing a massive tax and spending bill that would increase immigration enforcement funding by billions, including for detention centers.
Republicans are moving ahead with a legislative procedure known as reconciliation to fulfill President Donald Trump’s priorities without needing 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.
The vow to continue with oversight at detention centers comes after three congressional Democrats said they were accosted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at a New Jersey detention center last month. That incident ended with the Newark Mayor Ras Baraka arrested, and Rep. LaMonica McIver facing federal charges. The charges against Baraka were dismissed about two weeks later.
“We will not succumb to any intimidation tactics,” CHC Chair Rep. Adriano Espaillat of New York said. “We will continue to comply with our duty to have oversight of these detention centers, and we will visit them within the parameters of the law.”
Members of Congress are allowed to conduct oversight visits at any Department of Homeland Security facility that detains immigrants, without prior notice, under provisions of an appropriations law.
Collateral arrests
Washington state Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, slammed the Trump administration’s expansion of government contracts with private prison companies to detain migrants.
“It is critically important that we members of Congress continue to investigate what are supposed to be civil detention centers, but instead operate as private for-profit prisons with substandard medical care and they make billions of dollars … in contracts from this administration detaining people of all legal statuses,” Jayapal said.
Jayapal said when she conducted an oversight visit at the Tacoma, Washington, Northwest ICE Processing Center, which was formerly known as the Northwest Detention Center, over the recess, some of the people being detained were caught up in immigration enforcement raids targeting other people. Such immigration arrests are known as collateral arrests.
She said one woman she spoke to who was detained had been in the country for more than 20 years, but did not have a permanent legal status.
“She was swept up in a raid at the workplace, and she was detained less than a week before she was going to get married to a U.S. citizen,” Jayapal said.
She said another person she talked to was a man who had been in the U.S. for 31 years and is a permanent legal resident.
“These are not the so-called worst of the worst that Trump kept saying he was going to go after,” Jayapal said. “These are simply people who love this country, who have been in this country for decades, who are married to U.S. citizens and have U.S. citizen children, and do not understand why the country they love would be doing this to them.”
Democratic Rep. Lou Correa of California, said that he’s come across immigrants in detention centers who were arrested while attending their court hearings.
“These individuals are following the law, showing up … to court hearings, and they’re having their removal cases dismissed,” he said. “Immediately as they walk out of that courtroom, they are rearrested and put into what is called an expedited removal process … to quickly get them out of the country.”
A year-old state law is helping to bring new voices before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, and advocates and officials hope its impact will grow as more organizations learn about its existence.
Since 2007, small nonprofits have been able to seek financial compensation to help pay for expert testimony they provide in utility rate cases. State lawmakers last year expanded the concept to cover a broader range of cases, including utility pilot programs, infrastructure projects, and performance measures.
“It’s really about getting voices to the table to present us with new arguments and new issues for us to consider,” said Commissioner Joe Sullivan.
Since the law took effect in May 2023, the commission has authorized $124,318 in payments to four organizations, including two groups — Community Power and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light — that had never before requested or received compensation for expert testimony. The other recipients were the Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota and Energy CENTS Coalition, which advocates for low-income ratepayers.
Under the previous rules, some years, including 2019, 2021, and 2022, saw no payouts at all. In 2023, regulators approved $96,000 for testimony under the old program before state lawmakers expanded its scope.
“We’re glad to see broadening participation due to the change in this intervenor compensation law,” said state Sen. Nick Frentz, a Democrat from North Mankato who supported the legislation. “Our hope is that the more voices that contribute, the better the quality of the eventual PUC decisions.”
Where the money goes
Anyone can comment on utility commission matters, but having a significant impact requires investing in staff time and experts — precious commodities unavailable to many smaller nonprofits.
The compensation process involves nonprofits submitting documentation and a sum for testimony related to a specific case. Rules require the nonprofits to have a payroll of no more than $600,000 for participation in commission proceedings and 30 full-time or fewer employees for the previous three years. The commission judges the merits of reimbursement based on six criteria that focus on whether the organization’s testimony materially impacted its decision.
Once nonprofits receive approval for compensation from the commission, the utility involved in that case pays them. The Legislature set a maximum limit on how much any utility will pay annually to intervenors, ranging from $1.25 million for Xcel Energy to $100,000 for Otter Tail Power and other smaller utilities.
Although the new law broadened the types of cases in which nonprofits could seek compensation, three of the six 2024 awards went to organizations testifying in the Xcel Energy rate case. However, the Citizens Utility Board received the largest amount for its recommendations in an integrated gas resource planning docket, an issue that would not have been eligible for compensation in the past.
Nonprofits typically use the money to offset the high costs of expert testimony or staff time related to cases where utilities usually spend millions to influence the commission’s decisions. Other intervenors often include larger nonprofits, industrial organizations, chambers of commerce, labor unions, national associations and, on occasion, cities and counties.
Frentz, who chairs the Senate’s Energy, Utilities, Environment and Climate Committee, said he thinks more organizations are out there that could provide testimony at the commission. But they must have the resources available before intervening, and believe their input will influence the Public Utilities Commission, he said.
Commissioner Sullivan said regulators have “seen a little bit more utilization” of the compensation law. The 2023 law specifically encouraged tribal participation, though no tribes have done so yet. Barriers may include a lack of familiarity with the commission or the need for a local budget to hire experts or allocate staff time to complex cases, Sullivan said.
‘A difficult needle to thread’
Solar entrepreneur and tribal clean energy advocate Robert Blake said he was not surprised to hear tribal nations had not participated in the expanded intervenor law. He said many are administratively stretched thin and focused on taking advantage of federal and state opportunities to fund clean energy projects on reservations.
Also, many of the issues that come before the commission involve large utilities that do not serve reservations, which often also get electricity from locally owned cooperatives, Blake said.
Community Power and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light each received $17,984 after each requested nearly $26,000. Community Power employee Alice Madden said the money paid for expert witnesses who “cost hundreds of dollars per hour” but did not cover the staff time of either organization, which involved door-knocking and collecting more than 1,000 ratepayers’ comments.
“The intervenor compensation works for covering narrow costs but does not help people intervene and front the costs of that,” Madden said. “It accomplished allowing us to have extra witnesses, but it does not cover the full cost of intervening, nor of organizing to get community voices to the table.”
Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light Executive Director Julia Nerbonne was disappointed that the commission only partially reimbursed what it had requested, but she decided against appealing the decision. The organization has been involved in several dockets outside of rate cases and may someday ask for compensation for expert witnesses.
“I feel like the PUC has a difficult needle to thread, and I appreciate that they did that (provided compensation),” Nerbonne said. “I want to say thumbs up for expanding it.”
In its order, the commission granted compensation to the two organizations because they “made a unique contribution to the record, promoting public policies and representing interests of people of color and low-wealth households that would not otherwise have been adequately represented. The evidence and arguments they presented would not otherwise have been part of the record and were an important factor in producing a fair decision.”
Citizens Utility Board Executive Director Annie Levenson-Falk said the compensation received in 2024 was the amount it would have been for similar testimony in the past. The commission granted it compensation in two dockets, the largest of which was $41,385, for promoting a requirement that natural gas providers file periodic integrated resource plans that the commission has required from electric companies. The money paid for some of the expense of outside experts to research and testify on behalf of the organization.
In an order approving payment in the natural gas case, the commission said it had adopted the Citizens Utility Board’s recommendation that the state’s three natural gas utilities develop integrated resource plans. The commission determined how much each utility would pay the board, with Xcel providing nearly $30,000.
The prospect of compensation does not impact the Citizens Utility Board’s decisions on whether to intervene in commission matters. “It is something we keep in mind at the end if the PUC (Public Utilities Commission) has adopted a position we advocated,” Levenson-Falk said.
Levenson-Falk said she was unsurprised that organizations new to regulatory proceedings have yet to often participate in hearings or ask for reimbursements. “I think it is more difficult for a group that does not have utility regulatory professionals,” she said. “We have a team of folks who do this kind of work, but if it’s your first time coming to the PUC, it’s a challenging statute to take advantage of. It’s not easy.”
Energy CENTS Coalition received $36,785, the second largest disbursement under the new law, for testimony in the Xcel rate case that led the commission to adopt a “low-income, low-usage” discount. The organization provided “an important factor in producing a fair decision and would not otherwise have been part of the record,” the commission said in its order.
Executive Director George Shardlow wants to expand the organization’s involvement beyond rate cases to other issues. “It’s very helpful for a small consumer advocacy organization to have this added support to play in dockets over and above rate cases where consumer advocates need to show up,” he said.
The commission is required to issue a report on the intervenor law to the Legislature by July 2025.
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.
Login
