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Entergy’s power plans draw fight
Coalition argues against utility’s market control BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
Entergy Louisiana’s plans to procure billions of dollars worth of new gas-fired power is setting up a pivotal fight over the utility’s control over the electric market, with an unlikely coalition of opponents arguing that the company is set to heap huge costs on residents. Entergy is planning to deacti-
vate a host of aging power plants built in the 1960s and 1970s in the coming years. At the same time, the company is courting powerhungry data centers that require new infrastructure to be built. And the state’s energy-intensive petrochemical sector is looking for new power sources, particularly renewables that make their products more attractive overseas. Those converging forces are cre-
ating what the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a consumer advocacy group, calls an “unprecedented inflection point” for the future of energy in Louisiana. And it’s creating strange bedfellows, with climate advocates aligned with the petrochemical industry in taking on Entergy, the state’s dominant utility. “What is being put into their pipeline is stunning,” said Logan Burke, executive director of the
Alliance. “There’s just no other word for it.” Now, a yearslong debate over whether industrial customers should be able to break out of Entergy’s control over the power sector is coming to a head. Entergy wants to buy 2 gigawatts of gas power to replace power stations that will be deactivated in the coming years. It is also asking for regulatory approval to build 2.4 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power stations to service Meta’s massive data center planned for
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Richland Parish. A 1-gigawatt power plant can power about 876,000 homes per year, according to the Carbon Collective, an investment adviser. Those investments, along with other proposals by Entergy to build new infrastructure, will cost billions. And a group of petrochemical plants who are fighting to inject more competition into the market expect that ratepayers will see bills skyrocket if Entergy
ä See ENTERGY, page 7A
N.O. inspector stripped of license
Man charged last year with bribing Cantrell BY JAMES FINN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By SOPHIA GERMER
Students wait for the moment they can receive their Match Day letters during Match Day 2025 for Tulane University School of Medicine on Friday.
Medical students secure their futures at Match Day 2025 BY EMILY WOODRUFF Staff writer
If things had gone as planned, Hailey Phillips would have finished medical school last year and already be deep into her first year of residency. In 2019, she had put school on hold to care for her mother, who got sick from complications after back surgery. It became a hands-on lesson in patient care. “She changed my IV bags, my dressings, all of it,” said her mom,
Rachelle Phillips, one of 17 siblings from Lafayette, who raised Hailey as a single mom. “She is everything a daughter and a doctor should be.” Years later, that detour brought her to this moment. At exactly 10:55 a.m. on Friday, Phillips and the rest of Tulane University School of Medicine’s Class of 2025 stood in front of tables lined with white envelopes at Champions Square in New Orleans. The envelopes held the answers to where they would spend the next several years of their lives as they continued their training as residents. After a countdown to 11 a.m., they and future doctors across the coun-
Hailey Phillips smiles after revealing to her family and friends she matched with Tulane during Match ä See MATCH, page 7A Day 2025 on Friday.
A building inspector charged in federal court with bribing New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was stripped of his state contracting license Thursday under a deal that allowed him to avoid sanctions over a separate alleged scheme in Jefferson Parish. Randy Farrell, who was charged Sept. 27 with bribing Cantrell as part Farrell of what prosecutors described as a sweeping plot to profit from hundreds of fraudulent inspection permits around New Orleans, agreed Thursday to step down as head of his electrical firm, Global Technical Solutions, under the deal with the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. Farrell relinquished his contracting license and pleaded “no contest” to noncriminal allegations by the board that he falsified permits in the alleged scheme in Jefferson Parish, his attorneys said. They described the deal as a way to avoid distraction, including media attention, as Farrell battles the separate federal charges. “There is no admission of criminal wrongdoing as this is an administrative matter” before the state board, his attorney, Rick Simmons, said in a statement. Farrell was accused in the September federal indictment of
ä See LICENSE, page 7A
Federal report urges Louisiana to assess safety of eight bridges BY JOSIE ABUGOV Staff writer
The National Transportation Safety Board is urging Louisiana to assess the safety of eight of its bridges, including almost all of those crossing the Mississippi River in the state, in a new report following last year’s collapse in Baltimore. The Crescent City Connection in New Orleans, the Sunshine Bridge in Donaldsonville and the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge
WEATHER HIGH 77 LOW 59 PAGE 8A
were among those flagged in the report released Thursday. Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, whose collapse after being struck by a container ship in March 2024 killed six people, was riskier than acceptable under the guidelines of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation, according to the report. The NTSB, responsible for investigating infrastructure incidents, listed 68 waterway bridges across the country that have not gone through an assessment based
on recent ship traffic and “therefore have an unknown level of risk of collapse from a potential vessel collision.” These are the eight Louisiana bridges identified in the report: n Greater New Orleans Bridge (New Orleans) n Crescent City Connection Bridge (New Orleans) n Huey P. Long Bridge (Jefferson Parish) n Hale Boggs Bridge (Luling)
ä See BRIDGES, page 7A
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The Crescent City Connection bridge is one of eight spans that Louisiana is urged to assess for safety. STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
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