This piece is being co-published with ExxonKnews, a reporting venture of the Heart for Local weather Integrity (CCI), an advocacy group that gives analysis and instruments to assist communities maintain oil and fuel firms accountable.

In a transfer that complicates Louisiana’s transition towards renewable power, a invoice handed by the Louisiana Legislature final week redefines pure fuel, a fossil gas, as “inexperienced power” and instructs state utilities to make use of power generated by hydrocarbons. 

The invoice is headed to Gov. Jeff Landry, who is predicted to signal it into legislation later this month.

Some critics discovered the very concept ludicrous. “There’s nothing clear or inexperienced about continued extraction of carbon from underground, regardless of the taste is,” stated James Hiatt, a former oil and fuel employee from Calcasieu Parish and founding father of For a Higher Bayou. “For them to categorize [hydrocarbons] as inexperienced is only a blatant lie by lobbyists for the oil and fuel {industry}.”

HB692, sponsored by Rep. Jacob Landry (R-Erath), comes as state regulators on the Louisiana Public Service Fee kick off a public planning course of addressing how Louisiana utilities will supply power and meet electrical energy wants of consumers and rising industrial calls for. 

Shopper and environmental advocates concern that the brand new invoice would possibly encourage utilities to decide on fuel over renewable developments—and, in New Orleans, weaken adherence to town’s clear power necessities. 

Although Louisiana has relied closely on its petrochemical {industry} for many years, the {industry}’s contributions to the state’s financial system at the moment are in decline. The oil and fuel {industry}, which as soon as accounted for 60% of the state’s revenues, now gives solely 4.5% of the overall, based on a report from the Institute for Vitality Economics and Monetary Evaluation. 

In the meantime, Louisiana is experiencing excessive results from local weather change, as its coastal lands sink and erode whereas sea ranges rise and warmth reaches file highs. Fuel is a big driver of local weather change—methane, the first part in pure fuel, is an extraordinarily potent greenhouse fuel. As its emissions proceed to rise, so has the worth of local weather disasters in Louisiana. These disasters, in flip, proceed to have an effect on the state’s energy grid.

However HB692 was not created to suit Louisiana’s particular wants. It seems to have grown out of a nationwide marketing campaign to redefine fuel as “clear,” “inexperienced” or “renewable” power, which has been backed by darkish cash teams with ties to the fuel {industry}. Since 2023, different states have handed legal guidelines just like Louisiana’s invoice, in an obvious backlash towards state and native governments’ renewable power initiatives.

Although Louisiana’s residential clients, reliant on air-con, devour essentially the most power per capita within the nation, its grid is likely one of the least dependable. Louisiana doesn’t generate sufficient electrical energy to fulfill in-state demand and receives about one-seventh of its energy from the regional grid. 

It additionally lags far behind different areas in renewables. Lower than 5% of Louisiana’s electrical energy got here from renewables like photo voltaic or wind, as of February 2025, whereas most–74%–got here from fuel. About 14% got here from nuclear power, which is able to now be codified as “inexperienced” or “clear” beneath the brand new invoice. 

Nonetheless, reliance on fossil fuels is a convention in Louisiana, supported by tax breaks. Rep. Landry, who authored the invoice, comes from Erath, Louisiana, the place key nationwide fuel pipelines intersect. He and his supporters say fuel is an reasonably priced, dependable supply of power that ought to proceed to be the spine of the state’s energy grid. 

Opponents argue that the state’s overreliance on fuel and restraint to undertake photo voltaic and wind power has led to excessive prices, an unreliable grid, and poisonous air air pollution that threatens the local weather and public well being. They fear that Louisiana’s new invoice will additional entrench that reliance.

Hydrocarbons: Louisiana’s new “inexperienced power”

“Pure” fuel is a selected mix of hydrocarbons, that are outlined in Louisiana statute as being “oil and fuel occurring naturally within the earth and every other helpful liquid or gaseous substance discovered and produced in affiliation with them.” 

Now, “inexperienced power” will embrace hydrocarbons, so long as they meet the Nationwide Ambient Air High quality Requirements beneath the Clear Air Act when combusted for electrical energy. These public well being necessities, nevertheless, are additionally shifting, because the Environmental Safety Company moved final week to roll again greenhouse fuel emissions requirements for energy crops.

The invoice permits fuel entities to develop into eligible for “all state applications that fund ‘inexperienced power’ or ‘clear power’ power initiatives.” Summarized inside the legislative index for its deal with power safety, affordability, and a dependable grid, the invoice emphasizes domestically produced power sources and mandates that utilities inside Louisiana “shall… use power generated by hydrocarbons.” It additionally instructs the Division of Vitality and Pure Assets to work with state regulators to find out how power is sourced within the state.

One new definition is inexact. “Inexpensive” is outlined as “the bottom affordable value technique of offering electrical energy is used, factoring within the true and complete value of every technology supply.” However the invoice doesn’t elaborate on how that value can be calculated. 

Different precepts and definitions have been “based mostly on misconceptions and mistaken assumptions” about power sources, stated Jackson Voss, local weather coverage coordinator for the buyer advocacy group Alliance for Inexpensive Vitality. 

Throughout a listening to on the laws within the Senate Pure Assets Committee, Rep. Landry framed the difficulty utilizing mistaken assumptions about renewable power, which are sometimes paired with batteries to retailer power that can be utilized in any climate situation. “Generally the solar don’t all the time shine and typically the wind don’t all the time blow,” Landry stated, suggesting the state was higher off relying closely on fuel. “We’d like a supply that’s fixed, constant and dependable on an economical foundation.”

Proof means that Louisiana residents bear the burden for the state’s refusal to diversify its energy sources. Residents right here shoulder far greater power payments whereas experiencing among the most frequent and longest energy outages within the nation, based on a report revealed by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Workplace earlier this yr. 

Excessive power use, the rising value of fuel, and extra frequent excessive climate occasions—which might result in large-scale failures in fuel crops—contribute considerably to the outages and excessive prices, the report discovered.

Earlier than the brand new invoice handed, the Superior Energy Alliance attested to this in written testimony.  “Codifying [fossil fuels] as the one acceptable path ahead,” the testimony reads, “dismisses a rising physique of proof that grid reliability depends upon useful resource range, transmission flexibility, and sensible integration of all accessible applied sciences, together with renewable power sources.”

Davante Lewis, one in every of 5 regulators serving on the Louisiana Public Service Fee, agrees that investments are centered too closely in a single space.

“We’ve got invested in a single sole-generation supply, which is dispatchable technology pure fuel,” he instructed the Senate Pure Useful resource Committee earlier than its members handed Rep. Landry’s invoice. “The purpose that I’m making just isn’t that it’s to get replaced, however it additionally has some problems,” Lewis stated, noting that he has been working together with others on the fee to look “at a number of choices that permit the grid to remain dependable but additionally reasonably priced.”

In 2018, the New Orleans Metropolis Council accredited a controversial new fuel plant after Entergy used paid actors at conferences to pretend neighborhood assist for the venture. But that fuel plant finally failed throughout a storm, prompting questions on whether or not fuel must be thought-about a dependable power supply in spite of everything. 

Fuel crops additionally launch carbon dioxide and a slew of poisonous pollution throughout combustion—elevating considerations about their contributions to the state’s rising summer time warmth, coastal points and frequent disasters, together with public well being points associated to native air high quality. “Louisiana is on the entrance line of the local weather disaster,” stated Voss, of the Inexpensive Vitality Alliance, who questioned the thought of constructing extra native fuel energy crops—which is able to now have the ability to emit much more air pollution in Louisiana’s air, due to federal authorities deregulation.

Renewables might take successful

Exterior of the Capitol, there’s widespread assist for brand new applied sciences. Nearly all of Louisiana residents assist the enlargement of renewables like wind and photo voltaic alongside fossil fuels, based on a survey revealed this yr by the Reilly Heart for Media & Public Affairs on the LSU Manship Faculty of Mass Communication.

New Orleans’ renewable portfolio customary requires that Entergy, the state’s largest utility, cease supplying carbon-emitting power sources to town by 2040 (with some offsets allowed) and fully transfer away from fossil fuels by 2050. 

Rep. Landry’s new laws is directed at state regulators and doesn’t explicitly preempt town’s necessities, as managed by the New Orleans Metropolis Council via its distinctive regulatory energy over Entergy New Orleans. However renewable power proponents fear that his invoice might affect whether or not Entergy New Orleans and state utilities tackle new renewable initiatives—or whether or not they use this modification in legislation as a pretext for not fulfilling the necessities of town’s renewable portfolio requirements.

Entergy New Orleans declined to touch upon these considerations.

In some states, like Tennessee, comparable state laws does override municipal renewable requirements—particularly, necessities that renewable power sources, like wind and photo voltaic, provide a specific amount of the state’s electrical energy demand. Like Louisiana, a brand new legislation in Tennessee considers fuel a renewable power supply however Tennessee went a step additional, requiring municipalities to do the identical—which might stop Nashville from attaining its purpose of 100% renewable power by 2041.

Due to a post-committee modification to the invoice, Division of Pure Assets employees and regulators should “ensur[e] [that] Louisiana has a adequate provide of renewable power manufacturing sources.” However the remainder of the invoice skews towards fossil fuels, implying, Voss stated, that utilities “ought to have a robust desire for issues that use hydrocarbons, on the very least.” 

That’s a part of the invoice’s design, a few of Rep. Landry’s allies say. “In impact, the invoice establishes an ‘anti-RPS’ (Renewable Portfolio Normal) framework of kinds,” wrote Jeff Sadow, an affiliate professor at Louisiana State College Shreveport, in a current op-ed. “It not solely blocks the imposition of an RPS in Louisiana but additionally elevates pure fuel and nuclear to equal standing with renewable sources.”

Electrical energy manufacturing is being engineered to assist additional industrialization

“Huge issues are coming to Louisiana to develop our financial system,” stated Rep. Landry earlier than his invoice’s last vote, in a reference to a few of Louisiana’s huge upcoming initiatives, together with Meta’s $10 billion funding in Richland Parish. “We simply need to make it possible for we don’t have an effect on our grid on account of lack thereof capacity to ship energy locations,” Landry stated.

If strictly enforced, the brand new invoice might straight affect how Entergy Louisiana plans and constructs the following technology of energy crops, particularly because it ramps as much as provide energy to Meta’s deliberate Louisiana knowledge heart, which would be the firm’s largest within the nation, at greater than 4 million sq. toes. 

Final yr, Entergy introduced that it could construct “trendy, environment friendly” electrical energy turbines for Louisiana’s knowledge heart.

However Entergy lacks the capability to fulfill the power calls for of such a mammoth facility. So the utility is making an attempt to fast-track the buildout of three new fuel energy crops—two in Richland Parish and one in St. Charles Parish.

Entergy clients will likely be on the hook for $470 million to finance the venture, based on filings with the Louisiana Public Service Fee and the Midcontinent Unbiased Service Operator, as reported by New Orleans Metropolis Enterprise.

Extra industrial enlargement will place additional demand on Louisiana’s grid. In Might, the Louisiana Public Service Fee accredited a proposal from Entergy to speculate $498 million in infrastructure upgrades for brand new services deliberate for the RiverPlex MegaPark in Ascension Parish. 

CF Industries, which already operates the world’s largest ammonia plant in Ascension Parish, plans to supply fertilizer with a $4 billion “blue” ammonia plant with excessive power calls for. Hyundai Motor Group additionally plans to construct a $5.8 billion metal manufacturing plant on the website.

The “blue” ammonia plant depends on unproven carbon seize expertise, developed in partnership with ExxonMobil, to retailer the plant’s greenhouse fuel emissions. Pelican Hub, a carbon-sequestration hub that’s beneath growth on greater than 30,000 acres throughout Livingston and St. Helena Parishes, can even require a yet-to-be-determined quantity of electrical energy to compress, transport and inject carbon dioxide greater than a mile underground.

Landry’s invoice appears to impinge on the fee’s authority to resolve how power within the state is sourced, a number of Home colleagues prompt. “We actually don’t want a invoice that encroaches upon the constitutional authority of the Public Service Fee,” stated Rep. Edmond Jordan. “I feel this may be challenged and deemed unconstitutional.”

The darkish cash marketing campaign to rebrand fuel as “inexperienced”

In 2024, Gov. Landry signed a pro-gas proclamation stating that “Louisiana acknowledges pure fuel as an reasonably priced, dependable, and clear power useful resource,” and that efforts to transition away from fossil fuels stand to “devastate” Louisiana shoppers and financial progress.

The Louisiana proclamation was celebrated by a gaggle known as The Empowerment Alliance, a fuel advocacy group. “That’s three down and 47 extra states to go,” wrote the group, which is now pushing comparable payments throughout the nation.

HB692 additionally obtained assist from the Heartland Institute, a fossil-fuel funded local weather denialist group with a historical past of obstructing photo voltaic power growth in Louisiana and different states. The legislative committee heard testimony from Heartland Affect, its advocacy arm. 

Whereas Entergy’s direct involvement within the invoice is unclear, the company was recognized as a part of The Empowerment Alliance, as documented in notes from an government committee assembly of the American Fuel Affiliation. Assembly individuals laid out {industry} plans to dam state and native transitions away from fuel and different fossil fuels, the notes present.

Screenshot from the assembly notes.

Payments just like Louisiana’s have handed in Ohio, Tennessee and Indiana. Lots of them echo a mannequin invoice finalized in September by the American Legislative Alternate Council (ALEC)—a Koch-funded lobbying community recognized for drafting laws to stall local weather motion. 

The Empowerment Alliance, helmed by a former gas-industry government couple, has led the push for ALEC’s mannequin invoice—floating the thought straight with legislators, calling it a “roadmap to victory” on its web site, and inspiring all 50 states to move the laws. 

Any transfer away from the fuel {industry} undermines the nation’s robust financial system and is an affront to American freedoms, lobbyists say.

In its preliminary model,  the Louisiana invoice launched by Rep. Landry in April included practically similar language to ALEC’s mannequin laws, stating that “inexperienced power shall imply any power generated by using an power useful resource through which the emissions are equal to the usual set by pipeline-quality pure fuel.”

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