Entergy Louisiana will start billing customers statewide $3.2 billion for repairs after five hurricanes in 2020 and 2021.
customers statewide $3.2 billion for repairs after five hurricanes in 2020 and 2021. The utility company doesn’t have to pay a dime toward those repairs and its CEO even gets a $4 million pay raise. Meanwhile, all of Entergy’s customers in the state — even those who didn’t have any storm damages or live in an area that wasn’t impacted by a storm during the past two years — have to pay up.
The surcharge fee could vary between $5 and $15 per month and can start showing up on bills as early as May. Shreveport’s Commissioner Foster Campbell cast the vote in opposition to the proposal and said that he didn’t think it fair to customers in north Louisiana who were not affected as much by the storms to have to pay an equal share of the costs while Entergy “won’t pay a single quarter.
My hometown of Shreveport is in the northwest corner of Louisiana, and by the time a major hurricane finds its way there, it’s usually down to a normal-sized storm — nothing like the Category 4 and 5 hurricanes that impacted the state last year and in 2020. If customers in north Louisiana weren’t impacted, then why do they have to pay the extra money?