Published on April 23, 2024 by Chris Galford

Backing a plan to fortify and increase resilience of the Entergy Louisiana power grid infrastructure, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) recently approved phase one of the company’s latest grid resilience plan.

As a result, Entergy Louisiana intends to launch 2,100 projects to reinforce critical transmission and distribution structures. All told, they should affect approximately 69,000 structures along the way, based on a data-driven approach for replacing existing utility poles.

“Our resilience plan is a proactive approach that will help bring more of our electric infrastructure up to higher standards, keep pace with Mother Nature and protect what matters most—customers, homes and businesses within the communities we serve,” Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO, said. “Although we have been building resilience into our power grid for years, we must accelerate those efforts now in light of the reality that storms are becoming more frequent and severe.”

The company noted that its plan should lead to approximately $1.2 billion in avoided future storm restoration costs, improvements for the everyday reliability of electric service and customer savings through shortened post-storm outages. To achieve this, it will replace thousands of utility poles with ones more capable of withstanding high wind and other extreme weather events.

The plan’s first phase should take around five years and cost approximately $1.9 billion. For the average residential customer, though, this will initially take the form of about 57 cents added to monthly bills. Over time, this will increase to approximately $7 per month, but once the five year period is over, bills will begin to decrease gradually once more. Quarterly monitoring will be offered for transparency throughout the process.

To help cut into the extra costs, Entergy Louisiana added that it will seek to court federal grants to apply to the cost of the plan.

The Republican-controlled Louisiana State Legislature, under the leadership of far-right, white supremacist Gov. Jeff Landry, is ramping up its attack on workers. Several new pieces of anti-union legislation have advanced in the Senate, constituting an all-out war on Louisiana workers. Several unions and community organizations, including the Louisiana branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, quickly mobilized in response and took to the streets of New Orleans on April 6 to demand an end to the state’s attack on workers’ rights. 

Taken together, the bills introduced amount to a virtual ban on public sector unions. House Bill 572 would prohibit collective bargaining with most public sector unions. Notably, this repressive measure would not impact law enforcement agencies. This is an indication of the power of police unions and their apparent untouchability within the political establishment. Police unions are notorious for protecting killer cops and granting special privileges not afforded to other labor unions. Another bill, House Bill 571, would prohibit government agencies from spending public funds on contract negotiations, and Senate Bill 331 would limit the ways that public sector unions can collect membership dues.

This latest attack on workers comes just weeks after the swift passage of several new racist “tough on crime” bills passed in the Legislature’s Special Session on Crime last month, bound to exacerbate the crisis of over-policing and mass incarceration of Black communities. Now, the legislature is cracking down on even broader swaths of the working class. Among those whose bargaining rights are at stake are the state’s 50,000 public school teachers, whose unions have already been severely undermined by the corporate charter school system built on the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina. 

New Orleans city workers, who won an ordinance in the City Council last year that codified their right to organize, fear that their hard-won efforts could soon be reversed. “The legislators are really throwing everything at us all at once to make it harder to fight back against,” said Maria Singer of the New Orleans City Workers Organizing Committee. “Years of work by my colleagues would be destroyed with the passage of many of these bills.” 

Grace Reinke, a public sector worker and organizer with United Campus Workers, sees the curtailing of worker’s rights as a targeted measure aiming at repressing worker people, especially in New Orleans. “Conservative elites see growing power in cities like ours and consider it a threat to their interests,” Reinke said. “Anything they can do to make organizing workers harder fits squarely in line with the broader agenda of pushing free-market ideals and maximizing profits at the expense of workers.” 

Workers in Louisiana — and all across the Deep South — are among the most exploited in the country. The state consistently ranks among the worst for wages, healthcare access, education, incarceration, and climate impacts. The corporate elite sees the South and its working class as a dumping ground for unwanted externalities. Poor people develop cancer and die when fossil fuel magnates flood their neighborhoods with toxic chemicals; Black working class communities are displaced by wealthy developers seeking new investment opportunities; tens of thousands of migrants are detained in privately-owned immigrant detention centers; the legacy of slavery continues through the violent and racist apparatus of mass incarceration. It would be foolish to divorce the issue of workplace benefits from the myriad of other issues that working class people face.

The ruling class establishment has proven that they will only side with labor when it is convenient for them and not overly detrimental to their primary interests– wealthy bankers, business executives and their shareholders. Despite his election promises to be a “pro-union” president, Biden quickly turned his back on labor in 2022 when he chose billionaire railroad executives over their workers. He signed a bill to block a strike and forced Congress to impose a contract that the union rejected, a clear violation of basic labor rights. A vast majority of Democrats voted in favor of the resolution to avert a walkout.

Former Louisiana governor Bel Edwards won in 2015 and 2019 with the help of a strong base of union support and labor endorsements, including the AFL-CIO. Throughout his tenure he signed some modest reforms into law including paid parental leave for Louisiana state employees and a bill codifying employees’ right to leave for health screening. Yet, after eight years of Democratic governorship, the state still ranks as one of the most abysmal for workers. Louisiana is one of over two dozen “right to work” states, a policy which allows workers to opt out of union membership — a victory for exploitative industries and bosses. 

We cannot hang our hopes on either of the corporate, ruling class parties to deliver basic rights to the working class. In the capitalist system, both parties are ultimately accountable to the bosses, and hardly ever to workers. No matter what backwards legislation our politicians pass, our movement will not falter. Only an independent, multinational, working class party, which unites all working class people under a socialist program, is capable of building a mass movement to end the dictatorship of the rich and put working people in power. 

VERMILION PARISH, La. (KPEL News) – Louisiana’s disappearing coastline has been a topic of conversation for decades, and it seems like we’re always getting new warnings and dire predictions about our homes in south Louisiana suddenly becoming beachfront property.

People are deeply concerned about Louisiana’s coastline disappearing due to the severe environmental, economic, and social consequences it entails. Louisiana’s coast is rapidly eroding at an alarming rate, primarily due to factors such as land subsidence, sea-level rise, and human activities like oil and gas extraction and canal dredging.

The disappearance of Louisiana’s coastline poses a significant threat to the state’s unique ecosystems, including marshes, wetlands, and barrier islands, which serve as vital habitats for diverse wildlife and help protect inland areas from storm surges and flooding. As these coastal habitats disappear, the region becomes more vulnerable to the impacts of hurricanes, tropical storms, and other natural disasters, exacerbating the risk of property damage, loss of life, and displacement of communities.

Furthermore, Louisiana’s disappearing coastline has profound economic implications, particularly for industries such as fishing, tourism, and shipping, which rely on healthy coastal ecosystems for their livelihoods.

The loss of coastal land also threatens critical infrastructure, including energy facilities, transportation networks, and freshwater supplies, further jeopardizing the state’s economy and public safety.

Overall, the disappearance of Louisiana’s coastline represents a pressing environmental and societal crisis that demands urgent action to mitigate its impacts and preserve this valuable natural resource for future generations.

However, there is one website out there that is attempting to show us what Louisiana might look like in 50 years if things don’t change.

Louisiana Parishes Underwater?

The map was created by climate researchers at Climate Center, which is an organization of scientists and journalists studying the impacts of climate change on the world. Their goal is to show what the future holds for coastal communities as sea level rise.

Looking at the map Climate Center has provided, it looks like a lot of southern parishes could be at risk.

Just take a look at how much bigger Vermilion Bay could be getting by 2080 if their map holds true.

New Orleans being surrounded by levies is certainly beneficial for the Big Easy. It looks like everything surrounding the city is set to be underwater or close to being fully submerged in the half-century.

That, however, makes things worse in future hurricane seasons. Less land surrounding New Orleans means more powerful storms making landfall right on top of the city. That would be devastating if it holds true.

As we endure extreme weather events, researchers warn that those events are becoming stronger and more common. Louisiana has spent a lot of time and money trying to stop its coastline from eroding away, but predictions like these certainly make the threat seem a lot more dire.

We’re no stranger to extreme weather events, though. Take a look at some of the worst most Louisiana residents still talk about.