A Louisiana Public Service Commission majority improved the state’s competitive position by streamlining its approval process for large power users while batting away a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Last week, the PSC approved a directive sponsored by Republican Commissioner Jean-Paul Coussan that would cut red tape for such users, as defined by the Commission. This change permits quicker approval for projects that feature a minimum 15-year electric-service agreement with a new or expanding customer, confirmation from the Department of Economic Development that the project is a priority, and a pledge by the user to provide at least half of the revenue needed to cover no less than half of the project’s fixed costs–typically involving expanded transmission capacity.

Heretofore all requests to the PSC went through a usual process that might take up to two years for vetting. Under the new procedure, if the PSC determines that a project meets these criteria, approval could take as little as one-third of that time. A majority of the Commission concluded this was necessary to accelerate approval of these inherently massive projects, which by their nature already require longer lead times, especially amid competition from other states seeking to attract them. By and large, this new procedure applies to data centers that collectively will require multiplicative increases in power across the United States over the next decade.

One special interest, a group of large chemicals-based industrial users, wanted some restrictions included, such as guarantees of lowest pricing and highest reliability. This request must be understood in the context that some of these users have expressed interest in becoming their own energy producers—either to sell power or to capture tax credits domestically and abroad from more expensive renewable energy sources–moves that could ultimately drive up prices for all consumers. Earlier this year the PSC shot down their request to launch that process, effectively leaving existing power companies as the only wholesale providers. To date, the largest of those providers, Entergy Louisiana, has been the overwhelming beneficiary of the proposed new business likely to be stimulated by the directive.

As wisely, it also rejected a directive by Democrat Commissioner Davante Lewis that would have defined the large user category, and with project applications, demand details about such things as cost-sharing, reliability, and consumer protections. Lewis touted this as a means to enhance transparency and allow for a more informed judgment on whether such actions should be approved, while implicitly criticizing the newly adopted directive as risking broad price increases without the safeguards his proposal included. His version was favored by other special interests that advocate reducing fossil fuel use and would have imposed a more restrictive approval process than currently exists.

But as Coussan and other commissioners noted, it wasn’t necessary to have this framework to enjoy the advantages that Lewis articulated. Republican Commissioner Eric Skrmetta pointed out that these kinds of things didn’t have to be dealt with up front, but as the process unfolded. The PSC has the authority to impose at any time restrictions and requirements onto a user, including such things as procurement and sourcing that protect all other users, including the public, from paying higher rates. Simply, the approved directive created a widemouthed funnel for project discretion that the PSC can narrow down to the width of a straw as needed, while the failed directive acted like a straw, piling on rules and regulations from the start that would slow down approval and restrict flexibility.

And it masked a hidden agenda. Lewis and his ilk know that the only source of cheap and rapidly built-up generation capacity comes from fossil fuels. The approved directive creates every incentive, because of the size of demand involved and speed needed to facilitate, for an increase in fossil fuel usage. As acolytes of evidence-free catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hysteria, they want to use every means to discourage fossil fuel usage, including trying to foist a regulatory straitjacket onto those projects that would cause the largest increase in usage of that kind of energy.

Fortunately, all other commissioners didn’t accept these Luddites’ Trojan Horse, and so now Louisiana has become even better placed to exercise its competitive advantages for beneficial economic development.