State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty, who is running for the state Public Service Commission, has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from groups and people connected to utilities that the commission regulates. (Photo illustration by Bethany Atkinson/Deep South Today)
In her bid to join the Louisiana Public Service Commission, state Rep.Stephanie Hilferty, R-New Orleans, has received more than $137,000 in campaign contributions from people and groups connected to some of the very companies that she would be in charge of regulating if elected.
Hilferty, a Republican, is the likely frontrunner in the race to represent the Public Service Commission’s District 1, which includes parts of the Greater New Orleans area. Her opponents include Democrat Connie Norris and independent Chris Justin. Republican John Atkins is running against Democrat James Green for District 5, which represents Northern Louisiana.
The contributions come as the Public Service Commission — which regulates electric, water and gas companies, as well as common carriers — has been at the center of high-stakes decisions over the buildout of power-hungry AI data centers around the state.
And some of Hilferty’s contributors have been key players in those debates, including Louisiana’s largest electric company, Entergy, which is seeking expedited approval to build an additional seven gas plants to power Meta’s data center in Richland Parish. Last year, the company got approval to build three new natural gas plants for the project. The commission is also responsible for approving grid improvements and setting electric rates for most of the state.
While controversial, it is not illegal for members of or candidates for the Public Service Commission to take contributions from regulated utilities. In fact, it’s quite common. In 2024, a Floodlight News analysis found that more than 40% of contributions to commissioners came from utilities, energy businesses or their lawyers and lobbyists.
In total, Hilferty’s campaign has received $28,000 from Entergy executives and the company’s political action committee.
Of the five candidates on the ballot, Hilferty is the only candidate to receive substantial support from major utilities regulated by the commission.
Some notable utility donations to Hilferty’s campaign include:
To calculate the sum of utility donations, Verite News aggregated contributions made by the utility companies themselves with contributions made by high-level executives and political action committees associated with the utilities ($12,000 is the maximum contribution that an individual can make, but large political action committees and political parties are able to contribute more).
Hilferty, unlike her opponents, has also benefitted from outside spending — groups that campaign on her behalf but do not coordinate with her campaign. In June, as Hilferty prepared to face off against former Jefferson Parish President John Young in the second round of the Republican primary for the District 1 seat, a Texas-based political action committee, called American Power PAC, spent $161,000 on digital ads in support of her campaign. According to campaign finance filings, American Power, which is new to Louisiana politics, is led by Larry Ward of Michigan and funded entirely by a Michigan-based nonprofit called American Power Play.
Ward, who also heads American Power Play, according to Michigan business filings, is the former political director of the Michigan Republican Party. Ward has worked with the Conservative Energy Network, and several top officials from the Conservative Energy Network are named as principals of American Power Play.
Ward and the Conservative Energy Network advocate for building out the nation’s grid and taking a conservative approach to renewable energy adoption. In Michigan, Ward and American Power Play championed a bill called the “MAGA Solar” bill that, on the one hand, would have created a community solar program but, on the other, would have created a 20% cap on solar power’s share of Michigan’s grid.
It is not clear if American Power Play receives donations from utilities regulated by the Louisiana Public Service Commission. The group is a newly formed 501(c)(3) charitable organization that is not required to publicly disclose its donors. Ward could not be reached for comment.
Hilferty’s opponents, Justin and Norris, both previously told Verite News that they would not accept contributions from the utilities the commission regulates.
“The Public Service Commission is intended to be a referee of sorts between utility interests and ratepayer interests,” Justin said in an interview. “If the utilities are paying off the referee, then it’s not going to be a fair game.”
Atkins and Green, in District 5, also decided not to accept utility donations.
Last fall, after Atkins first announced his intent to run for the commission, he received $1,000 from American Electric Co. and $2,500 from Magnolia Water Utility, but he said he refunded both earlier this year.
“I decided that I should have an ‘arm’s length’ relationship with all regulated entities,” Atkins told Verite News.
Earlier this month, when asked by The Times-Picayune about the utility donations, Hilferty said that she had received contributions from various businesses across the state representing “different aspects and segments of industry and residents and ratepayers” and portrayed herself as a watchdog candidate.
Hilferty did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Verite News. Neither did Norris or Green.
The state Public Service Commission is a constitutionally-created body responsible for regulating utilities that provide electricity, gas and water across the state, as well as common carriers.
Only 10 states have elected Public Service Commissions, also known as Public Utility Commissions. Other states typically have the governor or state legislature appoint Public Service Commissioners. Of the 10 states where commission members are elected, six allow them to accept money from the utilities they regulate.
Daniel Tait, a researcher with the Energy and Policy Institute, described Louisiana as “the wild, wild west of campaign finance” when it comes to Public Service Commission elections.
“It’s wild that utilities can just give money directly to their regulators, and they do so by the thousands in Louisiana,” he added. “That is at least explicitly illegal in most states.”
Tait said that Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama — nearby states that also elect their Public Service Commissioners — prohibit candidates from receiving money from the entities they regulate.
As of 2022, the New Orleans City Council, which regulates utilities within the city, is also barred from accepting donations from regulated entities.
Among commissioners’ primary responsibilities is determining what rates residential and commercial customers will pay on their utility bills. They are also in charge of approving the terms and conditions of major infrastructure requests made by the utilities.
“Ultimately, the money matters because you’re trying to find out where the influence is coming from and who is trying to buy influence with the commission,” Tait said.
Logan Burke, the executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a longtime ratepayer advocacy nonprofit, said that the nonprofit has been tracking campaign contributions for years.
“It’s been very clear how much money — and even sometimes industrial money — flows into these elections,” Burke told Verite News.
Utilities are not the only interest groups that contribute heavily to Public Service Commission campaigns. Attorneys and lobbyists representing oil and gas or other industries contribute heavily to these campaigns.
These contributions can build relationships between the commissioners and representatives of utilities and other industrial groups, said Dr. Robert Collins, a political scientist and professor with Dillard University.
Some Public Service Commissions in other states restrict the communication between commissioners and regulated entities — in part, because regulatory decisions are decided in a formalized legal docket, where utilities and other intervenors file briefs and provide evidence. But Louisiana has lax rules around communication between commissioners and regulated entities, allowing for commissioners to freely have private conversations with the utilities they regulate. And people familiar with Public Service Commission decision-making say utility representatives often discuss rate-cases and infrastructure proposals with commissioners before filing official requests.
“Financial contributions open those doors and allow access so that they can argue their case,” Collins said.
Tait, the energy policy researcher, said that utility donations are rarely about supporting one political party or another. Instead, what these companies care about is supporting who they think is most likely to be elected.
“It is almost entirely less about party and more about incumbency or likelihood to win,” Tait said.
When contacted by Verite News, a spokesperson for Entergy Louisiana said that any contributions made by Entergy employees — such as CEO Phillip May — were “strictly personal and voluntary.” The spokesperson also said that the company’s PAC was nonpartisan.
“ENPAC, Entergy’s voluntary, employee‑driven and nonpartisan political action committee, contributes to a wide range of federal, state and local candidates based on established criteria, including a candidate’s voting record, committee assignments and positions on issues important to our customers, communities and the electric utility industry,” the spokesperson said.
Cleco and Delta Utilities did not respond to requests for comment.
“I really wanna break the public’s notion that utilities care about partisanship,” Tait said. “They care about profits, and they will cozy up to whoever is in power — left, right, or independent, you name it — in order to do that.”
Campaign finance filings show that, as of late last month, in the District 1 race, Hilferty had raised $668,801.50, Justin had raised $170,657.37 and Norris had raised $11,500.42. In the District 5 race, Atkins had raised $592,560 and Green had raised $18,294.37.
An analysis by Verite News showed that in addition to the money that Hilferty received from utilities — which includes money from their political action committees and executives — she also received significant contributions from other groups with a vested interest in Public Service Commission business, including attorneys and lobbyists for various industries, as well as groups representing large industrial customers.
Some of these notable and significant donations to Hilferty’s campaign include:
None of the above companies responded to requests for comment.
Verite News also analyzed top-dollar donors to the other candidates running for Public Service Commission. That analysis showed that among contributors who gave more than $5,000, regulated utilities and out-of-state Democratic donors were heavily represented.
The largest individual contributor was the Environmental Defense Action Fund, a political action committee associated with the Environmental Defense Fund, which gave $24,000 in total — $12,000 to Hilferty and $12,000 to Hilferty’s opponent, Justin.
The second largest individual contributor was ENPAC, which gave $20,000 to Hilferty. (Hilferty also received an additional $5,000 from Phillip May, the Entergy Louisiana CEO, and $2,500 Entergy Corporation CEO Andrew Marsh, plus $500 from Larry Hand, the vice president of regulatory and public affairs at the company.)
The third largest individual contributor was Timothy Poché, the CEO of natural gas provider Delta Utilities, who gave $17,000 to Hilferty’s campaign — $5,000 during the primary and another $12,000 during the general election.
Verite News’ analysis also showed that Justin, who is running as an independent, received a significant amount of out-of-state money, largely from donors associated with environmental issues.
Some notable out-of-state donations to Justin’s campaign include:
The last time there was a major uptick in contributions from out-of-state donors in the Public Service Commission election was in 2022, when Davante Lewis ran — and was later elected — to represent District 2. Like Justin, Lewis refused to accept campaign contributions from the utilities regulated by the commission.
When asked about these out-of-state contributions, Justin said that accepting money from a variety of donors was the reality of trying to run a competitive campaign. He also said that Public Service Commission races were becoming more high profile, sparking interest from out-of-state donors.
“Unfortunately, it takes money in modern politics to be able to win,” Justin told Verite News. “ I have been very clear from the start of this is what I believe in, and if you also believe in that, please give me money.”
He also reiterated that accepting money from out-of-state contributors was different from accepting money from the utilities that the commission directly regulates.
“ We should not have bought and paid regulators who do not understand the job, who will just rubber-stamp exactly what utilities say,” Justin said.
The debate over whether candidates for the Public Service Commission should accept contributions from the utilities they regulate comes as the Public Service Commission weighs major energy infrastructure decisions related to Gov. Jeff Landry’s Lightning Speed initiative. Those decisions include whether to approve Entergy Louisiana’s expedited request to build seven new gas plants to generate electricity to power Meta’s massive data center in Richland Parish — in addition to three previously approved last year — and Cleco’s expedited request to build new energy generation to support Applied Digital’s new data center in Rapides Parish.
The Louisiana Public Service Commission is tasked not only with determining whether to approve those requests for major new energy generations, but also what terms and conditions should apply to that potential approval.
One major concern among ratepayer advocates is that the cost of major data-center-related infrastructure might someday be passed down onto ratepayers.
Burke, of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, pointed out that state regulations allow monopoly utilities to earn guaranteed returns on capital investments, creating a structural incentive to build as much infrastructure as possible.
“The commission has absolute authority to say no … and to demand that these tech companies bring their own power,” Burke said. “Instead, what they are doing is looking for ways to get to yes on everything the utility is asking for” — a fact that Burke partly attributes to the influx of money from utilities into campaign coffers.
At a candidate forum hosted by the conservative Pelican Institute for Public Policy earlier this year, Hilferty said that it is important to make sure that ratepayers aren’t taking on “a large portion of that risk.”
“A lot of that risk should fall back onto the company that is bringing that data center,” Hilferty said.
Atkins, one of the two commissioner candidates in District 5, agreed.
“My primary concern is ensuring that the [Public Service Commission] uses all tools at its disposal to ensure that the additional infrastructure costs associated with Data Centers [are] carried by the hyperscalers (i.e., Meta, Amazon, etc) requesting the buildouts,” Atkins said in an email.
However, Justin warned that, absent stronger regulatory action from the Louisiana Public Service Commission, Entergy’s bid as currently written would put the risk on ratepayers — and potentially increase their utility bills long term.
“We are about to lock in decades of costs onto our bills,” Justin said. “ And once these costs are locked in onto our bills, there is no going back. So we need scrutiny now.”
Tait, the energy policy researcher, agreed.
“What keeps me up at night is that there are a lot of decisions being made by regulators that impact regular people in a massive way every single month,” Tait said. “If you look at this system, you see a tremendous amount of wealth extraction from regular people and people who are frankly struggling — all to benefit essentially what amounts to probably one of the wealthiest corporations in the entire state.”
This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
