The Louisiana Public Service Commission rejected an independent judge’s recommendation Wednesday (Aug. 12) that would have required tech giant Meta Platforms to turn over key information about its large data centers in Richland Parish — including its partnership with the utility company Entergy to build 10 new gas power plants to power the facilities.
In her ruling before the PSC Wednesday, administrative law judge Melanie Verzwyvelt wrote that it was clear no parameters were set for the information requested in subpoenas — projected economic impact, job creation and to substantiate power demand at the data centers — would compel the company to respond, and that Meta was exclusively against them in nature.
Her recommendation to the full commission was to reject Meta’s effort to quash the subpoenas and allow advocacy groups intervening to review the information.
But in a 3-1 vote marked by moments of fraught disagreement between some commissioners, the PSC rejected Verzwyvelt’s recommendation.
Susan Stevens Miller, a senior attorney at Earthjustice representing the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Alliance for Affordable Energy in this case, said the PSC ultimately voted to let Meta off the hook.
“(Verzwyvelt) rightfully reaffirmed that the information Meta is hiding is critical for regulators to meaningfully evaluate Entergy and Meta’s proposal in a process already lacking meaningful public accountability,” she said.
Verzwyvelt’s late-July ruling could have shaped how much the public ever learns about the true cost and payoff of the state's biggest industrial buildout, while also setting a precedent for other, future projects. That precedent has seemingly now been set in the other direction after today’s reversal by the public service commissioners themselves.
“Today’s decision is another blow to Louisianans who deserve a transparent regulatory process before they’re saddled with higher utility bills and seven new gas plants for a project that may not produce promised jobs and economic development,” Miller said.
Logan Burke, executive director of the Louisiana-based Alliance for Affordable Energy, told commissioners that being able to review the information is in the public interest.
“Entergy, and indeed the governor and many other elected officials, have insisted that the public interest is met in large part because of the economic development elements of this case,” Burke said. “It’s incredibly important that the very last people (the PSC) who have an opportunity to say whether this is in the public interest have the information to make that determination.”
AAE says only limited information is available, such as the more than 5 gigawatt power request — by far the largest in state history — and an estimated $13 billion transmission infrastructure investment.
Meta’s own motion to kill the subpoenas argued the requested information was neither relevant nor necessary for the PSC to rule on their joint application with Entergy. The company's attorneys also argued that providing the documentation could reveal proprietary information or technologies and expose them to business risks.
Combined, both the ‘Hyperion’ and newer ‘Evest’ artificial intelligence data centers could be among the largest in the world. Three gas plants were approved by the PSC last year, and seven more are now up for approval, likely later this year, under an expedited timeline requested by both companies.
This was made possible by an executive order issued by Gov. Jeff Landry — and later adopted as a major regulatory change by the PSC — that seeks to speed up connections of large industrial projects to the power grid.
Shortly after Entergy filed its request on behalf of Meta to have the project approved by state utility regulators, environmental groups and ratepayer advocates intervened, filing subpoenas asking the two companies to produce the requested information about the projects.
PSC tensions laid bare
Despite moving the Meta subpoena vote to the top of this month’s meeting agenda, PSC chair Eric Skrmetta, who simultaneously holds the fourth-highest position in the U.S. Department of Energy, moved to defer the vote on the subpoenas to next month.
District 3 commissioner Davante Lewis immediately objected, and a disagreement between the two commissioners over proper procedure soon followed.
“We have found a way at this commission, for some odd reason, to find every excuse to not do something when it favors Entergy and Meta, but we find every exception to our rules when it favors Entergy and Meta, and that’s why I oppose the motion to defer,” Lewis said.
District 2 commissioner Jean Paul Coussan, who authored the motion aligning the PSC with Gov. Landry’s “Lightning Speed Initiative” last winter, supported Lewis in his opposition — albeit to ultimately hold a vote rejecting the independent Judge’s ruling and freeing Meta from any obligation to the subpoenas.
Moments later, during his questioning of witnesses, Skrmetta interrupted Lewis and asked if he planned on walking through the process of the judge’s ruling with their attorney. Lewis replied that he did and asked not to be disrespected.
That disagreement proliferated about an hour later, when Lewis asked that he be able to question one of Meta’s attorneys about their motion to quash the subpoenas.
Skrmetta rejected that under the commission’s procedural guidelines and told Lewis he was out of order, then referred the question to the PSC’s executive counsel, Kathryn Bowman, who affirmed that Lewis was in fact correct, but Meta’s attorney could refuse to appear.
A member of the tightly-packed crowd in Baton Rouge then yelled out at Skrmetta, accusing him of being on Meta’s payroll.
As Skrmetta began to deny that, Lewis said “It looks like it,” to which Skrmetta replied, “Is that how it’s going to be? Are you on the payroll of the Democratic Socialists of America? A future communist? We’ll see you in the next election cycle.”
A recent Gulf States Newsroom investigation found Skrmetta, then the vice-chair, sent a motion on a separate Entergy transmission project tied to the Hyundai Steel mill in Ascension Parish that was authored by Larry Hand, Entergy’s VP of regulatory and public affairs.
Appointed to the DOE by President Donald Trump, Skrmetta is a longtime figure in Louisiana’s Republican Party and was first elected to the PSC in 2009, now representing one of two open seats up for grabs on the commission this November after reaching his term limit.
He’s also been a steadfast supporter of utilities and, as the industry has grown in recent years, data centers.
The growing disagreement with Commissioner Lewis that boiled over on Wednesday dates back several months. In the tense Dec, 2025 meeting where the PSC adopted a regulatory framework aligning the commission with Gov. Landry’s lightning speed initiative, the two also bickered when Lewis said he felt he was interrupted.
To that, Skrmetta quietly responded, “I didn’t say s---.”
During the Aug. 12 meeting, as Lewis sat dejected to one end of the dais and Skrmetta tried to call a vote, Meta’s attorney declined to appear before the commissioners. Most of the 20 witnesses who filed into the room began to loudly leave.
Lewis’ solitary vote against rejecting the subpoenas carried through the room, and within two minutes of the near-shouting match, the PSC moved the largest investment in state history one step closer to an expedited approval.
