If you’ve lived in Louisiana long enough, you’ve been bitten by a tick. You don’t see it coming—until it’s too late. That just happened to all of us.
Meta is building a $10 billion data center in Richland Parish. It will cover about 70 football fields and use over twice the electricity of Orleans Parish. To power it, Entergy is building gas plants and a $550 million transmission line. Cooling the servers will strain local aquifers. And when a hurricane knocks power out, Meta will get priority—not families.
Meta isn’t even footing the whole bill. They’re getting huge sales tax exemptions, property tax breaks and industrial deals. Entergy profits from construction, while Louisiana families will pay higher bills through fuel adjustments and infrastructure costs.
The “jobs”? Meta won’t verify them. And once built, a data center needs only a few long-term employees. Half of Louisiana households can’t make ends meet. Over 1,000 people called 211 in July for help with utility bills. The PSC just killed a program that would’ve lowered those bills. Entergy cut its “Power to Care” fund while reporting $1.8 billion in profits. And Congress just canceled a solar program that included $156 million for Louisiana.
Here’s the problem: gas and coal plants are expensive, especially during high demand. Utilities pass those fuel costs directly to us.
Everlasting and clean energy—solar, wind and storage—is already the cheapest new power in America. It helps prevent fuel spikes, but Entergy has no incentive to build it. This is The Big Suck. And Louisiana families are being drained.
Dustin Granger is an LSU alumnus residing in Lake Charles. He is the treasurer of the Louisiana Democratic Party and unsuccessfully ran for state treasurer in 2023.
