PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell
Entergy customers are seeing higher electricity bills this summer. The utility company warned its customers their utility bill will go up, because of previous storm repair costs and higher natural gas prices. Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell still believes the power company is charging ratepayers too much.
“The price of natural gas has gone up, it’s almost double, we make a lot of electricity out of natural gas, I can understand that, but I don’t think Entergy has a lot of sympathy,” said Campbell.
But fellow Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta told Fox 8 TV in New Orleans that Louisiana has some of the lowest rates in the nation.
But Campbell believes rates would go down in Louisiana if Entergy didn’t have a monopoly on most of the state.
“Maybe we need to open up for competition or at least study it,” said Campbell. “A lot of other people around the country have competition and they are doing better, I don’t know we gotta do something.”
Baton Rouge area Public Service Commissioner, Dr. Craig Greene, told WAFB-TV he also wants to see more competition among utility providers. Greene says in just the last two to three weeks they’ve received more than 300 complaints about high utility bills.
Campbell says he’s upset rising energy prices are making it difficult on Louisiana families, while Entergy’s stockholders and CEO see more money.
“For the last three years, Entergy has been giving billion dollar dividends to its stockholders, probably saw in the paper that their president went from $16-million a year to $17-million a year,” said Campbell.
Entergy says it can not stop paying dividends to its shareholders.
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