Whose side is who on and when

One interesting thing about the Entergy situation is how slippery the councilmembers can be when pressure is applied. It was just a few days ago that Moreno helped introduce this resolution. Yesterday, she was among the suddenly SHOCKED SHOCKED at the utility's behavior. 

Perhaps banking too much on the City Council's goodwill, Entergy New Orleans pushed its luck Thursday, and lost out.

Its deal with a City Council committee to pay $5 million from its profits in exchange for the right to build a $210 million power plant in New Orleans East will still be considered by the full council.

But when Entergy officials tried to convince the committee to call the $5 million a "payment" instead of a fine, members balked.

"Marcus, you gotta be kidding me here," said Helena Moreno, the head of the utility committee, after Entergy counsel Marcus Brown requested the change.

Granted, that was a weasely maneuver.  But it can't have come as the kind of surprise Moreno played it up to be in the moment. The gas plant saga has gotten a ton of attention. Probably more than it really deserves. But it has opened the door for the public to vent frustrations with Entergy. That's always welcome under any circumstances.  It's also made for some entertaining theater.  Even though so much of that is Kabuki.

For example, here is Jay Banks trying to make sure everyone understands which side he's on now. Even though he has been on several.

But he shifted to defending his résumé after Monique Harden of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice questioned his silence on his one-time lobbying job with Legend Consulting Group, one of the groups that has long helped the council regulate Entergy.

From 2005 to 2008, he worked in a similar capacity for Entergy New Orleans.

"You’ve never disclosed it," Harden accused, claiming he worked for Legend in 2016, around the same time the group began to pitch the council on the plant. 

"Ma’am, I’ve never met you to tell you anything," he replied. "I don’t know you from a can of paint."

He then said that he did work for both Legend and Entergy because he was "good at what I do, just like Shaquille O'Neal."

See, Jay is very good at saying and doing whatever it is the sponsor paying him at that moment would like him to say or do.  Just like Shaquille O'Neal. 

Shaquille O'Neal may be one of the greatest big men to play in the NBA, but for all the success he had as a player, his career has become even more profitable since his retirement thanks to his turn in advertising. 

In an interview with reporter Bernard Goldberg for "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" on HBO, Shaq revealed through endorsement appearances with brands including Gold Bond, The General, and Carnival cruises; he's turned his post-playing career into a profitable enterprise of personal branding.

Today, The Lens published a report on a 2015 City Council resolution directing Entergy to “pursue the development of at least 120 megawatts of new-build peaking generation capacity within the City of New Orleans."  We could reasonably interpret that to mean that the Council, its consultants, and Entergy have always been on the same page regarding the gas plant proposal. Maybe there's no harm in that.

There are further complications.  The impetus for this begins with a federal regulatory settlement determining Entergy's overall reorganization.  Part of that settlement required Entergy to look at new ways to generate power in New Orleans. That directive is now being interpreted in various ways by Entergy and by the "environmental justice" groups filing lawsuits. Did the settlement dictate the new gas plant? Did Entergy inappropriately apply it to that purpose? Did the consultants push these interpretations in one way or the other?

These are not easy questions for us layfolk to answer. But we are pretty sure that the interests of a utility and its regulator and any consulting firms involved in the process are naturally going to conflict every now and again, right?  Which is why it's important to make sure we know who is on which side and when.

Banks clarified after the meeting that he quit his job at Legend on June 30, 2017, weeks before qualifying for the Oct. 14, 2017 municipal elections. 

"Please note that my most recent involvement in this process is on the side of the City Council, the regulator, which is the side I am on now as a City Council member," Banks said in a statement. "At no point have I ever attempted to, nor have I ever felt a need to hide this fact."

Okay but he's been on all three sides and has passed among them throughout the course of this one issue in progress. Seems a little off.  But let's not pick on Banks too much.  It's clear enough that under normal circumstances, when the atmosphere is less of a public circus, that this is the way it always works.