Give them credit: Roughly 680,000 Cleco customers across the company’s servicer region this week have begun receiving $500 refund notices. The credit is the result of negotiations regarding the recent sale of CLECO to a group of investors. CLECO’s residential, commercial and industrial customers will get credits on their bills of $478. For a residential customer using $100 per month in power, the credit amounts to nearly five months of free electricity, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell says in a statement. In addition to the credits, the deal struck with the Public Service Commission includes an agreement to retain Cleco’s Pineville headquarters; paying $7 million to Louisiana Economic Development for business promotion; job security for its 1,200-person workforce for 10 years, and protections of retiree pensions and health benefits; and a reconstituted board of directors with four Louisiana members and a Louisiana chairman.
A win for oil and gas: The U.S. House of Representatives approved late Wednesday two amendments to the federal Interior Department’s appropriation bill that would protect the oil and gas industry, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany tells The Advertiser. One amendment pertains to mandating liability bonds for decommissioning wells on the Outer Continental Shelf. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in August 2015 mandated that companies with leases on the shelf would have to commit more funding for liability. The other pertains to funding the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s Well Control Rule, portions of which would be effective by the end of July. BSEE developed the rule in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. Boustany proposed both amendments. Read the full story, and read a recent Business Report feature on the Well Control Rule.
Tragedy hits home: The Washington Post reports a father and son from Lakeway, Texas, are among the 84 people killed in a France when a truck drove through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day. Sean Copeland, 51, and his 11-year-old son, Brodie, were killed in the apparent terrorist attack in Nice. The State Department confirmed two U.S. citizens were killed in the attack in the south of France, though it did not name the victims. In a statement, Jess Davis, a family spokesman told The Post that the family was heartbroken and shocked over the loss. The Copelands were on a family vacation where they traveled from Pamplona to Barcelona in Spain and then to the French Riviera city of Nice. Read the full story.
