Louisiana has a long tradition of loud, messy, public argument. Utility rate cases, pipeline fights, data center debates. We’ve never been a state that settles these things quietly. That’s a strength, not a nuisance. The more voices the Public Service Commission hears, the better its decisions tend to be.
So it’s worth pausing on a rule the Commission is now considering, one that would require any group intervening in its proceedings to disclose where its money comes from, including funding from out of state and from certain foreign sources. The directive came out of an April meeting in Alexandria, and by this summer it had drawn opposition from groups across the ideological map, from clean-energy advocates to wireless industry lawyers, on First Amendment grounds. We also have concerns.
The impulse behind the proposed rule makes sense. In fact, Pelican Institute has written about the influence of foreign adversaries and other special interests on energy debates here in Louisiana. Importantly, that research and work was compiled from publicly-available information, and it aims to enrich and inform a fact-based debate over important public policy issues. The goal of that ongoing work is never to silence particular voices.
There’s a real and serious concern about hostile foreign governments — China, Russia, and the like — using front groups to influence American energy and infrastructure decisions. That’s not a hypothetical worry, and a Commission that wants to guard against it is doing its job.
At present, the rule doesn’t stop at that concern. It sweeps in nonprofits, trade associations, and advocacy groups of every stripe, requiring them to trace funding through intermediaries and disclose donor relationships that may have nothing to do with the case at hand. That’s a different thing entirely, and it runs into a wall the Supreme Court has built up over nearly seven decades: the government cannot force organizations to hand over their supporters’ identities just because it would like to know who’s talking.
I believe so strongly in the fundamental principle of free speech and association that I am proud to serve on the board of People United for Privacy Foundation, which defends the right of every American—donors, members, volunteers, and supporters alike—to stand with the causes they believe in without fear.
The Court restated this most clearly in 2021, in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. Compelled disclosure of an organization’s donors gets “exacting scrutiny,” meaning the government has to show a real, substantial connection between what it’s demanding and a genuinely important interest, and it has to tailor the demand narrowly to that interest. A generalized wish for “transparency” doesn’t clear that bar. Neither does citing the mere possibility that some intervenor, somewhere, might have out-of-state support.
The Court underlined the point again this spring, in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport, a case about a New Jersey subpoena for a nonprofit’s donor list, decided unanimously in April. The justices were blunt about why this matters: the pressure a disclosure demand puts on donors “to avoid ties and speech that might displease” the people demanding the disclosure can be constant and heavy, whether or not the demand is ever actually enforced. The chilling effect is the harm.
There’s a narrower path available. If the Commission’s real concern is hostile foreign governments working through front organizations, it can write a rule aimed at that rather than one that reaches every trade association, landowner group, or nonprofit that wants to weigh in on a rate case. Louisianans have relatives, friends, alumni networks, and donors all over the country, and courts have consistently rejected the idea that a contribution becomes suspect the moment it crosses a state line.
The Commission deserves credit for narrowing this proposal somewhat at its June meeting, and for taking the First Amendment concerns seriously enough to engage with stakeholders who have raised them. That’s the right instinct. The next step is finishing the job: focus the rule on the actual risk of foreign interference and leave the rest of Louisiana’s civic debate as loud, open, and full of competing voices as it’s always been.
