PLAQUEMINE — Members of Louisiana's Public Service Commission voted 4-1 Wednesday to give Entergy Louisiana permission to build three power plants and supply power to a proposed Meta artificial intelligence data center in northern Louisiana.

The $10 billion Richland Parish development is expected to create 500 or more new direct jobs, more than 1,000 indirect jobs, and 5,000 construction jobs.

Commissioner Foster Campbell said at the start of Wednesday's hearing that he was overwhelmingly in favor of the project — "1,000 percent."

Activitists had asked the PSC to delay a vote, saying too many questions remained. PSC Commissioner Davante Lewis, who voted against the approval, said that while he was open-minded, he was dissatisfied with how the project went through.

"There are also some significant uncertainties about this deal's impact," he said. "I believe my most important job as a regulator is to trust but verify. And the truth is there are a lot of things that I just cannot verify at this moment."

In particular, he said, he was troubled by the Entergy's construction of three power plants for one customer without taking competitive bids.