Business & Technology

A federal appeals court has rejected an effort by Louisiana utility regulators to make Entergy Corp. subsidiaries in Arkansas and Mississippi pay for ending an agreement with their Entergy counterparts in Louisiana and Texas.

The ruling Tuesday by an appeals court in Washington deals with an agreement requiring the separate Entergy utilities to offer roughly equal electricity rates. At times, this has resulted in Entergy Arkansas making payments to Entergy affiliates with higher production costs — causing Arkansas customers to pay more.

The U.S. Department of Labor has set aside nearly $100 million in grants for states to set up or improve existing short-term compensation programs, commonly referred to as "work sharing."

Louisiana's share of the grant is $1.5 million. Work sharing allows employees to keep their jobs and helps employers to avoid laying off their workforce during economic downturns by reducing the hours of work for a group of affected workers.