A Utility Regulator Redacted Nearly a Third of Its Own Order.
Then a Nurse Filed a Public-Records Request — and Got Sued for It.
Jessica Kivell, a central Arkansas nurse, filed a routine state public-records request with the Arkansas Public Service Commission. The commission accidentally released documents marked confidential. Kivell shared them with a newspaper reporter. What the documents showed: Google is covering roughly one-third — not the “100 percent” publicly promised — of the cost to build the $1.6 billion solar plant powering its new West Memphis data center, with everyday ratepayers absorbing more of the difference than they'd been told.
Entergy Arkansas's response was not to correct the record. It was to sue Kivell, the newspaper, and a second outlet in federal court — asking a judge to bar her from ever discussing the documents again, order her to destroy her copies, and identify everyone she'd shared them with.
A federal judge said no — in language rarely seen outside a First Amendment casebook.
- $526 million — Google's actual upfront payment toward the $1.6 billion Cypress Solar plant, per the released PSC documents · Source: NWA Democrat-Gazette
- $2.103 billion — Entergy's own framing of Google's total 20-year obligation, disputing the “one-third” characterization · Source: Mountain Home Observer
- $5.77–$8.35 — monthly rate increase for Entergy's residential customers beginning June 2026, tied in part to the Cypress Solar project · Source: Mountain Home Observer
- 24 of 80 pages — redacted from the Public Service Commission's own December 2025 approval order for the deal · Source: Arkansas Advocate
- 0 days — Entergy waited before abandoning its preliminary-injunction request once the TRO was denied — the case was not won, only not gagged · Source: Reason / Volokh Conspiracy
The deal at issue is Google's $4 billion data center in West Memphis and the $1.6 billion Cypress Solar plant built to power it — 600 megawatts of solar plus 350 megawatts of battery storage in Jefferson County. When the Arkansas Public Service Commission approved a special rate contract for the project in December 2025, it published an 80-page order with 24 pages redacted. Commission staff had raised questions about the deal before signing off.
Kivell's public-records request — a routine Arkansas Freedom of Information Act filing — produced documents the PSC says it released by mistake. She shared them with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Sydney Sasser, who published on August 31, 2026: Google's actual upfront contribution was $526 million, roughly a third of the plant's cost, not the “100 percent of the power and infrastructure costs” the companies had publicly promised. Entergy disputes the framing, saying the $526 million figure reflects only twelve months of a twenty-year agreement and that Google's real total obligation runs to $2.1 billion, including $83 million a year in minimum demand charges.
On August 31, 2026, Entergy Arkansas sued the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reporter Sydney Sasser, the Arkansas Times, reporter Byron Tate, and Kivell herself in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. The relief sought against Kivell specifically: an order barring her from any further disclosure of the documents, compelling her to destroy her copies, and forcing her to identify everyone she had shared them with — plus an explicit threat to pursue monetary damages against her personally.
“They mention seeking damages even though they had over 1 billion profit last year. SLIME BALLS! And you can quote me on that one.”
Jessica Kivell, to the Arkansas Times
On September 2, 2026, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky denied Entergy's request for a temporary restraining order, writing that the demand amounted to “a prior restraint in all but a technical sense” and that “prohibiting publication is the essence of censorship.” He found the arrangement a matter of “significant public concern.” Law professor Robert Steinbuch, of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Bowen School of Law, put the underlying absurdity plainly.
“It is impossible for how much Google is paying for electricity to be a trade secret.”
Robert Steinbuch, law professor, UA Little Rock
National press-freedom organizations treated the case as more than a regional dispute. Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called the demand “the quintessential First Amendment violation that is only permissible in the rarest of circumstances,” and, after the ruling, argued for consequences beyond a simple denial: “It would be even better if judges would sanction litigants and lawyers who waste the time and resources of both the judiciary and the press with these unconstitutional demands to gag journalists.” Lisa Zycherman, vice president for legal programs at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, made the broader point: “Efforts like this are always cause for concern because a prior restraint threatens press freedom and the public's right to the free flow of information.”
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR): publicly touted the Google/Entergy deal as a ratepayer benefit before this dispute broke.
Arkansas Public Service Commission: Chairman Doyle Webb and Commissioners Katie Anderson and Justin Tate, all governor-appointed, approved the underlying contract with nearly a third of the order redacted.
Entergy Arkansas: filed the federal suit; has since abandoned its request for a preliminary injunction.
Judge Lee Rudofsky: a Trump appointee to the Eastern District of Arkansas, denied the restraining order on First Amendment grounds.
This case does not fit a partisan template. Arkansas's governor, legislature, and utility commission are entirely Republican-controlled; the party suing a nurse and two newspapers into silence is a private utility, not a political actor. That is the point of covering it: the failure here is regulatory secrecy and corporate overreach, and neither is exclusive to one party. A public commission redacted a quarter of its own approval order for a multibillion-dollar rate deal, and when a citizen used the state's own transparency law to surface the rest, the company on the other side of that deal tried to have a federal court silence her.
Entergy has not dropped the case. Following the September 2 ruling, the company told the court it was abandoning its request for a preliminary injunction but intends to amend its complaint — meaning Kivell, the Democrat-Gazette, and the Arkansas Times remain defendants in active federal litigation over documents a state agency admits it released by its own mistake. The sealed portions of the case have since been unsealed.
The underlying rate dispute is also unresolved: Entergy maintains its $2.1 billion total-obligation figure and its claim of $1.1 billion in net ratepayer benefits over 20 years; critics point to the $5.77-to-$8.35 monthly increase already hitting residential bills and the 24 redacted pages that kept the full terms out of public view in the first place. Both things can be true at once — which is exactly why the public records Kivell requested, and Entergy tried to keep her from discussing, matter more than any one side's spin on them.
A state utility regulator redacted nearly a third of its own order approving a multibillion-dollar data-center power deal. A nurse used the state's own transparency law to see the rest, and a private utility tried to get a federal court to silence her for it. The judge said no. The lawsuit is still open. The rate increase is already on residents' bills.
