Past efforts to reform the Texas power grid stalled. Lawmakers say this year is different.
When Texas lawmakers convene Thursday for a series of hearings aimed at examining power outages that left millions of people in the cold and dark amid a winter storm, it won’t be the first time they've talked about the issue.
The question is: Will they do anything about it this time?
Past legislative efforts to make changes to the state’s electric grid and at the Public Utility Commission stalled, including after winter storms in 2011 that prompted rolling blackouts. But lawmakers say the catastrophic impact of this year’s storm, the spotlight on past inaction and early pledges from state leadership to make changes mean the Legislature has no choice but to act.
“We can’t fail again,” said state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin.
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Howard serves on the House State Affairs Committee, one of three legislative panels convening Thursday to examine the outages. The House Energy Resources Committee will hold a joint meeting with the State Affairs Committee, while the Senate Business and Commerce Committee will hold its own hearing.
Both hearings will feature invited testimony from leaders at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (which oversees the electricity grid that serves most of the state and is commonly known as ERCOT), the Public Utility Commission and the Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry. The meetings will be closed to public comment, but individuals wishing to register their opinions can submit comments in writing to both the House and Senate committees.
Some changes are already in motion at these regulatory agencies — including the resignations of six board members at ERCOT — but energy experts say the Legislature is ultimately responsible for ensuring that reforms are adopted.
“The buck stops with the state Legislature,” said Daniel Cohan, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, during a Wednesday webinar about the power outages. “We’re a state with a weak governor system, we’ve kept federal regulators out of our business, and each agency only addresses one piece of the problem — ERCOT with the power grid, the Railroad Commission with the oil and gas pipelines. This is going to need a fix from the state Legislature.”
Past opportunities for action
Lawmakers held similar legislative hearings in 2011, after a winter storm led to rolling blackouts that affected more than 3 million customers.
Lawmakers at the time vented at representatives of ERCOT and various power companies about the outages, but the upshot of the hearings consisted mainly of assurances that the state’s grid wouldn’t be caught flat-footed again — legislators did not approve new enforcement tools.
A bill filed by then-Rep. Sylvester Turner — who is now Houston's mayor — would have required state regulators to develop a process to ensure enough emergency reserve generation capacity "to prevent blackout conditions caused by shortages of generated power in the ERCOT power region," as well as a cost-sharing arrangement to pay for it. But Turner's bill died without even getting a committee hearing.
Meanwhile, a bill calling for a one-time report by the Public Utility Commission on "power generation weatherization preparedness," with optional future studies, was approved by the Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Perry.
“Clearly, weatherization was the focus of a lot of that discussion and some of the tools in our toolbox came out of that discussion,” said state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, who serves on the House Energy Resources Committee and was in the Legislature during those past electrical grid conversations. “What I'm hearing, though, is perhaps we did not go far enough in supervision and in review and enforcement to make sure those plans are being complied with and that they are broad enough to cover these extraordinary events.”
More:Did Texas energy regulators fail to mandate winter protections?
State Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, was a member of the House in 2011 and said that despite conversations that happened at the time, the state was “caught completely unprepared” during this year’s storms. Given the scope of suffering and the damage caused this year, Menéndez said he hopes this year’s session will be different.
“It is time that we understand that the chickens have come home to roost, and it has cost us lives,” he said.
Questions, solutions on horizon
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, outlined emergency items and priorities for lawmakers related to the outages, including reforming ERCOT, mandating winterization of the state’s power system and ensuring necessary funding to make those changes happen.
Thursday’s hearings are the first steps toward developing legislation and concrete plans to address the outages.
Darby said he plans to take a closer look at the legislative framework in place heading into the blackouts and whether lawmakers have authorized enough accountability and oversight authority for the regulatory agencies that manage the state’s power system.
Darby and Menéndez both described ERCOT as serving as an “air traffic controller” and said they plan to explore what regulatory teeth it will take for the entity to ensure that generators on the grid winterize.
Lawmakers are also exploring whether to reverse course and reregulate the state’s power market after more than two decades of hands-off oversight. Some say they want the state to consider joining one of the two national grids. Texas is the only state in the country that operates its own electric grid.
“Our job as legislators is to look at the system, and to make sure we're prioritizing people over profits and that we ensure that we have something in place that is not going to let this happen again,” Howard said. “Texans died as a result of not having something workable in place. And that can't happen again.”
Editor's note: A previous version of this story included the wrong attribution for a quote from Daniel Cohan, associate professor at Rice University.