by Christian Flores, CBS Austin

Tuesday, March 23rd 2021

AUSTIN, Texas — As promised last week and again over the weekend by House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, the Texas House will be taking up bills in committee Tuesday to address concerns with the power grid that were exposed in last month's winter storms, but they will not be discussing the Senate bill that was hastily passed last week to correct ERCOT's $16 billion overcharge of the energy market.

The Texas House Committee on State Affairs will once again tackle power grid bills.

Last week, this committee listened to testimony on SB 2142, which was the bill that would have required the PUC to force ERCOT to correct its $16 billion overcharged. The Texas Senate bypassed its rules for to quickly pass this piece of legislation, but Phelan released a statement about an hour after the committee hearing saying he felt this was government overreach, and he would instead prefer to focus on the House bills designed to reform ERCOT and protect energy consumers.

During Tuesday's hearing, state lawmakers will discuss two bills and one joint resolution specifically addressing the power grid.

House Bill 1510 would make it easier for electric utilities to get access to lower costs for systems restoration. This would also create the Texas Electric Utility System Restoration Corporation, which would be designed to provide a lower cost financing mechanism.

Bills like these are in response to how much generation was thrown offline during the storms last month due to the severity of the cold. Almost half of the state's generation was forced offline because of freezing plants.

ERCOT came under fire because of how much power went offline for such a long period of time during well below-freezing temperatures.

If passed, House Bill 2586 would require independent audits of organizations operating as part of ERCOT each year.

For more:

https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/tx-house-to-take-up-power-grid-bills-but-not-senate-repricing-bill

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