Will Dallas-led Hunt group buy Oncor? Today’s Public Utility Commission meeting could hold answers
Dallas Morning News, Published: March 3, 2016 6:00 am
By Jeffrey Weiss
What you pay for power next year or for years to come may be affected by what the Texas Public Utility Commission decides today.
The commission will take up a plan by a group led by Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his son Hunter Hunt to buy Oncor, the state’s largest utility. Oncor’s parent company, Energy Future Holdings, declared bankruptcy in 2014. The offer by the Hunt group is central to the current best plan to take the system out of bankruptcy.
The PUC is being asked to approve a complex reorganization that would turn Oncor into two companies and get the new owners a tax break of $250 million a year.
Those who have weighed in against the Hunt plan include the PUC staff, a coalition of Texas cities and consumer advocacy groups, current Oncor leadership, former Gov. Rick Perry and — as of yesterday — one of the members of the commission. They’ve expressed a variety of reservations that include concerns about the proposed corporate structure, the ability of the new companies to maintain a high enough credit rating, and a belief that at least some of that quarter-billion dollar annual tax windfall should go back to consumers through lower power rates.
The Hunt group says the plan is the best for consumers because it’s the only one on the table that eliminates the current financial uncertainties and keeps control of the company local, in Texas.
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