As May Arrives, The Texas Grid’s Main Needed Fix Sits In Limbo

Just a little more than a month now remains in the 2023 session of the Texas legislature and, just as was the case in 2021, members in the House of Representatives have yet to address one of the most crucial chronic shortcomings of the state’s power grid: The persistent lack of adequate dispatchable reserve thermal generation capacity. It’s a problem that has lingered for more than a decade now, one that no bill that has thus far had a hearing in the House would address in any real way.

Speaker of the House Dade Phelan appears unconcerned about the matter, and Governor Greg Abbott has gone seemingly AWOL on it in recent weeks, despite his inauguration promise in January to “build a grid that powers our state — not for the next four years, but for the next 40 years.” For Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, though, getting a fix in place remains a high priority, a fact he made clear recently in a press conference in which he threatened to force a special session on the issue should the House fail to act.

“I can’t call a special session,” Patrick admitted, recognizing the fact that only the Governor has that power. “But I can create one by not passing a key bill that has to pass. That’s what I did in ‘17.”

The legislature in Texas has few matters it is constitutionally required to address in each biennial 140-day session, but it does have a handful, one of which being a bill that enacts a balanced budget for the next two-year cycle. Should push come to shove, Patrick, as the presiding officer in the Senate, could simply refuse to allow that chamber to hold a vote on one of those must-pass items to force Gov. Abbott into action.

As part of Patrick’s priority agenda for the session, the Senate passed SB 6 and SB 7, bills designed to address the thermal capacity issue and other grid reforms, on April 5. Unfortunately, Speaker Phelan’s office waited almost two weeks before referring the bills for consideration in the House State Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Todd Hunter, a veteran Republican from Corpus Christi. Neither bill has been scheduled for a committee hearing as of this writing.

What Lt. Gov. Patrick and the Senate consider to be an emergency, the Speaker and the House seem to consider just another set of bills on a crowded docket. This is not unusual during any session, but to those interested in actually fixing what ails the grid and avoiding a future replay of the deadly disaster created in Feb. 2021 by Winter Storm Uri, it is frustrating.

SB 6 would establish a $10 billion program to award contracts via a competitive bidding process for as much as 10 gigawatts of natural gas-fired capacity located strategically around the state. Patrick has referred to it as an “insurance policy” for Texas citizens, the capacity there to be activated during weather emergencies to ensure days-long blackouts don’t happen again. While other plans have been floated since 2021’s tragic freeze, SB 6 remains the only concrete plan that would ensure steel gets put in the ground and the capacity is actually built.

The bill’s opponents are numerous. The state’s power generators complain the plan would disrupt the state’s power market and prevent the right market signals from being sent to encourage new capacity to be built. But the problem with that argument is that the market has failed miserably to send the needed signals for well more than a decade now, as the status quo has been preserved and the grid has grown increasingly unstable. Renewables advocates naturally oppose any plan that would result in new thermal capacity being built and argue the whole issue can be solved with more subsidies for intermittent wind and solar. It’s a proposition with little, if any, practical proof.

Bottom Line

Advocates of SB 6, including Patrick and lead sponsor Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, ask ‘if not now, when’ the state will finally address this lingering issue in a real way, arguing that the current advantage of a record budget surplus of at least $33 billion makes this an ideal time to dedicate the funds needed to get it done. It’s a strong point that lacks an easy, fact-based retort.

One thing is for sure: It would be a shame for all Texans if intra-party turf battles among the state’s GOP leadership cause this manifest weakness in the grid to linger on into the future. At the moment, though, only the Lt. Governor seems intent on getting it fixed in a real way. If Patrick has to force the matter by refusing to allow votes on must-pass bills late in the session, the memory of 300 Texans who perished during the grid failures of Winter Storm Uri proves it is a matter that is well worth that effort.