By The Texas Tribune
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Gov. Greg Abbott has signed into law Senate Bills 2 and 3, which are meant to improve the state’s main power grid and change the governance of the agency that operates it. Calls for sweeping changes to Texas’ power infrastructure have amplified since February, when a catastrophic winter storm left more than 4.8 million homes and businesses without power for days. The state reports that 151 people died, though a BuzzFeed News analysis found the number of fatalities may be 700.
- Requires upgrades for power generators and transmission lines to make them better withstand extreme weather.
- The Texas Railroad Commission and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas will conduct inspections of the facilities.
- Failure to weatherize may result in penalties of up to $1 million.
- Is more lenient toward natural gas fuel companies, which supply power plants. They will be required to weatherize only if deemed “critical” by regulators.
- Leaves out any requirements to improve consumer infrastructure such as homes and pipes, which experts have called a significant oversight.
- Likely won’t require companies to weatherize until 2022 at the earliest, and plans to help them pay for the upgrades were struck from the legislation during negotiations between Senate and House members.
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- Shrinks the number of seats on ERCOT’s board of directors from 16 to 11, and the state’s top politicians would have a strong influence over the board.
- A selection committee would appoint eight of the 11 board members. The selection committee would be made up of three people — one appointed by the governor, one by the lieutenant governor and one by the speaker of the House.
- The committee would use an “outside consulting firm” to select the eight members.
- Nine of the 11 ERCOT board seats would be voting members, handing politicians significant power over the ERCOT board.
Read the full story by the Tribune’s Isabella Zou. Plus, check out our tracker to see the big legislative bills that passed and the ones that failed.
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