Texas Gov. Abbott announces moratorium on non-payment of power outages

UPDATE AT 18:37: Updated with more details on orders issued by the Texas Public Utilities Commission.

The Texas Public Utilities Commission will issue a moratorium on energy companies to ban non-payment power outages as many people face a high electricity bill after a week of freezing temperatures, government agent Greg Abbott announced Sunday.

He said tackling the high bills and the failure of the state’s power grid were priorities for Texas lawmakers, adding that he would not end the legislative session without guaranteeing power protection during the highest demand – in summer and winter.

“We will not end this session until ERCOT is fully overwintered, so we are not going through this again,” Abbott said.

The PUC, which held an open meeting on Sunday afternoon, said in a statement that in addition to the moratorium order, it would continue the COVID-19-based requirements for deferred payment plans to customers requesting it.

The commission also made a serious appeal to retail suppliers to delay bills for residential and small commercial electricity suppliers.

“Our absolute top priority as a commission and a state is to protect electricity customers from the devastating effects of a storm that has already affected their power supply,” said DeAnn Walker, president of the PUC. “The order and prescriptions are intended to be temporary, probably at the end of this week, to address the potential financial consequences that are particularly challenging during this extremely difficult time.”

Abbott met with lawmakers from both parties on Saturday to discuss energy prices, as the Texans faced a huge increase in their electricity bills after wholesale prices soared while power plants were offline.

He said lawmakers have a responsibility to protect people from spikes in their energy bills due to the weather.

The state’s energy network, run by the Texas Electricity Reliability Board, is operating at full capacity again, although 23,000 Texans were still without power Sunday afternoon due to local problems such as cut-off power lines. Abbott said he expects the power will only be restored on Sunday night or Monday.

With higher temperatures in the forecast, Texans began the challenging cleanup and costly repairs of days of extreme cold and widespread power outages.

The warming was expected to last several days, but the thaw revealed more burst pipes, which added to the list of problems after many communities were warned to boil tap water before drinking it due to problems that could cause pollution.

Nearly 1,500 public water systems in Texas have reported disruptive operations, said Toby Baker, executive director of the state commission for environmental quality. Government agencies use mobile laboratories and coordinate to do water testing.

Abbott said ten million Texans were still under cooking knowledge, and many more were without food or water due to frozen or burst pipes. He said he had waived regulations on trucks and kitchens to get more food deliveries faster at Texans.

“We understand the enormous challenges our fellow Texans face,” Abbott said. “There are so many Texans, too many Texans, who have gone hungry in the last few days.”

The recent storms in the United States are blamed for more than 70 deaths, with about half of those in Texas.

The deaths attributed to the weather include a man in an Abilene health care facility where the lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible. Officials also reported deaths due to hypothermia, including homeless people and people in buildings without power or heat. Others died in car accidents on icy roads or from carbon monoxide poisoning after heating their homes in unsafe ways.

Deaths have also been reported in Tennessee, Kentucky, Oregon and other states in the South and Midwest.

President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas and ordered federal agencies to help with the recovery. According to the Texas Division of Emergency Management, nearly 90,000 Texans have already applied for FEMA disaster relief.

Abbott instructed to investigate power outages while ERCOT officials defended their preparations and the decision to begin forced outages last Monday as the network reached the breaking point.

The power outages led to lawsuits against ERCOT and utilities, including one filed by the family of an 11-year-old boy who allegedly died of hypothermia. The lawsuits allege ERCOT ignored repeated warnings about weaknesses in the state’s power infrastructure.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also conducted civil investigations into ERCOT and electric utility companies. His investigation will address power outages, emergency plans, energy prices and more related to the winter storm.

Staff Writer Nataly Keomoungkhoun contributed to this report.