A day after the Texas Senate passed a bill requiring regulators to retroactively reduce electricity prices charged during last month’s catastrophic winter storm, Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick declared the legislation dead and said Tuesday that the Texas House did not want to act.
Patrick, who rushed the bill through the Senate on Monday with a deadline for changing prices on Saturday, said the House would not bring it to a vote.
In a In a statement, House Speaker Dade Phelan made it clear that he did not agree with the re-charging of electricity to reduce the damage caused by the estimated $ 16 billion in the storm.
Phelan, R-Beaumont, calls it “an extraordinary government intervention in the free market, which could have major consequences for both residential and commercial consumers in the future.”
He was on the side of managers of the state’s electrical network – the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utilities Commission – who said the decision to force sky-high prices should protect the Texans from further interruptions.
“ERCOT and PUC repeatedly let Texas down during this tragic event, but the pricing decisions were made based on the reliability of the network,” Phelan said. “I believe the decisions may have saved lives.”
Phelan’s office disagrees that the House killed the bill and pushed back Patrick’s statement Tuesday. The bill has not yet been scheduled for hearings in the House this week and will be violated after March 20. Phelan’s staff would not say when that could be heard.
While Patrick shared the news with members of the Senate in Texas – 27 out of 31 senators supported it – he told them he was proud that they ‘stood for the individual’, while ‘the house for big business stand’.
‘It’s going to be complicated, of course. It will of course be difficult, ”Patrick said. “But I am so disappointed that something that supports 27 of you and that you have all thought important to do – 26 million people under ERCOT – has been dismissed without seriously looking at the facts.”
Patrick later added in a statement that the Senate hopes members of the House will vote across the floor, “so their voters know where they stand, just like us.”
Gov. Greg Abbott also expressed concern that reprisals would violate the Texas Constitution, emphasizing that such a decision should not be taken hastily.
The case has sparked an unusual rift between Abbott and Patrick, which rarely shows anything other than unity on priority issues like this.
Patrick saves with Abbott
The downfall of Senate Bill 2142 is a victory for Abbott. After the storm, the second-term Republican governor called on the legislature to address the “correction of any billing errors,” but he later questioned whether repricing was the right solution.
The conversation between Patrick and Abbott on the issue began on Friday when Patrick Abbott’s latest nominee at the utility board exploded due to a lack of ‘competence and questionable integrity’.
Commission chairman Arthur D’Andrea insisted his agency did not have the authority to allow re-taxation at this stage, and on Monday Abbott said he was concerned lawmakers did not have the authority to retroactively existing contracts.
But Patrick, with the support of all three senators except, pushed forward.
It looks like Phelan in his first term as House Speaker will be unable to ask for a vote on the matter. Part of the House Speaker’s job is to protect members from voices that will provoke political divisions without achieving anything.
His office said in a statement: “Speaker Phelan and Lieutenant Government Patrick have not held any talks on SB 2142.”
CPS Energy $ 1 billion out
The high prices took a toll on retail suppliers and distributors who had to pay them to keep up with the power of Texans.
The state’s largest electric power cooperative, for example, filed for bankruptcy of Brazos Electric Power Cooperative earlier this month. San Antonio’s CPS Energy is less than $ 1 billion and sued ERCOT on Friday, claiming it failed to put the maximum prices in place for too long.
At the same time, generators that were ready for the storm with weathered equipment or that made money by selling power through the network came out on top.
The chairman of the utility commission, which oversees the state’s network operator, also warned of the possibility that repricing will lead to lawsuits by generators who have to generate earnings.
Phelan noted that after hearing nearly 30 hours of evidence over the past few weeks, members have filed a number of bills to address the failures of the power grid, including alternatives to repricing, which would give cash-strapped utilities the option of securing use securities to cover their debt over time.
Similar bills were tabled by Senator Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, who was one of three non-voters on the Senate re-pricing bill.
“These home bills are being tried this week,” Phelan said. “The House will continue to investigate this issue which has directly and indirectly touched the lives of every Texan.”
The Home State Committee will meet on Thursday at 08:00.
Jeremy Blackman contributed to this report.