Texas Lawmakers Consider Creating an Energy Council
The Senate Natural Resources Committee heard testimony this morning on a bill that would create a Texas Energy Policy Council charged with crafting an energy plan for the state.
Members of the council would include top officials from the Public Utility Commission, the Railroad Commission, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (the grid operator). It would plan Texas' energy future over a 20-year period, including how to deal with federal environmental regulations.
The details of what exactly the energy council should study has stirred considerable interest, and jockeying, among Texas energy providers. The ...
Comments (2)
WUSRPH
The more things change...the more....We had one of these earlier when Dolph Briscoe was governor. (Before the birth of most of the new House members)...It was created after the original "energy crisis" following the 1973 middle east war. It even looked at geothermal energy. Maybe Fraser can save the taxpayers a few bucks by just going over to the Legislative Reference Library and checking out any reports that council filed.
psadler
The problem is no one is willing to explain the last paragraph under the bill as it relates to the new nodal market. The entire bill is about creating an energy commission to study our energy policy except for the last paragraph. The last paragraph adds language that seems innocuous except no one will explain why it is included. Either the language means something or it does not. It should be explained or discarded. The only answer we have been given is "some natural gas guys wanted it" even though it does not seem to have application under the new nodal market. Under the new nodal market all generation types are treated the same while accounting for each generation's unique characteristics. Under the old zonal market, now discarded, there were differences. Additionally, the bill requires the commission to consider energy sources but omits in a separate class wind energy, even though wind energy is the fourth largest producer of electricity in the state and we are the 6th largest producer in the world. It lists methane, geothermal, biomass, the total of all, does not equal the production of wind energy. Hopefully, these issues will be addressed.