POLICY
How the Unstable Texas Power Grid Could Help Democrats Turn Texas Blue in 2022 By: David Blackmon
T
he Texas electricity grid is not stable. Everyone living in the state found that out the hard way in February. Many no doubt realized it again when the grid managers at ERCOT had to send out insufficient capacity warnings in April and June, asking customers to turn up their thermostats to absurd temperatures in an effort to place it on us to conserve power for them. This is, of course, exactly what the Democrats in California systematically do to their electric users. So, everyone knows the grid is neither stable nor reliable, yet Governor Greg Abbott spent most of the month of June uttering ridiculous talking points designed to convince Texans that all is well on the grid. It was like listening to Baghdad Bob, only with a Texas accent. In early June, he told the press that the Texas legislature, in its regular session, did everything that needed to be done to fix the grid. Barely a week later, the Governor topped that laughable bit of nonsense by stating during a press conference that the grid was now somehow “better than it has ever been.” Mind you, this would be the very same Texas power grid, managed by the beleaguered Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), that was at that very moment in time in the midst of a week-long warning regarding a potential shortage of available generating capacity. It is the same grid about which ERCOT had to issue that similar warning on April 13-14, two of the mildest weather days of the year thus far. It is the very same grid that failed so miserably during a winter storm in February that 10 million Texans were left without power as the state froze for days on end, causing 200 to lose their lives. Since that February Big Freeze, the Texas grid that was demonstrably and unarguably the worst it has ever been has not undergone any significant physical change or upgrade. No weatherization of big power plants or wind turbines or gas pipelines has taken place. No
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new dispatchable thermal generating capacity powered by natural gas has been opened, had a groundbreaking ceremony or even been the subject of a final investment decision. No new transmission lines have magically appeared anywhere on the Texas landscape. Yet, the Governor of Texas expects his constituents to just suspend all disbelief, ignore their lyin’ eyes and take his word that everything with the grid has suddenly become just peachy. The Governor’s rosy rhetoric is obviously a part of a strategy that he and other GOP leaders decided to adopt in the wake of the regular legislative session in order to avoid holding a special session to force legislators to really deal with the real issues remaining on the grid. The other piece of this “strategy” appears to be hoping to get lucky where the entirely unpredictable Texas weather is concerned. With all statewide elected offices and most legislative seats being up for re-election in November 2022, the Governor and his fellow Republicans are hoping against hope that ERCOT will somehow be able to manage to avoid another series of blackouts when the weather gets really hot during August and September this year and next, and praying that the state does not experience another severe winter storm as it did in February. If they do get lucky – which admittedly is entirely possible – then this strategy of avoidance and false narratives will result in no great political harm. But if they don’t get lucky where the weather and ERCOT’s questionable ability to effectively manage the grid are concerned, then these Republicans will have to shoulder the
blame and explain to their constituents why they did not act to fix the grid when they had the chance to do so this year. Because here’s the deal where the grid is concerned: It is entirely a product of the Texas Republican Party. See, Texas never had major power supply issues prior to the de-regulation of its grid and mass incentivization of unreliable, unpredictable wind power. Those two policy decisions were taken during the 1999 and 2001 sessions of the Texas legislature, and Republicans were in charge of every statewide office and most seats in the House and Senate during those two fateful sessions. Democrats held zero levers of power, which has been the case in Texas since 1996. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that, just as there are no Republican fingerprints on Obamacare, there is not a single Democrat fingerprint on today’s Texas power grid. Not one. Thus, whenever that grid fails, the finger of political blame will correctly be pointed at the Texas GOP. There are two major problems remaining related to the grid that the legislature failed to address during its regular session. The first is an obvious lack of adequate backup, dispatchable capacity on the grid, a malady that Gov. Abbott himself admitted during a speech on February 24, and which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pointed to in an op/ed in the Dallas Morning News on June 29. It is a problem, it’s a big problem, and the legislature failed to address it. Period. This lack of dispatchable capacity (“dispatchable” meaning it is not renewable, its
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that, just as there are no Republican fingerprints on Obamacare, there is not a single Democrat fingerprint on the Texas power grid
