Texas Governor Faces Key Test as Winter Weather Threatens Grid


Texas Governor Faces Key Test as Winter Weather Threatens Grid

Shelly Hagan
Mon, January 31, 2022, 2:26 PM·3 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Greg Abbott is facing a test of whether he and Republican lawmakers have done enough to shore up the electric grid, just weeks before his party’s primary vote.

Temperatures are expected to plummet beginning Wednesday with sleet and snow in some parts of the state. The freeze will test the electric grid almost one year after an arctic blast forced power plants offline and left millions in the dark and without heat for days. The storm was blamed for 246 deaths. Forecasters say the weather this week won’t be as extreme, but Texans are on edge after suffering through the February 2021 blackout.

“When the temperature drops, the most nervous person in Texas is Governor Greg Abbott,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

Abbott has promised Texans that the “lights will stay on” this winter, citing legislation he signed over the summer that required the grid operator to increase reserve capacity and made it easier for industrial users to get paid to reduce their consumption. But critics say that politicians allied with the state’s oil and gas interests didn’t do enough to hold the industry accountable and prevent future disasters.

After the storm, Texas lawmakers approved measures that required power plants and parts of the natural gas network that supplies them to harden their systems against freezing weather -- but those rules have yet to be finalized.

Critics contend that the changes fall short of addressing the fundamental issues that led to the catastrophe. Some energy experts said the rule changes should have required more gas facilities to make upgrades and lacked sufficient enforcement mechanisms.

Most Texans see shoring up the electric grid as a bigger priority than improving security at the border with Mexico, according to a Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll released over the weekend. A separate poll in October from the Texas Tribune/University of Texas showed 60% of Texans disapproved of how lawmakers handled electric-grid reliability.

Abbott has also come under criticism from fellow Republicans ahead of the primary vote set for March 1, which he’s heavily favored to win. Don Huffines, a former state senator, says on his website it’s clear that “current leadership is not capable of fixing the problem.” Allen West, the former head of the state GOP, blamed last year’s blackout on Texas’s reliance on renewable energy. Most experts cite the shutoff in natural-gas flows for disabling power output during the storm.

Democrats have also sought to hammer Abbott and his allies on the deadly blackout and what they see as a lack of progress shoring up the system. Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Abbott for the governorship this year, said Monday that he will begin a 2,100-mile roadtrip across Texas to campaign on the issue.

“Texans literally froze to death in the energy capital of the world,” O’Rourke said in a statement. “It’s important that we step up once more to make sure this never happens again.”

Abbott had an 11-point advantage over O’Rourke in the Dallas Morning News poll of likely voters, leading him 47% to 36%.

Abbott and his advisers “recognize a broken promise to keep the grid operating would be a real body blow to his campaign,” Rottinghaus said.