rechargetexas.com
That’s what state Sen. Troy Fraser wants to know. The chairman of the Senate’s Natural Resources Committee told regulators during a meeting this week that they may be stirring up unwarranted anxiety about the risk in Texas of future blackouts.
This, in turn, has led to an aggressive and unwarranted push to subsidize generators with ratepayer money, said the lawmaker. The Public Utility Commission has been considering such proposals for several months, and last month took a clear step toward authorizing them.
But during a committee meeting in Austin on Monday, Sen. Fraser questioned the cost of the proposals, whether they marked a step away from electric competition — and even whether regulators had the legal authority to take such action.“You give an agency authority and sometimes they forget the Legislature is over here, and we have oversight (authority),” said Sen. Fraser, a Republican from Horse Shoe Bay. “I’m a…