AUSTIN — The Texas Senate’s Natural Resources Committee has called the Public Utility Commission to talk about the pricing of electricity.
Committee Chairman Troy Fraser called commissioners to testify Monday in Austin amid reports it could change the wholesale electricity market.
Commissioners have long debated how to…
Statehouse spars over power market redesign
By James Osborne, bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com
In a hearing before the Senate’s Natural Resources Committee Monday Texas Public Utility Commission Chairman Donna Nelson took tough questioning on her agency’s authority to restructure the state’s electricity market.
The question of whether to modify the market structure to get power companies building again has become a controversial one in Austin, pitting business interests against power interests in a fight that some believe could amount to billions in additional revenues for the power industry.
Nelson, who is widely seen as a proponent…
On Market Decision, Lawmakers Question PUC’s Authority
by Jim Malewitz, The Texas Tribune
A bipartisan panel of state lawmakers grilled the Texas Public Utility Commission on Monday, raising hard-edged questions about the agency’s authority to overhaul Texas’ wholesale electricity market in hopes of ensuring the long-term reliability of the state’s electric grid — a move that would send billions more dollars each year to electricity providers.
In a highly technical and occasionally contentious Senate Committee on Natural Resources hearing, several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the need for a market overhaul and accused the PUC of…