While the Sierra Club is already busy working on our 2021 Legislative Scorecard, we wanted to give a quick wrap-up of the tumultuous rollercoaster ride that was the 87th Legislative Session, which officially wrapped up on Memorial Day.
And oh, what an interesting weekend it was. First, the vast majority of House Democrats, increasingly incensed when the so-called Election Integrity bill - SB 7 (Hughes/Cain) - came back even more egregious then either the House or Senate versions - staged a walkout at about 10:30 PM Sunday evening, killing that bill, as well as some others still on the calendar for action. Most importantly, the tactic also killed SB 14, an anti-worker bill that would have stripped local control from cities like Austin and Dallas which have passed local ordinances to protect construction and other workers. (read more from the Texas Tribune here)
The walkout - which is legal and does have precedent -- immediately spurred the ire of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott, who announced there will be a special session to discuss many issues, including “election integrity” (i.e., voter suppression).
Winter Storm Blues
Before the walkout, Senate and House conferees managed to reach agreements and pass the major “Winter Uri” legislation, including three bills involving “securitization” of the costs of the storm, several bills involving governance of the PUC and ERCOT, and SB 3, a 40+ page bill that included a little bit of everything in terms of reforms. Well, not quite everything. Unfortunately, SB 3 omitted anything to do with residential energy efficiency or demand response as the Legislature ignored pleas for programs that help customers.
Below are details of a few of the winter storm related bills.
Governance
SB 2 replaces the 15-member ERCOT Board with an 11-member Board consisting of the ERCOT Chief Executive Officer, the head of the Office of Public Utility Counsel, the Public Utility Commission Chair, and eight appointed but unaffiliated “experts.” This change was never discussed in public hearings but was a last minute change in conference. Sierra Club’s concern? The new Board will be chosen by a three-member committee named by the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Speaker of the House (Abbott, Patrick, and Phelan currently). The jury is out whether such a politicization could lead to well... conflicts.
SB 2154 expands the Public Utility Commission from three to five members, and puts in place a ban on commissioners going to lobby for companies with business before the PUC for a year. Sierra Club supported the change, though a good amendment to assure that one of the Commissioners represent residential consumers was stripped in conference.
SB 3 was the”major” Uri response bill. Among many provisions, the bill:
- Requires weatherization of power plants in Texas for cold and hot to ensure operation during hot and cold weather, and requires (through a great amendment by Rep. Donna Howard) that the Office of State Climatologist be consulted in developing the standards;
- Adds an emergency communication system led by the Texas Department of Emergency Management to ensure that the public is informed of potential rolling outages or blackouts in future;
- Requires the creation of a map of critical infrastructure, including the natural gas system that supplies power plants, and weatherization of that system, though the details are left largely to the Railroad Commission of Texas;
- Strengthens Utility Emergency Management Plans, including their plans for outages;
- Allows utilities to develop demand response emergency programs for large commercial entities (although it does nothing for residential customers);
- Requires ERCOT and the PUC to review and develop new “ancillary services” to ensure that there are sufficient reserves. Anti-renewable energy language was taken out of SB 3, though concerns remain about how sections of the bill will be interpreted since language was added about a “dispatchable” ancillary service that presumably renewable energy companies could not provide;
- Creates a new temporary interim committee consisting of both legislators and experts that will review the ERCOT system and look at reliability and energy issues and come back with recommendations in 2022;
Securitization bills
The Legislature passed three bills that will allow electric and natural gas utilities to “securitize” financing to pay back money owed to creditors from Winter Storm Uri and then pay back those costs over a longer period of time to avoid potential bankruptcies. In most cases, these costs will ultimately be paid by electric customers. The bills that passed - HB 1580 (electric cooperatives), HB 1520 (natural gas distribution companies), HB 4492 (ERCOT participants), and HB 1510 (non-ERCOT utilities) - will lead to rulemakings at PUC and the Railroad Commission where the details of interest rates, terms of financing, and other details will be worked out. A last minute effort to include customer relief as part of the securitization failed, and the Legislature decided not to spend any money to actually help electric customers pay back bills, other than spreading out costs over time.
TERP - A “compromise” we don’t like
One major bill on the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan - HB 4472 - also passed, but the version that passed was the one crafted in the Senate, which removed several programs the Sierra Club supported, including an energy efficiency loan program, and gives at least 35% of the TERP money to the Texas Department of Transportation for “congestion mitigation” projects. House sponsor Rep. Brooks Landgraf chose to “concur” with the Senate changes, despite calls from the Sierra Club (and many others) to go to conference. The bill did include some slight improvements in several programs, but important programs from the House version were not included. Despite the “loss” of 35% of the funds, it is important to note that TCEQ will still be receiving a large increase in TERP funding overall. The Legislative Budget Board is estimating that TCEQ will receive about $160 million per year, while TXDOT will be receiving about $90 million. To put it in perspective TCEQ was allocated only $77 million the last two years for TERP programs. Both agencies will be required to report every year on their programs, and its cost-effectiveness.
SB 1 - the budget bill
As previously reported, the final version of the budget bill was fairly positive, with key natural resource agencies receiving more money than in the initial versions of the bill. Key programs such as TERP, air quality monitoring, funding for water and wastewater through the Economically Distressed Areas Program, and more money for local parks and park acquisition were in the final bill. Important amendments to the budget also required that TCEQ report on their use of TERP funding, and the RRC report on well plugging and how they could plug more wells.
Electric vehicles - no action
Despite a comprehensive bill by Rep. Terry Canales - HB 2211 - to develop a plan for electric vehicles, all bills - good and bad - related to electric vehicles failed, except for SB 1202 (by Sen. Hancock), which simply makes it clear that electric vehicle charging companies are not required to register as Retail Electric Companies, a burdensome requirement. Bills that would have charged EV owners a large registration fee also failed.
Distributed generation and energy efficiency - no action except...
Despite many great bills on local energy solutions, including energy efficiency, demand response, and distributed energy resources, all failed to pass with a few exceptions. This was a major disappointment since Winter Storm Uri pointed to the need to invest in local energy solutions that benefit customers, including weatherizing homes and reducing energy demand. One good bill by Sen. Menendez - SB 389 - passed, which provides customers who install solar on-site with standard rules and protections, while another - SB 415 - by Sen. Hancock allows transmission and distribution utilities to contract with energy storage companies to help increase system reliability, though the bill is limited to 100 MW of energy storage overall - a miniscule amount for big utilities like Oncor that provide over 130,000 GWhr per year of electricity and serves a peak electric load of nearly 25,000 MW. Still, passage of the law means that Texas, for the first time, will consider “non-wires” alternatives for transmission services.
Still, the list of great bills, including our call for a 1% energy savings goal through SB 243 and HB 4556, never came close to passing both chambers, nor were they added to SB 3, despite our efforts.
Water - one good bill
The Sierra Club supported a number of great bills that ended up passing the House but got stuck in the Senate. One bright spot, however, was passage of HB 2225 by Rep. Tracy King, which should enable the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to play a larger role in obtaining commitments through water rights being assigned to the Texas Water Trust, to keep water flowing in our rivers and streams.
Also approved was SB 601 by Sen. Perry, which sets up a “consortium” at Texas Tech to look at the use of so-called produced water from fracking operations. Sierra Club worked cooperatively with Sen. Perry to amend the original bill, and make sure that environmental state agencies and environmental interests will be included in the advisory committee and consortium. We will watch the work of the consortium to assure that dangerous produced waters are not discharged directly into our rivers and streams.
Bad radioactive waste bill stopped
Another bright spot was the failure of Waste Control Specialists to get their proposed reduction of fees and safety provisions approved through HB 2692 (Rep. Landgraf) and SB 1046 (Sen. Birdwell)., Former Speaker, Rep. Tom Craddick, called a Point of Order on the bill late in the process, effectively killing the bill. The bill would have reduced fees paid by WCS by some 80 percent, and removed some safety provisions, while including a “ban” on high-level waste, which, while good, did not appear to be legal. An uncharacteristic coalition of environmental groups, landowners, and oil companies led the opposition to the bill.
Anti-local democracy bills
One bad anti-local democracy environmental bill passed - HB 17. The bill effectively bans cities from taking any action that could influence f what types of energy sources are chosen in new buildings. The legislation has popped up in legislatures across the country as an initiative of the gas industry to curtail any local efforts to steer away from gas consumption in buildings. While we got some important discussions on the House floor to establish the intent of the bill, HB 17 basically assures that Texas cities can not pursue full electrification of new buildings.
Two other bad anti-local democracy bills, HB 1501 on gas appliances and SB 1261 on greenhouse gas pollution - were stopped due to some last minute action by Rep. Erin Zwiener, who used her position to delay and then defeat both bills. Way to go!
Pollution efforts frozen
Good bills on better enforcement against polluters, such as HB 1820 by Rep. Zweiner, HB 1043 by Rep. Anchia, and HB by Rep. Rose, all failed to advance, with Rose’s bill making it the furthest but being defeated on the House floor. Bills related to oil and gas air pollution also were ignored, with only HB 896 and HB 897 by Rep. Reynolds even getting a hearing.
SB 900 (Sen. Alvarado) passed. If Gov. Abbott signs it, the bill will create a new program to regulate above-ground storage tanks better. Sierra Club was neutral on the bill because we wanted to see stronger inspection and regulatory provisions. Still, the bill is at least a start at assuring better safety at these storage tanks, and we recognize the hard work by Sen. Alvarado and House sponsor, Rep. Chris Paddie, in getting the bill approved.
One other bright spot on legislation addressing pollution was passage of HB 3973, by Rep. Walle and Sen. Nichols, which will require an interim committee to look at how to raise money at the Railroad Commission to plug all the thousands of abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells dotting the Texas landscape.
Non-environmental bad stuff
Despite the welcome defeat of SB 7 and SB 14, other bills that impact Texans were approved despite efforts by the larger social justice movement.
Bills to make it harder (if not impossible) for cities (especially large ones) to reduce police department funding passed (HB 1900 and SB 23). So for example, if cities wanted to reapportion more funding to social programs that would serve communities more effectively rather than more funding into police departments, cities would be penalized through property tax limitations. These bills have been already signed by Gov. Abbott.
A bill to fundamentally restrict access to legal abortions - SB 8 - also passed and has been signed into law, though legal challenges are expected.
Finally, and perhaps most strangely, a bill to make it hard for teachers to discuss issues of racism and privilege in our public schools through a new head-scratching bill - HB 3979 by Rep. Toth (and Sen. Creighton) - was approved along partisan lines. Apparently, the majority party prefers to ignore structural racism in our society, and prefers that young minds not be exposed to “critical race theory.” House author Rep. Toth admitted he hadn’t actually read any works by critical race theorists, but apparently wants to make sure that no one else does either.
Oh, I almost forgot. It is much, much easier to own a gun in Texas, and if you are over 21, you apparently don’t need a license or be trained in how to use it!
So much for pandemic and storm recovery for this legislature!
Regardless of what happens in special session(s), we won’t stop pressuring lawmakers. You shouldn’t either. They’re counting on us to move on and forget. Ain’t gonna happen, y’all.