U.S. House panel seeks Texas power utility’s storm records

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee is investigating the agency that runs the Texas power grid, seeking information and documents on the lack of preparation for a recent winter storm that led to millions of outages and dozens of deaths statewide.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who chairs an environment subcommittee, sent a letter to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, saying he is concerned that the loss of electric service will happen again unless ERCOT and the state of Texas adequately prepare for a predicted increase in extreme weather events.

Severe winter storms in Texas “have occurred repeatedly over decades, and ERCOT has been unprepared for them,” Khanna wrote in a letter to ERCOT CEO Bill Magness. The group’s own consultant has predicted that severe winter weather events will continue to occur every decade, yet ERCOT and state officials have done little to prepare for them or build appropriate infrastructure, Khanna said.

The subcommittee requested documents from ERCOT by March 17 related to its preparedness for extreme weather events; decisions on where and when to implement rolling blackouts; and the disruption of electricity supply in the mid-february storm.

No ERCOT spokesperson could be reached Wednesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has blamed the power failures on ERCOT. But a three-member utility commission appointed by Abbott has oversight authority over the grid operator. The utility’s commission chair resigned last week, and at least six ERCOT board members have also resigned in the wake of the power failure, one of the largest in U.S. history.