Lt. Gov. Patrick Calls for Power Grid Reform on Special Session Call

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick called in Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News that Gov. Greg Abbott should include legislation to address the state’s increasingly unstable electrical grid in Mr. Abbott’s request for a special session. 

As the Texas power grid continues to fail at the beginning of summer, Texans are getting worried that they will not be able to have enough electricity support during the hottest months of the year.

Mr. Patrick appears to support the fundamentals of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway’s plan to require the state to develop additional dispatchable backup power capacity, which was submitted to the legislature in April. He also pointed out that another option is to construct a managed capacity market where additional plants are built exclusively to provide emergency backup power. 

It’s important to remember that the Texas grid is entirely the work of the Texas Republican Party. The market was deregulated and the large buildout of wind power incentivized by the 1999 and 2001 legislatures, and no Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1996. All the mistakes, flaws, and also successes of the Texas power grid are solely attributable to the GOP. 

Lt. Gov. Patrick breaks away from the narrative that Gov. Abbott and GOP officials in Texas had been constructing for the past few months, where they have rallied around the idea that the lawmakers fixed the grid during the regular session in recent weeks.