Good morning, 

Here is today's Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Modify your email preferences.

• After millions of Texans were left without power last week in subfreezing temperatures, four out-of-state board members of the entity overseeing the state’s power grid resigned their posts – including the chair and vice-chair. Brandon Waltens explains the oversight that is supposed to exist for the Energy Reliability Council of Texas.
       
• “ERCOT leadership made assurances that Texas’ power infrastructure was prepared for the winter storm, but those assurances proved to be devastatingly false,” said Gov. Greg Abbott on receiving word of the resignations.
     
• But where was the oversight? Who was keeping tabs on ERCOT?
      
• ERCOT is a private, non-profit entity answerable to two government entities: the Texas Legislature (elected by the people), and the Public Utility Commission (appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate). Gov. Abbott has declared investigating and reforming ERCOT to be an emergency and the Texas House is slated to hold hearings this week.
      
• Investigating ERCOT’s mistakes is obviously important, but unless Gov. Abbott, his PUC appointees, and lawmakers admit to – and correct – their long-standing lack of substantive oversight, the lights won’t stay on for long.

• Texas wind and solar generators obtained $19.4 billion in taxpayer-funded benefits and subsidies between 2006 and 2019. Joshua Pierce reports legislation has been filed to end the program through which many of those taxpayer dollars are funneled. 
      
• Legislation by State Rep. Jeff Cason (R-Bedford) would prohibit unreliable energy providers, like wind and solar farms, from being eligible for tax abatements under Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax Code. The current law allows school districts to offer large tax breaks for 10 years to big businesses (including those unreliable energy generators). A “313” abatement doesn’t cost the local school district anything, because the lost tax revenue is made up for by reimbursements out of the state treasury which is funded by...? You guessed it: your tax dollars.
        
• “I think it’s absurd that Texas taxpayers are being forced to pay for ‘green new deal’ initiatives that have contributed to the failure of our electric grid. I take the failures of last week very seriously, and this is one of the needed reforms to make sure the past failures never happen again.” – Jeff Cason
     
• Frankly, all corporate welfare should be abolished – which is the stated platform positions of both the Republican and Democrat parties.

• More than 42 days into the 140-day legislative session, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced his priorities.
     
• Jeramy Kitchen reports the lieutenant governor’s priorities include nearly everything Gov. Greg Abbott has listed as an emergency for the legislative session. Meanwhile, only a few of Patrick’s 31 priorities correlate with the legislative priorities of his political party. (Notably absent are Republican Party of Texas legislative priorities related to constitutional carry, monument protection, school choice, and any curtailment of emergency powers of both the governor and local jurisdictions.)
          
• Check out the full list of Mr. Patrick’s priorities at TexasScorecard.com.

• Texas Democrat lawmakers are proposing a new state law to ban mental health professionals from counseling minors with unwanted same-sex attractions, a practice often derogatorily referred to as “gay conversion therapy.” Michael Swirsky has the details.
   
• A licensed marriage and family therapist with practices in Dallas and Houston has described the Democrats’ efforts as “tantamount to child abuse.”

• A special election has been set to fill Texas’ 6th Congressional District seat left by the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright. Erin Anderson reports Gov. Abbott has set the date for Saturday, May 1. Candidates’ filing deadline is March 3.

• The Cypress-Fairbanks school district spends more than $431,000 on its superintendent, but does the cost translate into student achievement? Tera Collum has the details. 
   
• Texas has 51 superintendents making more than $300,000 annually. By comparison, the President of the United States is paid $400,000 per year and the Governor of Texas makes $153,750.

• Taxpayers in Austin are suing their city council to prevent misleading ballot language.
     
• Jacob Asmussen reports that a citizen group, Save Austin Now, successfully submitted a petition with more than 26,000 signatures to force a public vote on the “public camping” situation that has been blamed for increasing crime in the city. The city council recently wrote the text that will appear on citizens’ May ballots, but Save Austin Now argues councilmembers illegally wordsmithed the language to sway voters on the issue.
     
• “Bullies only succeed when we let them, and we will not let them.” – Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek

Your Federal & State Lawmakers