Shared from the 3/7/2021 San Antonio Express eEdition

What Abbott isn’t saying about the storm

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Jessica Phelps / Staff photographers

Henry Rodriguez fills buckets from the River Walk so Granada Home residents could flush toilets. Warnings about about power outages would have allowed Texans to prepare.

Three weeks ago, Texas faced the costliest natural disaster in its history: 4.5 million people without power, nearly 15 million without running water, and a death toll we won’t fully understand for months. Among those who lost their lives was a 69-year-old San Antonian who lived alone. He did not have electricity, and the authorities said his bedroom was 35 degrees when they found him.

Texas failed this man, and there are no words to describe what must have been a painful, lonely death.

In the weeks following, we have been overwhelmed with news and a tightly scripted narrative from Gov. Greg Abbott attempting to contain the fallout. His finger-pointing deflects attention from his inaction and a vain attempt to protect former employees that he appointed to the Public Utility Commission, the agency entrusted to regulate our gas and electricity infrastructure.

It’s hard to keep up with the avalanche of breaking news and political spin. Piling on, Abbott rescinding our mask mandate is more political misdirection. Here is what Abbott is not telling you.

Notified in advance

After 25 hours of legislative testimony, the most shocking development is this: According to two witnesses, Abbott was informed of likely widespread power outages 48 to 72 hours before the storms hit. What did he do with that time? What could you have done if you knew?

I can tell you what Abbott didn’t do: He didn’t pass the warning along to Mayor Ron Nirenberg or Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. Anyone who lives on the Gulf Coast can tell you how vital the 72 hours before a storm are. Giving people time to prepare, stock up on groceries, ready shelters — these actions save lives. If our business community and local leaders had been warned about the looming outages, we could have been better positioned to offer aid.

No lessons learned

The week of the storm, $50 billion in electricity sales occurred, the same amount sold in the previous three years combined. Yes, you read that correctly. In seven days, the electricity market sold what it took 1,095 days to sell under normal conditions.

I know what some of you are thinking — that’s supply and demand. Not so much. The scarcity in the market had nothing to do with the amount of gas in the ground. We have so much supply in Texas that oil producers often burn excess gas to avoid the high cost to store and market it.

Scarcity resulted from single-digit temperatures freezing wellheads and pipelines, forcing many producers offline. These assets were inoperable because producers failed to heed warnings to weatherize pipelines to ensure deliverability after the catastrophic 2011 winter storms.

Hitting the jackpot

The scarcity in the market was partly created by many of the same actors now being compensated handsomely for their “screw you” market mentality. So it’s no surprise that on an earnings call with investors, the chief financial officer of Com-stock Resources, an energy company controlled in part by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, said energy sales during the storm were “like hitting the jackpot.” Never mind that while his company rolled around in profits, Texans were literally freezing to death and boiling snow to flush toilets.

If gas producers like Comstock are hitting the jackpot, who is the casino forking over the winnings? We are. We will be paying out that windfall for a long time.

Responsibility before reform

We cannot begin to reform this broken system without first taking responsibility. Singling out the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, is not enough. That’s like blaming the gasoline for the fire instead of the arsonist. Abbott has yet to hold himself and his appointees accountable, and he is silent on reining in industry.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently launched an investigation into these massive price spikes and the possibility that some actors were participating in market manipulation. I welcome this news, but it’s not enough. We need a transparent outside investigation by law enforcement authorities to ensure that every responsible agency, official or industry actor is held to account. Last week, I called on Travis County District Attorney José Garza to open an investigation. I am encouraged that he has since elected to do exactly that.

There will be multiple reform proposals, and I welcome the debate. But no amount of reform can fix a broken system unless we hold accountable those who left Texans out in the cold.

Trey Martinez Fischer, a Democrat, is serving his 10th term in the Texas House.

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