Tomlinson: Feds find true cause of the February blackouts, Texas officials deflect blame

Federal investigators have revealed how recklessly unprepared natural gas suppliers triggered 58 percent of the power outages during the February Freeze, proving once again that Texas officials are misleading the public. The 300-page report released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission verifies what University of Texas at Austin experts reported in July. Texans did not spend four days in the cold without electricity due to a paperwork snafu, as then-chair of the Texas Railroad Commission Christi Craddick claimed at a legislative hearing. The real culprits were natural gas facilities that froze and failed to deliver fuel to power plants, triggering a deadly, four-day crisis. In July, I demanded that Craddick withdraw her slander against electricity companies and crackdown on the natural gas industry she regulates. TOMLINSON’S TAKE: Texas lawmakers make a big deal about nothing to prevent blackouts Instead, the commission gave gas companies a mile-wide loophole so they wouldn’t have to spend extra cash preparing for another cold snap. Based on this latest report, Texans are as vulnerable now as they were in February. Today, I call on the new Railroad Commission chair, Wayne Christian, to explain how the state agency will implement FERC’s life-saving recommendations. Christian, Craddick and Commissioner Jim Wright must also close the loophole they created to preserve the gas industry’s profits. The commission said last week it would review FERC’s recommendations. We’re waiting. The commissioners must decide: Will they allow a repeat of the February Freeze, when more than 200 Texans died, and the gas industry netted an $11 billion windfall at our expense, or will they prevent a repeat of one of the most extensive blackouts in U.S. history? After my column pointing out UT’s findings and the Big Lie about the cause of the blackouts, Christian wrote an op-ed railing against me by name while defending gas suppliers. One need only check his campaign finance records to understand why. More than two-thirds of the campaign donations to the sitting commissioners have come from oil and gas allies. All three commissioners trade oil and gas stocks, even while they make rulings about complaints against those companies, according to Commission Shift, an activist group campaigning for more stringent ethics rules. “Oil and gas money accounted for 69 percent of all the campaign money raised by Commissioners Wayne Christian and Craddick,” the watchdog group reported, based on public records. Christian’s six-year term is up next year, and he’s running for reelection. This is not a good time for him to bite the hand that feeds him. We’ve watched for years as railroad commissioners proudly pledged their allegiance to the oil and gas industry. We’ve seen them routinely place the interests of oil and gas companies above everyday Texans in their regulatory decisions. The February Freeze was the predictable outcome. The blackouts were not unstoppable, as demonstrated in El Paso, which is connected to a federally regulated grid and experienced no significant outages in February. The worst part is that a similar storm caused blackouts in 2011 and revealed all of these problems, FERC Chairman Richard Glick wrote. Yet, the state did not implement FERC’s recommendations, setting the system up for failure in 2021. FERC’s report reveals how railroad commissioners refused to hold Texas natural gas companies to even minimal resiliency standards. For example, 43 percent of natural gas production declines were caused by freezing temperatures and weather because operators did not insulate the well equipment properly. Almost 90 percent of outages were due to a lack of natural gas availability to powerplants. More than 80 percent of the facilities failed at temperatures higher than the stated minimum operating specifications. “Today’s final report highlights the critical need for stronger mandatory electric reliability standards, particularly with respect to generator cold weather-critical components and systems,” the authors wrote. “Protecting just four types of power plant components from icing and freezing could have reduced outages by 67 percent in the ERCOT region,” which includes 90 percent of Texas consumers. Unless Texas voters speak out, a similar disaster will occur. TOMLINSON’S TAKE: ERCOT made the February freeze fiasco worse. Texas electricity needs greater oversight. Many readers will wonder, what about the frozen wind turbines and snow-covered solar panels? Those things happened, but the ERCOT grid relies on quick-start natural gas plants just for those occasions. They are the ones that failed, along with some power plants where coal piles froze solid. Did the legislation that Gov. Greg Abbott signed earlier this year solve the grid’s problems? Most experts say no. Texans are waiting for the Public Utilities Commission to announce new electricity market rules to see if they make substantive improvements. But many observers suspect they will subsidize the fossil fuel companies that donate millions to elected officials. We all know how that ends up. Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics. twitter.com/cltomlinson chris.tomlinson@chron.com

Tomlinson: Feds find true cause of the February blackouts, Texas officials deflect blame

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