San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board: Casar's grid proposal would keep the power running in Texas

During the legislative session of 2021, Texas lawmakers knew they had to take action to relieve concerns about this state’s power grid. In February of that year, Winter Storm Uri forced more than 4 million Texas households to go without electricity and caused an estimated 246 deaths. But the toll could be significantly higher.

The Legislature passed two bills to address the issue, one requiring weatherization of Texas power plants and one reorganizing the governing structure of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which manages the flow of power for about 90% of the state.

Three years after the 2021 freeze, however, Texas has yet to tackle the grid’s deepest inadequacies: scarcity of power generation and transmission.

If much of the 2021 blackout can be pinned on a failure to winterize, our repeated close calls during subsequent summer heat waves make it clear the state needs to access more power.

That was the motivation for U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, a Democrat who represents parts of San Antonio and Austin, to craft the Connect the Grid Act, which he filed two weeks ago...