NEWS: Congressman Greg Casar Emphasizes Connecting the National Grids for Reliability & Security during Hearing
WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) emphasized the importance of connecting Texas to the national grids during a hearing of the Subcommittee hearing on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs titled: “The Power Struggle: Examining the Reliability and Security of America’s Electrical Grid.”
Casar entered into the Congressional record a Houston Chronicle story from today titled, “Texas had the most power outages in the country in last 5 years, new report finds” which states, “The data reveals a paradox that’s become a common point of frustration: Texas is the national leader in energy production, yet the state’s aging power grid struggles to keep the lights on.”
Subcommittee Chairman Pat Fallon (TX-04) is a co-sponsor of H.Res.1064, opposing the interconnection between the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and neighboring grids. Ironically, his Congressional district includes portions outside of ERCOT’s jurisdiction (MAP) that did not suffer mass outages during Winter Storm Uri like the rest of the state.
Remarks as delivered:
[CASAR] Thank you, Chair. Today I want to talk about Texas and want to submit into the record an article from today's Houston Chronicle that states, “Texas had the most power outages in the country in the last five years, new report finds.”
[REP. BYRON DONALDS] Without objection.
[CASAR] Thank you, Chair. Texas has had severe power outages. We've been talking about them today in committee, especially how Winter Storm Uri took hundreds of lives and left millions and millions of people without power. And my first question is actually for you, Mr. Fisher. Not news that the Cato Institute where you're at, is on the right-end of the political spectrum, wouldn't shock anybody to find out I'm a progressive’s progressive. But there have been areas of important agreement that we've discovered in some of these committee hearings, for example, having a more free and fair and legalized system of migration is a place where many progressives and your organization have actually found some common ground. And I have questions for you on this issue first. So my first question for you is actually not about the electric power grid, but about, for example, Texas exports oil, famously, exports LNG, and I would assume that your organization would frown upon Texas not being allowed to export or import, say, liquid natural gas or oil and gas.
[TRAVIS FISHER, Director of Energy and Environmental Policy Studies, Cato Institute] Yes, I see that as a free market, a free trade issue.
[CASAR] Exactly. We have an issue for 90% of Texas, where we actually aren't able to export electricity when we generate more electricity than it is that we are going to buy, and we also can't import it when we can find lower prices from other states or other generators or when there’s scarcity like we had in Winter Storm Uri. And so would your organization see it as important for regulators to not prevent the export or import of electricity if Texas is, in fact, generating quite a bit of that?
[FISHER] So my take on this is actually that there is no explicit limit to trade. There are DC ties so there are direct current ties that go from ERCOT to outside of ERCOT. However, the thing that I would note, as free market as we are, one of the issues that, I’ll speak for Cato and for myself, federalism matters, especially in this area, where the grid is so complicated, that if we don't have a patchwork of experiments that the states offer, we lose out on crucial data on what works and what doesn't.
[CASAR] Understood. And I would assume that whether the federal government mandates connections or not, or subsidizes them or not, might be areas of disagreement. But I actually am genuinely looking for areas of agreement here. And so, if the private industry were interested in interconnecting ERCOT to be able to sell power back and forth and wanted to do that of their own accord, but regulators were to say no, “We don't want to do that.” Would that be an area where you and I would agree, potentially, that private actors should be allowed to interconnect between Texas and other areas to reduce prices for Texans, increase competitiveness, and increase reliability? Again the method of getting there, we might disagree, just like in other areas. But I'm just trying to figure out because, frankly, in other committee hearings, I've been surprised to find that there are areas where we're trying to get to a similar policy goal.
[FISHER] As I view this issue, in fact, it's a state policy issue. Um, so it's not up to me, it's up to the state of Texas and I've never lived in Texas, but I know that you don't mess with Texas and, um, that's kind of the approach that I take to this, it’s a state policy issue, and I don't believe it's the federal government's job to come in and tell Texas what to do.
[CASAR] I understand and again, I'm not asking you that question. I'm asking, would you support regulators saying, “no, you cannot sell power in and out of Texas.” And I think you're — it's okay. You can think about it. Maybe next time.
[FISHER] No, it's entirely up to Texas. The folks of Texas who want to make that policy, it's entirely up to them.
[CASAR] Well, the policy decisions of folks in Texas have left 90% of people isolated on ERCOT, but some parts of Texas were not. Whether you are in Chairman Fallon's district up in North Texas, significant parts of his district are not on ERCOT, Ms. Escobar's district in El Paso, in the western part of Texas, or Mr. Weber's out in Beaumont that are not in ERCOT. Those areas suffered many way fewer outages, much fewer outages, still outages but much less blackouts than those folks that were on ERCOT. And so, Mr. Monken, I have a question for you. You've been talking about how important it is to build out transmission. Is it in your view, is it the best thing for energy competitiveness in the country, for electric reliability across the country, and for preventing these blackouts, for us to allow interconnections in and out of Texas?
[JONATHON MONKEN, Principal, Converge Strategies] Yes. I think the proof is in the data, of recognizing that areas that are not subjected to that level of isolation, from a transmission standpoint, are historically lower cost for the consumer and higher reliability for those consumers as well.
[CASAR] Thank you, Chair for the time. I look forward to working across the aisle, if we can, on this issue.
Casar’s Connect the Grid Act would:
- Require interconnection between ERCOT and grids that it neighbors.
- Make sure ERCOT is subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversight for just and reasonable pricing and transmission planning.
- Increases the Department of Energy (DOE) Transmission Facilitation Program to boost Federal funding for the construction of new transmission.
WithCasar’s bill, the Texas grid would still be run by ERCOT, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC), and the Texas Legislature in their current roles — with the added oversight for just and reasonable pricing and transmission planning from FERC.
Connect the Grid Act Resources:
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Congressman Greg Casar represents Texas’s 35th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, which runs down I-35 from East Austin to Hays County to the West Side of San Antonio. A labor organizer and son of Mexican immigrants, Casar serves as the Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 118th Congress. He also serves on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Agriculture.