"Shadowy Oil and Gas Interests Are Deciding Texas' Energy Fate"

"A panel of experts tasked with making plans to improve the Texas electric grid is concealing key information from the public.

"The future of Texas’ troubled electric grid is being decided in the dark, with zero public input, by a group of people with deep connections to the fossil fuel industry. A panel of oil-and-gas-heavy experts appointed to create a plan to reform the Texas grid are refusing to make their draft recommendations public before they deliver them to the Legislature early next month.

At the second public meeting of the State Energy Plan Advisory Committee last week, the Committee’s 12 members narrowly voted to approve a draft set of recommendations to fix the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT. The Dallas Morning News reported that while the recommendations were read aloud to the audience, the panel refused to provide a draft copy to those in attendance.

“They simply would not distribute it,” Doug Lewin, an energy consultant who was in the audience at Wednesday’s meeting, told Earther. “It’s really kind of bizarre.”

A representative from the Lower Colorado River Authority, the public utility in charge of the committee process, confirmed to Earther in an email that neither the draft recommendations nor minutes from the public meeting would be made public before the final plan is delivered to the Legislature in September."

Molly Taft reports for Earther August 16, 2022.

Source: Earther, 08/17/2022