From the Texas Tribune: Oil industry helped handpick members of Texas advisory group for electric grid reliability, emails show

An great example of interest groups and agency capture.

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Oil and gas industry groups had a heavy hand in choosing representatives to serve on a council intended to ensure energy and electricity operations continue during extreme weather conditions, emails provided to The Texas Tribune and confirmed by the Texas Railroad Commission show.

The council, recently formalized by the Texas Legislature in the aftermath of the power crisis earlier this year is supposed to ensure the energy and electric industries meet “high priority human needs” and “address critical infrastructure concerns” — responsibilities lawmakers assigned to it after the previous, informal group failed to ensure natural gas suppliers could transport enough fuel to power plants during the February winter storm.

The lack of fuel ultimately forced more electricity offline, lengthening the crisis for Texans, millions of whom lost power, heat and, at times, safe drinking water during the dayslong blackouts. The power outages, primarily caused by the inability of power plants to operate in the extreme cold, caused the deaths of as many as 700 people, according to a BuzzFeed analysis, and caused an estimated $86 billion to $129 billion in economic damage, according to The Perryman Group, a Texas economic firm.

In response, lawmakers beefed up the Texas Energy Reliability Council in Senate Bill 3, a sweeping piece of legislation passed in the aftermath of the storm. The overhaul included formalizing the previously loose group of industry representatives into a 25-member council with regulators to head it, requiring the council to “foster communication and planning” to ensure energy and electricity are prepared to meet Texans’ needs, and assigning it a biennial report on the stability of the state’s electricity supply.

The revamped council, known as TERC, is composed of electricity, energy and environmental regulators, as well as five participants each from the natural gas supply chain and the electric industry. Those industry representatives are appointed by state regulators, including the Railroad Commission.

An email provided to the Tribune shows that the Texas Oil and Gas Association, one of the most influential oil and gas industry groups in Texas, provided a list of names to the Railroad Commission’s executive director for appointment to the council in August. The Railroad Commission of Texas regulates the oil and gas industry.

Two months later, all four of the industry groups’ top choices were confirmed to the council by regulators.