Posted on 02/24/2021 4:49:53 AM PST by EyesOfTX
Throughout the cold blast of last week, much news was made about the fact that three of the key members of the board of the Electric (non) Reliability Council of Texas weren’t even from Texas. In fact, it turned out the chairman lives in Michigan, the vice-chair also lives out of state, along with one other member of the 15-member board.
Well, guess what? Those news reports actually understated the out-of-state issue with this board. Turns out that there were no fewer than five non-Texans running Texas’s power grid. Happily, each and every one one of them resigned yesterday, along with a sixth non-Texan who was scheduled to move onto the board in the coming weeks:
Five members of the board of directors at the entity that operates Texas’ electrical grid will resign from their posts on Wednesday, according to a notice posted to the Public Utility Commission website.
Board Chairwoman Sally Talberg, Vice Chairman Peter Cramton, and members Terry Bulger, Raymond Hepper and Vanessa Anesetti-Parra will all resign from their posts on Wednesday, during the next meeting of the board of directors of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT.
ERCOT has come under fire for its handling of widespread blackouts that left millions of Texans without power and water as the state faced subfreezing temperatures, snow and ice.
None of the five members resigning from their posts live in Texas.
“Our hearts go out to all Texans who have had to go without electricity, heat, and water during frigid temperatures and continue to face the tragic consequences of this emergency,” the letter reads. “We have noted recent concerns about out-of-state board leadership at ERCOT. To allow state leaders a free hand with future direction and to eliminate distractions, we are resigning from the board.”
Craig Ivey, who was set to fill a vacant position on the board, said in a separate letter that he was withdrawing his candidacy “in order to avoid becoming a distraction” due to his out-of-state residency.
[End]
Look, I love non-Texans, so don’t get me wrong here. But ERCOT is a quasi-government entity – technically a 501(c)(4) non-profit – that runs the grid that supplies 80% of the state with power. It reports directly to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). In a state with 28 million residents, it seems to most of us here in Texas that we ought to be able to find 15 actual Texans who know how to manage a power grid.
I mean, we don’t elect Michiganders to our state legislature, or Marylanders to serve as our governor, do we? The governor can’t appoint Californians or Alabamans to serve on our PUC, can he? We don’t have a Louisianan as our attorney general, even though that might end up being tons of fun and all manner of shenanigans.
At the end of the day, my one and only problem with these five folks leaving the board – from which they were likely to be fired, anyway – is that the number is not 15.
My suspicion is that, like any other semi-accountable board of this type, ERCOT’s board has become a big social club, a cushy assignment with a huge paycheck that none of its members take too seriously. I honestly can find no other explanation for the fact that, when this board met on February 9, as the first of 3 arctic fronts was already pouring into the state, it spent just 45 seconds (that’s not a typo) of a 2-hour meeting discussing preparation measures for what they already knew at that point would ultimately become a major winter weather event.
The fact that not one of the 15 members had a single question or concern about preparedness for such a major event that they wanted to raise in that meeting tells me that there are no serious people currently serving on that board.
So, 5 down and just 10 more to go. If they won’t voluntarily resign, then the PUC and Governor Abbott needs to resign them. In fact, after the clownshow Texans suffered through last week – with more than 70 human beings ending up dead – the entire organization needs to be demolished down to the studs and reconstituted. Only a bold move such as that will give Texans any comfort that we won’t just be living through a replay of last week again sometime in the near future.
Are you listening, Governor Abbott?
That is all.
Great, now go after them financially......
Agree with the author of the article. The board needs to be cleaned out down to the ground. And as importantly, the good Governor and Lt Governor needs to who’s responsible for selecting this group of do nothings and get rid of them as well. Lastly, the board needs strong oversight, perhaps the Railroad Comission as it has oil & gas oversight.
Throw the rest of the bums out.
If this were a novel, people would say it strains credibility.
Agree! Get rid of all members..do not replace..Texans did not ask for Ercot.
While you are at it replace all PUC members. Abbot dropped the ball. Seventy Texans are dead due to negligence.
So what exactly will this accomplish?
Nothing unless the replacements actually have experience in the production of energy.
Do they have any fiduciary responsibility to the residents of Texas?
How much stock do they individually and/or collectively own in wind and solar companies?
Since this is done and done, what will be changed to prevent this in the future?
Abbott appointed them.
Why is he getting a pass.
He should resign.
I’m dead serious. After the shutdowns and mask mandates I decided I’d never vote for him again. Come to find out he has 2024 pres aspirations.
He also didn’t defend Trump after the election fraud. So. Done.
Resign? That is extreme. I would hold off on forcing out a Republican governor.
Were they Abbott’s friends snd family? Did they give Abbott something so they could sit on the board? Were they even experts in energy? Had they once lived in Texas? Did they own stakes in windmills or solar companies?
The whole thing is odd.
Texans did not ask for Ercot.
************
In 1970, ERCOT was formed to comply with NERC requirements. So it was
a formation to stay close to home rather than being a national controlled group.
Actually Abbot has very little to do with the appointments to ERCOT and/or the TX PUC for that matter. ERCOT themselves decide who and how many serve on that board.
The real crime here is that ERCOT has no sense of balance regarding the mix of energy sources used in Texas. Allowing such a fragile energy source as wind/solar to be 32% of the Texas energy production is criminal. Look at what actually happened ... the energy sources that the ‘woke greens’ have wet dreams over failed spectacularly while the most hated sources (coal & nukes) soldiered along with only small deterioration in production.
The Texas grid needs to remain separate from the Federally regulated rest of the nation for political expediency. But Texas needs to drastically cut wind/solar dependency and increase the number of coal and nukes.
My question is, how in the world did this mess happen in the first place?
This defies logic and credulity.
If this was Abbot's decision, this is an epic fail in leadership. Heads should roll with this failure.
You can't convince me there aren't 15 Texans who could manage the power grid for the state.
What are you talking about? He APPOINTS the heads of ERCOT.
PUC I mean. Sorry. And PUC appoints ERCOT.
SORRY my fingers going faster than my brain.
Here is the list of the board of directors of ERCOT and their educational backgrounds:
*Anesetti-Parsa - Business Analysis Certificate from University of Toronto
*Bulger - MBA from University of Toronto
*Carpenter - BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech
*Cobo - Lawyer from Texas Tech
*Emery - BS in Electrical Engineering from Florida Atlantic University
*Fehrenback - BA in Economics from SMU, BA in General Business and MBA from Tarleton State University
*Gresham - BA in Business Administration and BA in Mass Communication from Illinois State University
*Harper - BA in Business Administration University of Illinois
*Hepper - Lawyer from University of Penn and BA in Economics from Lehigh Universtiy
*Karnei - BA in Accounting (Summa Cum Laud) from University of Texas
*Magness - Lawyer from Universtiy of Pennsylvania
*Sargent - BS in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines
Walker - A non-voting ex officio member of ERCOT board appointed by the governor. BA in Accounting from SMU and a
Law degree from South Texas School of Law
This list shows that there appears to be an enormous lacking of people with STEM degrees. There are as many lawyers as there are engineers and a host of business and economic degrees. This is very strange since ERCOT is responsible for controlling the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical power in the state of Texas—a very specialized and highly technical responsibility.
Yes RESIGN.
You think just because he has R behind his name I should vote for him?
Not hardly. He sucks. And he is a tyrant
Reminiscent of the ‘board’ that managed the money etc in New Orleans in anticipation of the ‘big un’.
Money virtually went everywhere but to the designated area.
Kind of like a few years back (1982) an Air Florida airliner hit a bridge in DC during a ‘freak storm’ and the same time frame the Metro system had a fatal crash in one of its tunnels.
The synopsis after the fact was that the surrounding jurisdictions couldn’t really help because they weren’t ‘connected’ communications wise and the forces on the ground couldn’t communicate with the people in the subway tunnels.
Years later a plane crashed into the Pentagon and the ensuing rescue was somewhat hampered by...
YEP
A couldn’t communicate with B etc etc etc despite the billions spent-wasted- to solve the problem..
Um, no. There are others with far more power who contributed to this mess and nary a whisper of criticism.
I want the board to remain and testify publicly as to the specifics and, if culpable, face charges.
‘Resigning’ is not an option.
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