Thread by @taygoldenstein

Here we go again, folks. The joint hearing of the House State Affairs and Energy Resources committees is starting back up now. Watch along here: tlchouse.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.ph…

On today's first panel is Railroad Commission of Texas Chairman Christi Craddick, who says she lost power for four days personally.

Some jokes at the onset about having to testify in front of her dad, longtime Rep. Tom Craddick.

RRC convened an emergency meeting on Friday, Feb. 12. The Commission waived rules to allow for expedited gas delivery.

"My agency took proactive steps to prevent disruption to natural gas supply and availability," Craddick said.

"As outages spread throughout the state, the oilfield was not immune," Craddick said.

Tuesday, Feb. 16 as it was safe to return to the field, crews arrived to see facilities experiencing outages. Simply can't run without power making electricity.

Of local distribution companies, which provide gas directly to residential customers, only 2,153 experienced service disruption, meaning 99.95% of customers did not lose gas in their homes, Craddick said.

As of last night, only 16 ppl had not had their service restored.

Craddick: What this state did well and what people did recognize is we had gas come offline in some places -- we have a lot of storage in this state ... We have salt domes, particularly along the Gulf coast, with reserve gas. But you need power to pull that out.

Craddick says PUC Chair Walker contacted RRC on Thursday, Feb. 11 warning of gas flow issues. Operators were aware and were beginning to makes sure ppl were aware the event was coming.

Energy Resources Chair Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, asks if RRC then ramped up production.

Craddick said RRC staff said Friday that it thought needed to rearrange gas priorities (called "curtailment order").

RRC gave one-hour notice before an emergency meeting at 6:30 p.m. Friday and approved the new priorities.

Craddick, like Walker yesterday, claims the group can't talk outside meetings bc 2 members of 3 would form a quorum and violate Open Meetings Act.

Goldman asks what it means to put in a new priority list. Craddick says it tells gas utilities, gas companies, gas operators that this is priority of where your gas needs to go.

Sorry, had to step away for a bit. Back now.

Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, says he thinks there's been a dysfunction with state agencies not communicating with the Legislature. The RRC was not among those.

"Please keep up that good work," Hunter said.

"Do something that a lot of these agencies didn't do -- keep the public absolutely informed of what you have been doing," Hunter said to Texas Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick.

Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, asks how the lege can make sure that it has an org that's responsible for making sure stakeholders know which are critical facilities that need to be kept online during emergency.

Craddick says it's been an ad hoc group, may need to be more formal.

Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, said she is "incredulous" that after repeated extreme weather events, still no planning.

"Apparently we just wait for the next crisis to happen and still haven't put it in place," Howard said, referring to creating a critical infrastructure list.

"I think that's what we're trying to figure out and how that communication could have been better," Craddick said.

She said ERCOT didn't understand it needed a continuous gas flow to put gas into power plants.

Howard said in deregulated market, generators have said it isn't economical to maintain their own gas supply or storage.

Craddick said storage could be something they look into in the future. Says RRC doesn't have authority to require they do so.

On weatherization, Craddick says the agency is still assessing that and talking to companies. More companies than maybe it first recognized do *some* weatherization, she said.

Craddick says they are reviewing other states' regulations.

Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville: "How could we let those compressors be part of the blackout if there is a process for critical load and essential services? How did that slip through the cracks and then allow generation plants to fail? That is just baffling to me."

Craddick: "Figuring out how we manage the closed loop of this energy system is what we're all sitting here trying to do."

Craddick has deflected blame thus far, saying once we got the power back, gas began to flow, 24-48 hrs problem was resolved.

"We did our job better than anybody else."

Lucio: I would challenge you to say: You didn't plan properly.

Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D-Laredo, said he doesn't think it was RRC's responsibility to tell the public about outages just bc they're elected.

But he adds that he thinks any elected official would've done a better job than PUC bc they're elected + accountable to constituents.

Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, asks if compressors should have had backup generators and is that under RRC's jurisdiction?

"Before (Rep.) Todd (Hunter) has a heart attack on the cost," he says state could do a tax credit.

Craddick says RRC cannot mandate that.

Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, says PUC Chair Walker reached out to Craddick on Thursday before storm concerned about availability of gas. Were you also?

Craddick: No, sir.
"Was there gas being exported during entirety of storm?" "Those would be private contracts; I'm not aware."

Anchía asking about who has authority to stop gas exports (Abbott on Wednesday mandated that.)

Craddick says she doesn't have jurisdiction over interstate pipelines. RRC general counsel reviewed Abbott's letter. RRC issued notice to operator. bloombergquint.com/business/texas…

Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Plano, asks about "interruptible gas contracts."

Craddick: Two different types of gas you get: firm gas, means guaranteed, or interruptible, means there may be shutoffs for maintenance/other reasons. Says RRC not involved at all in those contracts.

Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, reading constituent comment:

"Arguably, the greatest energy state in the world failed this past week and it cost us dearly. It failed Texans who depend on that energy to live our lives, run our businesses and to protect our families."

Constituent comment (con't): "At what point does government become about serving the people rather than protecting the profits and interests of big businesses who needlessly play roulette w Texans' lives and businesses. The ppl of Texas deserve better."

Craddick agrees they do.

Rep. Chris Paddie, chair of the State Affairs committee, says hearings have established that there's an interdependency between gas and power + they need infrastructure to make sure they work together.

Paddie: "I think it's really important for us to remember what we're seeing here and what we just pointed out in our exchange. We want to do it responsibly, safely, always, but we have to be able to invest in this infrastructure."

Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, is up now.

"Natural gas carried the load during this energy crisis, w/o any doubt about it," Staples said.

Staples says even when every energy source was impacted by some degree, all declined, natural gas still contributed abt 60 percent of entire energy generation mix during storm.

Says natural gas increased over 400% as part of energy mix pre-storm to during storm.

Grant Ruckel, vice president of government affairs at Energy Transfer, starts by saying the company's heart is with those impacted.

The company operates 90K miles of pipeline and also handles storage.

Paddie asks if Staples agrees there's interdependency btwn gas and electric.

Staples says absolutely.

"We need a greater level of coordination," he says. "There's a tremendous partnership of delivering for the ppl of Texas and you've identified it."

Paddie confirms that no gas pipelines froze.

Staples says pipelines are naturally insulated by being buried in the ground, so no, none did.

Hunter asks Staples if ERCOT ever reached out to him.

Staples recalls one meeting not associated with storm in the last five years. Some of staff has conversation on occasion.

Hunter: "If many of your members had been approached/communicated with/filled out the forms to be part of critical infrastructure, a lot of improvement may have happened?

Staples: "Absolutely."

Hunter says hurricane season is approaching in ~90 days.

"Being a coastal representative, we start sooner (rather) than later."

"So with ERCOT and all of these groups, there's a lot of time to communicate with you. I just want to put it on everybody's timeline."

Rep. Tom Craddick asking if TXOGA supports weatherization.

Staples: "Different systems have different needs, and it would be such a complex process to regulate what winterization means at the midstream level, the upstream level," etc. Members wouldn't know what it meant.

Craddick says he wants to know how much it would cost per wellhead. "It'd be tough," he said.

Ruckel said weatherization needs would also vary by geographical location/avg temps of area.

Deshotel again floats idea of state tax credits for electricity-powered compressors to have fallback/emergency natural gas on hand.

"We're taking away that big excuse that generators are saying we couldn't get the gas pressure bc they couldn't deliver. That would be gone."

Deshotel says he asked generators how many plants would have gone down if they hadn't lost gas pressure, and the answer was only a couple.

"We take away that excuse, if it's an excuse, take away that problem with a redundancy system," he said.

Next panel is Jim Cisarik of the Texas Energy Reliability Council, and John Paris, president of Atmos Energy's Mid-Texas Division.

In written testimony that Hunter is reading from now, Cisarik said weatherization would be a "Herculean task."

Asked about salt dome reserves, Cisarik said:

"The challenge with that is most of the salt is along the Gulf Coast and where you really need to get gas is you need to point it toward Central TX, North TX specifically ... That's an idea to look at."

Cisarik: "If the gas supply had stayed on, I think we could have made it through this event with no disruptions ... I think the supply is there. Gas has always been the swing guy."

Paddie: "Winterization alone is not the solution ... It is a piece, a significant piece, and means different things for different people, but you got to fix all of it."

Up next is Katie Coleman, outside counsel for Texas Industrial Energy Customers, and Phil Wilson, general manager-CEO of Lower Colorado River Authority.

Coleman says adding more power plants won't solve the state's problems.

Coleman: Buying more reserves or a capacity market "may sound attractive, but the goal of those ultimately is to pay generators more for doing less and that is not what we think we should be focused on right now."