Public Citizen’s Fight for Grid Stability, Wildfire Prevention, and Fair Elections in Texas
Public Citizen News / March-April 2025
By José Medina
This article appeared in the March/April 2025 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here.
Remember when Winter storm Uri killed hundreds of people in Texas? In Texas, we sure do, so as the Texas Legislature convenes, the state’s Public Citizen office returns to the fight with a familiar sense of urgency. The scars of Uri linger, the population is booming, and warnings of energy shortages grow louder. Lawmakers have a chance—if not an obligation—to shore up the grid. But that’s not the only battle ahead. Public Citizen is also pressing for stronger wildfire prevention measures and safeguards against the creeping influence of AI in elections.
Fixing the Grid
In June 2024, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the Texas electric grid that serves almost all of the state, warned lawmakers that an updated forecast predicts statewide electricity demand could surge from 85 gigawatts to 150 gigawatts by the end of the decade. This warning should trigger swift action by lawmakers.
“Winter Storm Uri was the costliest disaster in Texas history, with an estimated $195 billion in damage,” said Adrian Shelley, Texas director of Public Citizen. “The legislature should do everything possible to prevent it from happening again. Instead, lawmakers have done little more than double down on fossil fuels. There has been no action to reduce demand or use the energy we have more efficiently. This ‘all gas, no brakes’ approach to grid stability is not going to work anymore.”
In the aftermath of Uri, state leaders convinced voters that only funding costly new methane gas-powered power plants could fix our grid. Their efforts culminated in the creation of the Texas Energy Fund in 2023, which offers grants and low-interest loans to build the new methane-powered generating capacity. To date, no TEF-approved project has broken ground, and it will likely be years before any TEF-funded facility generates its first megawatt of electricity.
Public Citizen is lobbying Texas lawmakers for better, cheaper, faster-to-implement solutions. One such solution is establishing a new statewide energy efficiency standard to reduce energy demand.
“What was true in February 2021 remains true today: the cheapest – and most reliable – megawatt of electricity is the one you don’t use,” Shelley added.
Public Citizen also supports legislation to study the cost of burying power lines and consider connecting the ERCOT grid to other state grids. We’re raising awareness about the public health and climate consequences of increasing fossil fuel generation, pushing lawmakers to use the TEF to fund renewable energy projects. In the years since Uri, renewable energy projects have accounted for almost all of the state’s power-generating capacity.
Preventing Wildfires
In February 2024, Texas experienced the largest wildfire in state history.
The Panhandle Wildfires killed three people, burned more than 1 million acres, and destroyed more than 15,000 head of cattle. A Texas State House committee created to investigate the fires determined the fires started by a brittle oil field electric utility pole that broke and fell on dry grass. The state agencies that should have regulatory oversight of oil fields and utility poles – the Railroad Commission of Texas and the Public Utility Commission of Texas – claim they didn’t have the legal authority to do so. Public Citizen is working with lawmakers to make it clear the agencies have the responsibility to hold oil field owners and operators accountable for starting fires.
The honor system isn’t working. Public Citizen supports giving state regulators the tools and funding they need to fix this problem and prevent it from happening again. It also backs legislative proposals to provide firefighters with new and sufficient equipment to fight fires when they do occur.
Ethics Commission Reforms and Getting AI Out of Elections
The 2023 Texas House impeachment and Texas Senate acquittal of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton spotlighted the ineffectiveness of campaign finance laws and the agency that is supposed to enforce them, the Texas Ethics Commission.
That’s why Public Citizen advocates for reforms to address the conflicts of interest that came to light during Paxton’s impeachment and trial. The process was influenced by significant political contributions due to a loophole that banned political donations while the state Legislature was in regular session but not during an impeachment proceeding outside of a legislative session. Such was the case for Paxton’s impeachment. This situation allowed Paxton’s supporters to spend money to influence the outcome and pressure the jurors – the 31 state senators, which include Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton – and save him from the substantial evidence of public corruption presented at trial.
The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) oversees campaign finance rules and reporting and is notoriously toothless and ineffective by design. Public Citizen believes that true and fair democracy means having a watchdog to keep campaigns and political groups honest and impose consequences when candidates violate election finance laws. As part of the TEC’s agency-wide review, due this year, Public Citizen supports expanding the contributions moratorium to include special sessions and periods when an impeachment is pending and giving the TEC the teeth it needs to enforce its rules.
As part of its work combating the use of artificial intelligence to influence elections, the Texas office of Public Citizen supports expanding an existing state law banning AI in videos to influence elections, by expanding the ban to include audio and still images.
The Texas Legislature meets for only 140 days starting in January on odd-numbered years. Public Citizen is working hard to end the session with legislative victories that improve the environment, public health, and good government in the Lone Star State.