BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 24, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 130: Austin Crisis Update with Selena Xie, President, Austin EMS Association
Today’s episode (130) features Selena Xie, President of the Austin EMS Association. Since Sunday, the energy and weather crisis has impacted all parts of Austin, and EMS medics have been on the frontlines of it all. Selena shares perspectives from what she and her members have seen in that time.
You can listen to this episode and previous ones on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
HEARINGS/MEETINGS
The Austin City Council will next meet Thursday @10AM for a Special Called Meeting
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
Thursday, 2.25.2021 @ 9AM
The House Committees on State Affairs and Energy Resources will hold a joint public hearing to consider the factors that led to statewide electrical blackouts during the recent unprecedented weather event; the response by industry, suppliers, and grid operators; and changes necessary to avoid future power interruptions.
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (2,409)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Travis County launches criminal investigation into Texas power crisis (Austin American-Statesman)
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza said Tuesday that he is opening a criminal investigation to determine whether any entity or individuals should face charges stemming from last week's power outages that left millions of Texans in the dark.
Garza told the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV that "our office will be be conducting an investigation into the events that led to last week's crisis, and we will do everything we can to hold powerful actors accountable whose actions or inactions may have led to the suffering."
"Lives were lost, homes were lost and it will take weeks, months and — in some cases — years for some people to be made whole again," Garza said. "We will not forget the horror our community experienced."
Garza declined to cite the target of his investigation and whether it was aimed specifically at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state's power grid.
He added that he was heartened to see how the Austin community and others came together, and he specifically named EMS and hospital workers, firefighters and law enforcement.
"You made us proud, and thank you," he said.
Garza, who had been evaluating whether to open the investigation in recent days, made the announcement hours after state Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher, D-San Antonio, sent a letter to Garza urging him to investigate the "failure of the state of Texas and the Texas energy industry to prepare for last week's catastrophic winter storms."
Fisher then issued a statement: "Put plainly, what happened last week in our state was a crime. No amount of promises from industry players to do better next time will fix this, and even the most forward-thinking policy is insufficient to offer justice to Texans impacted by the storm."
"The state of Texas cannot investigate itself," Fisher said. "We need a thorough outside investigation to determine whether acts and omissions of state officials violated the law." (LINK TO STORY)
Tesla seeks foreign trade zone tax savings for car factory near Austin (Austin Business Journal)
Tesla Inc. is seeking a foreign trade zone designation for its $1.1 billion facility rising east of Austin.
Travis County commissioners offered support for the designation at a Feb. 23 meeting by approving a non-objection letter for the application. That's a critical move for the company to be able to move forward quickly with the application process.
The federal Foreign Trade Zone program allows companies to reduce taxes on imported and exported goods, according to county documents. The company also has to obtain a letter from Del Valle Independent School District. The U.S. Department of Commerce Foreign-Trade Zones Board will make a final decision.
Through the program, imported inventory and inventory held for export in the foreign trade zone would be exempt from ad valorem tax. The designation could save Tesla $270,000 a year across all taxing jurisdictions, including $53,000 on Travis County taxes, according to county documents.
Other companies that have garnered foreign trade zone designations in the Austin area include Samsung, Flex and HID Global. Dell and Hospira previously benefitted from the program, according to county documents.
This would be yet another source of tax savings for the car manufacturer, which last year secured incentives agreements with Travis County and Del Valle ISD that could be worth $60 million or more in tax breaks and rebates over 10 years.
In a letter to the federal Foreign-Trade Zones Board, Travis County Judge Andy Brown said that the carmaker's project spans more than 2,500 acres with the potential to expand up to 3,500 acres. That's a much bigger footprint than previously disclosed in state documents.
Documents filed with the Travis Central Appraisal District by press time indicate that Colorado River Project LLC — the name Tesla has conducted business under locally — owns a little more than 2,500 acres at its site east of Austin. Construction started on the facility in 2020 and completion is expected later this year.
The company has said it plans to employ about 5,000 people with an average annual salary of $47,147 at the plant off the State Highway 130 toll road near Harold Green Road. Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) intends to produce its Cybertruck, Model 3, Model Y SUV and Semi tractor-trailer in Travis County… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin Public Health resumes vaccinations, testing after weather-related delays (Community Impact)
Austin Public Health is in the process of rescheduling thousands of COVID-19 vaccine appointments after winter storm conditions shut down the regional vaccination hub’s operations for more than a week. Vaccine administration recommenced at APH sites Feb. 21, and APH is working to manually reschedule 3,300 appointments for patients who originally had appointments scheduled on Feb. 13 and the days following. APH eventually hopes to implement an automated queuing system, according to a Feb. 21 news release.
In all, APH has 7,000 first doses and 7,500 second doses remaining from a state-issued allocation the week of Feb. 7. It has also received a statewide allocation of 12,000 second doses from the week of Feb. 14 after a delay of multiple days due to inclement weather and road conditions. Some 12,000 more doses are bound for APH later this week—the allocation for the week of Feb. 21.
“We lost eight days of operations, but we are fully dedicated to those who need their second doses and are scaling up resources as much as possible to provide all remaining vaccine this week,” said Cassandra DeLeon, chief administrative officer of disease prevention and health promotion for APH, in the release.
APH is currently prioritizing people due for their second vaccine dose in order to “ensure they are administered as close to the 28-day [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommended interval” as possible. CDC guidance indicates that a second Moderna dose should be administered within 42 days of the first if possible, preferably closer to the 28-day mark.
With a backlog of vaccine appointments, APH said it will expand operations to more sites within the week… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Gov. Greg Abbott to deliver statewide address on winter storm response at 6 p.m. Central (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott will give a statewide address Wednesday evening about Texas' response to last week's winter storm and the power outages it caused.
Abbott has said that he will make reforming the state's energy grid a top priority in the ongoing 2021 legislative session after millions of Texans lost power and clean water for prolonged periods of time during subfreezing temperatures. Dozens of people died, though it will be weeks or months before the full death toll is known.
On Thursday, committees in the state House and Senate will begin investigating the emergency. President Joe Biden will visit the state on Friday.
Abbott's speech will be short — it begins at 6:02 p.m. and is expected to end five minutes later. We're streaming it live thanks to our partners KXAN in Austin… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas Supreme Court to decide whether ERCOT can face lawsuits (KUT)
As many Texans continue to work their way through the ripple effects of last week's storm and outages, there's little question that the operator of the electrical grid system in Texas is in the hot seat. Lawmakers are planning investigations and the governor is demanding the resignation of the chief of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT.
And lawsuits are mounting against the independent nonprofit. Several suits relate to deaths and damage associated with the storm. One case before the Texas Supreme Court could decide the question of whether ERCOT can be sued, or whether it's protected by sovereign immunity. It's a case that predates last week's storm.
Paul Takahashi is an energy reporter for the Houston Chronicle. He told Texas Standard that more lawsuits are expected in the coming days and weeks, but if ERCOT wins in the sovereign immunity case, plaintiffs won't be able to collect.
"Sovereign immunity [is] a well-established legal principle that protects governments and governmental agencies from lawsuits that seek monetary damages," Takahashi said.
The concept goes back to British common law. The question before the Supreme Court in the case of Panda Power is whether ERCOT, as a private nonprofit, is protected by sovereign immunity.
Takahashi says Panda Power built three power plants at ERCOT's urging, in response to the 2011 ice storm that strained Texas electricity-generating capacity.
"Now Panda spent more than $2 billion to build these power plants, but they ultimately ended up losing billions of dollars when that demand didn't actually materialize," Takahashi said.
Panda sued ERCOT, charging fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, seeking $2.7 billion. ERCOT is defending itself against the suit by claiming it has sovereign immunity.
Texas elects its Supreme Court judges, meaning that the justices now face political pressure to hold ERCOT responsible for last week's power failures in the state. The Panda case is unrelated to the recent storm, and it could be argued that ERCOT's actions encouraged development of new electric capacity – a demand many have made since the storm… (LINK TO STORY)
Board members resign from Texas electric grid operator after mass power outages (NPR)
Five out-of-state board members of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — the entity that maintains and operates much of the state's electricity grid — will resign Wednesday, according to a notice filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
The resignations come as Texas still grapples with the aftermath of last week's winter storm that, at its worst, left more than four million residents in the dark and bitter cold for days. The outages also stretched into northern Mexico.
Ratepayers and politicians alike have criticized ERCOT's leadership for failing to prepare before the storm and for seating board members who don't live in Texas. In the immediate days after the record cold temperatures, customers reported exorbitantly high electricity bills.
State officials have called for an investigation into ERCOT's failures.
The four board directors resigning are Sally Talberg, the board chairwoman and a former state utility regulator who lives in Michigan; Peter Cramton, the board's vice chairman and an economics professor at the University of Cologne in Germany and at the University of Maryland; Terry Bulger, the Finance and Audit Committee Chairman and a banker from Illinois; and Raymond Hepper, the Human Resources and Governance Committee Chairman and a former regulator for New England's power grid.
Talberg, Cramton, Bulger, and Hepper wrote in a letter attached to the Public Utility Commission filing Tuesday that they are resigning "to allow state leaders a free hand with future direction and to eliminate distractions."
Vanessa Anesetti-Parra, a director for the independent retail electric provider market segment, will also resign her position as a board member with ERCOT. And Craig Ivey, who was slated to fill a vacant unaffiliated director position, withdrew his application on Tuesday, according to the Public Utility Commission filing.
ERCOT is a nonprofit governed by a board of directors, but ultimately overseen by the Public Utility Commission. Fifteen members serve on the ERCOT board, including the five unaffiliated director positions.
The resignations are effective upon the adjournment of a scheduled teleconference meeting Wednesday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he welcomed the board members resignation.
"When Texans were in desperate need of electricity, ERCOT failed to do its job and Texans were left shivering in their homes without power. ERCOT leadership made assurances that Texas' power infrastructure was prepared for the winter storm, but those assurances proved to be devastatingly false."
He said the state will continue its investigation into ERCOT despite the resignations…(LINK TO STORY)
Dan Patrick announces 2021 priorities focused on pandemic, power grid and socially conservative issues (Texas Tribune)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Tuesday unveiled his top 31 priorities for the 2021 legislative session, a mix of newly urgent issues after last week's winter storm, familiar topics stemming from the coronavirus pandemic and a fresh injection of conservative red meat into a session that has been relatively bland so far.
Patrick said in a statement that he is "confident these priorities address issues that are critical to Texans at this time" and that some of them changed in recent days due to the storm, which left millions of Texans without power. After his top priority — the must-pass budget — Patrick listed his priorities as reforming the state's electrical grid operator, as well as "power grid stability."
Patrick's specific plans for such items remain unclear, however. Almost all of his priority bills have not been filed yet, and the list he released refers to the issues in general terms.
The priorities echo much of the agenda that Gov. Greg Abbott laid out in his State of the State speech earlier this month, including his emergency items like expanding broadband access and punishing local governments that "defund the police." Fourth on the list is a cause that Patrick himself prioritized recently — a "Star Spangled Banner Protection Act" that would require the national anthem to be played at all events that get public funding.
However, besides the fresh focus on the electrical grid, perhaps the most notable takeaway from Patrick's agenda is how far it goes in pushing several hot-button social conservative issues. Patrick's eighth and ninth priorities have to do with abortion — a "heartbeat bill" that would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as well as an "abortion ban trigger" that would automatically ban the practice if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Abbott said he wanted to further restrict abortion in his State of the State speech but did not mention those two proposals specifically.
Abortion is not the only politically contentious topic on Patrick's list. As his 29th priority, Patrick put "Fair Sports for Women & Girls," an apparent reference to proposals that would ban transgender girls and women who attend public schools from playing on single-sex sports teams designated for girls and women. He also included three items related to gun rights: "Protect Second Amendment Businesses," "Stop Corporate Gun Boycotts," and "Second Amendment Protections for Travelers." It was not immediately clear what specifically those three bills would entail.
Coming in at 10th is another proposal that was left unmentioned in Abbott's speech despite popularity with the GOP base: banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. That is considered one of the big pieces of leftover business for conservatives after the 2019 session… (LINK TO STORY)