Brent Bennett, PhD, is the policy director for Life:Powered, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation that reframes the national discussion on energy and the environment.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of SB 3 today. Life:Powered and the Texas Public Policy Foundation appreciate this committee’s thoughtful work on this bill as the Legislature converges on a set of solutions to prevent another crisis like the one that befell our electric grid last month.
While this bill addresses many important factors that precipitated that tragedy, including weatherization of power plants and improved resiliency of our natural gas infrastructure, these fixes alone will not solve our reliability problems. The Legislature needs to address the market problems that Winter Storm Uri exposed, especially the diminishing quantity of dispatchable generating capacity in our grid and our increasing reliance on wind and solar generation without an appropriate reliability standard.
Testimony in Support Before the Texas House State Affairs Committee