A Time for Choosing
Private property rights or an expansion of "the police power of the state?" Energy abundance or scarcity? The Legislature has some big choices ahead.
In his State of the State speech this week, Governor Abbott acknowledged the obvious: “Our rapidly growing state also needs an increasing supply of electric power.”
The Governor didn’t specify what types of energy we need, though he did give an implicit nod to an all-of- the-above approach, including renewables and storage:
“We now provide more power than ever before. In the last four years, we increased power by 35%. As a result, Texas ranks No. 1 for electric power generation.”
The fact check on this: it’s all true. Texas produces more power than any other state by far, and we added the most power over the last four years — bringing our full nameplate capacity from about 125 gigawatts before 2021’s Winter Storm Uri to an astounding 170 gigawatts today. Moreover, 92% of that 35% increase Gov. Abbott cited is from wind, solar, and storage (75% from solar and storage alone).
Yet as the Governor rightly noted, we need more. A lot more.
The Texas Legislature is nearly four weeks into its 140-day session, and legislators have a lot of important decisions before them. But there is one threshold choice that could change the trajectory of the state for generations:
Will Texas leaders focus their time and attention on building vital energy infrastructure that capitalizes on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grow our economy? Or will they try to harm the renewable energy and storage that’s supporting the grid, lowering bills, and bringing massive investment to rural Texas?
One path will propel Texas’ economy and energy leadership for decades; the latter will leave us poorer and more vulnerable. One would build up our state, the other would tear down a vital industry.
It is a time for choosing.
The Promise
In his speech, the Governor rightly prioritized the funding of water infrastructure. The effort to fund a secure water supply is absolutely vital to our state and deserves undivided attention.
He also called “for Texas to lead a nuclear renaissance in the United States,” having previously appointed an Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group that last year recommended the creation of a fund to support new nuclear reactors and a Texas nuclear industry. This effort should also rightly take up significant legislative focus.
In addition to those critical items, the legislature this year also will need time to consider major pieces of legislation dealing with:
Large loads like data centers and how to pay for transmission and other grid costs;
Energy waste reduction to increase reliability, particularly during winter storms;
Consumer protections from predatory solar installers; and
Backup power to ensure that nursing homes, water treatment facilities, fire stations, and other critical facilities have reliable onsite power during and after natural disasters.
That’s just a start, and that’s just energy. There's a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it — which is precisely why it would be so foolish to spend any time on punitive, anti-energy proposals to tear down our state’s nation-leading renewable energy and battery storage industries, and the 60,000 Texans employed in them.
The Danger
Texas needs more power, the Governor said. Unfortunately, the legislature is now considering Senate Bill 819, which would strangle the vast majority of renewable energy development in Texas. With rising load growth, inflation, and $30 billion in potential transmission costs, mostly to support Permian Basin oil and gas operations, this is a terrible time to take the lowest-cost resources out of the mix — not that there’d ever be a good time to raise Texans’ electric bills by tens of billions of dollars.
If SB 819 (or a similar anti-energy bill) passes, then electricity inflation will skyrocket. Your electric bill will skyrocket. And legislators will never hear the end of it.
Supporters will say that such efforts are not about kneecapping renewable energy, but just look at the language below. With SB 819, the preamble asserts the importance of protecting our state’s natural resources and limiting the development of “renewable energy generation facilities,” but somehow never mentions toxic coal ash “ponds” or the mercury, arsenic, selenium, and other poisons they hold. Nor does the bill even mention oil and gas drilling. Wind turbines would have to be more than half a mile from anyone’s property line, while oil rigs would still be allowed right up to the edge of the line and only 100 feet from a state park or school. This is not about protecting natural resources.
Remarkably, the bill directly invokes “the police power of the state” to put the nation’s most draconian regulations on private property owners who want to develop renewable energy on their own land — quite an invocation for some supposedly conservative legislators.
In a speech known as “A Time for Choosing,” Ronald Reagan said: “What does it mean whether you hold the deed … or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?” Indeed.
For many Texans, the ability to put solar, wind, or batteries on their land is a matter of life and death for their family farms and ranches — these resources provide vital income streams that allow them to hold onto property in their families which, in some cases, has been in their families for generations.
Former Republican legislator John Davis testified last session that the seven wind turbines on his ranch provide “steady, reliable, predictable income that allows my family to keep the ranch intact and make investments into its future as well as for the future generations of my family.”
Why would anyone want to take that away from him?
Why would a conservative state government so severely restrict private property owners as SB 819 proposes to do?
Moreover, renewables have pumped $50 billion into rural Texas ranches, farms, and local governments for schools, roads, and other infrastructure — why cut off that funding for communities that need it?
And if the bill’s supporters really want to protect Texas land, why aren’t they including all energy projects?
Outlook
This isn’t the first time Texas has faced this threat — SB 819 closely resembles a 2023 bill that would have radically expanded government regulation and restricted private property rights. The conservative Texas House of Representatives stopped it.
Hopefully this session, the conservative Texas Senate won’t waste time on this effort to slow down the development of new power sources that Governor Abbott says we need. Hopefully, conservatives, moderates, and progressives alike will choose to protect private property rights and oppose efforts to expand “the police power of the state.” If they do so, they’ll also be voting for lower electric bills, and a stronger Texas economy.
There simply isn’t time to waste. The legislature will only spend so much time on infrastructure and energy issues. They have less than four months to expand our water infrastructure, launch a nuclear industry, figure out how to connect large loads, reduce energy waste, protect consumers, ensure backup power at critical facilities, and more.
The choice is clear: set up future generations for success, or waste time trying to hobble the fastest growing source of power in the state which we desperately need.
As our Governor reminds us, our rapidly growing state needs an increasing supply of power. So it’s time to choose: More energy or less energy? Freedom or “the police power of the state?” Private property rights or big government? Abundance or scarcity?
It is indeed a time for choosing.
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Doug – we don’t agree on much, but I do have to agree with you on SB 819, but not for the same reasons. You say this bill is against renewables, they would like you to think this is true, but you should read the full bill and try to understand it, because it is a gimme for renewable energy.
Renewables are crying wolf about SB 819 because it is the best they will ever get, and they know it. They don’t want anything more restrictive to come about. 200 ft. from a residence is ridiculous and not a win for residents, that’s all it gives them. 3,000 ft from a wind turbine. Nothing else. The rest is a win for renewables. I suggest you read this bill closer and don’t just listen to the people in your camp. But I am sure that will not happen.
I have more for you later….