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Texas House Speaker asks committees to review statewide blackouts

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Posted at 11:03 AM, Feb 16, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-16 12:03:53-05

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan has asked two committees in the lower chamber to hold a joint hearing later this month to review statewide power outages that have affected millions of Texas households amid a massive winter storm.

Phelan, a Beaumont Republican, requested the House State Affairs and Energy Resources Committees convene Feb. 25.

On Monday, the state’s electric grid operator lost control of the power supply, leaving roughly 2 million Texas households without heat or other electric appliances.

The operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, began early Monday implementing rolling blackouts, which were intended to be under an hour per each impacted area.

ERCOT ordered those blackouts after announcing a winter record for power demand.

“We must cut through the finger-pointing and hear directly from stakeholders about the factors that contributed to generation staying down at a time when families needed it most, what our state can do to correct these issues, and what steps regulators and grid operators are taking to safeguard our electric grid,” Phelan said in a news release.