Texas lawmakers yesterday approved a bill to cut about $5.1 billion in disputed electricity and services fees levied on power marketers during a winter freeze that sent the state’s power market into financial crisis, Reuters reported. The cold snap last month spurred a power crisis that pushed up electricity costs by nearly 10 times the usual to about $47 billion. Those costs led three companies to seek bankruptcy and a sparked a battle between lawmakers and the state’s power regulator over the handling of the crisis. The state’s senate overwhelmingly approved a measure directing the Public Utility Commission chairman and state grid operator Electric Reliability Commission of Texas (ERCOT) to correct 32 hours of emergency prices and rollback service fees. If approved by the state’s house of representatives, it would go to the governor’s desk for his review.
