Texas lawmakers are debating several bills to address how to cover the huge charges facing some energy companies for power purchased during February’s winter storm, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Legislation that has advanced the farthest, according to lawyers and executives following the process, would specifically address the bills owed by power cooperatives, allowing them to raise financing on their own and charge their customers to service the securitization debt. Other legislative efforts aim to go further by holding more market participants throughout Texas responsible for the outstanding bills owed to the state’s grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Those two areas of legislation may be combined, as they both address money owed to Ercot. A third legislative track aims to address $16 billion of charges for power purchases made during the storm, that an independent market monitor identified as resulting from a mistake by Ercot and state regulators. That bill faced the most opposition during a hearing in the statehouse this week because it spreads greater costs among more participants in the Texas market. Moreover, a debate continues about whether Ercot is required to reverse those charges.
