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Patrick, who presides over the state senate, has become the
biggest proponent of reducing about $47 billion in power costs
from a mid-February cold snap. He publicly prodded the governor
after the state's utilities regulator rejected price cuts and
the house referred the matter to committee.
The deep freeze killed at least 56 people and left 4.3 million
Texans without power or heat for days after half the state's
power plants went offline. The demand for power and lack of
generation boosted electricity prices by up 400 times the usual
levels. Four companies have filed for bankruptcy and dozens more
are in danger of going out of business.
"The governor can make this corrective action if he so chooses,"
said Patrick, citing an emergency decree that allows Abbott to
order the Public Utility Commission and grid operator ERCOT to
take action.
Patrick said he took the unusual step of publicly pleading for
the governor to act because of the short time allowed to make
the price change. ERCOT has 30 days after an event to adjust
pricing, which expires this week.
Referring to PUC Chairman Arthur D'Andrea's leaked comments to
Wall Street investors that he "tipped the scale as hard as I
could" to prevent a rollback, Patrick said: "We just can’t abide
by that."
The governor can use emergency power to order a rollback of 32
hours of high pricing or request an investigation that will
allow the changes to be considered further, Patrick told a news
conference.
(Reporting by Gary McWilliams, Editing by Franklin Paul, David
Gregorio and Dan Grebler)
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