As Winter Storm Uri blacked out much of Texas on Feb. 15, 2021, Texans erupted in outrage that such a catastrophe could happen here. 

In the ensuing days, Texans learned, painfully and publicly, about grid recommendations made by federal regulators after outages in winter 2011. These recommendations, largely ignored by state officials, could have significantly lessened Texans’ pain and damages from the 2021 freeze.

In the three years since Uri, in some cases, state leaders have taken steps to protect the grid and the people who rely on it. But in others, Texas is making some of the same disastrous mistakes it did after 2011.

In November 2021, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a 300-page report on the Uri blackouts. The report included 28 common-sense, far-sighted recommendations designed to prevent or mitigate such outages in the future. The agencies urged Texas to implement the recommendations by this winter, if not sooner. 

Today marks three years since Uri killed hundreds of Texans, blacked out millions more, and wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid, water systems, and economy. 

Here’s a look at which recommendations have been implemented — and, more disturbingly, those that haven’t…

When the Texas House State Affairs Committee heard market reform bills for the first time last week, Chairman Todd Hunter implored witnesses to focus on the Texans who too often have been lost in the conversations about Texas’ energy future: “Now the one name I never hear is the word consumer or public or the taxpayer or the ratepayer. … Look at the impact on the public, the consumer, the ratepayer and the taxpayer.”

Good.

Because Texas consumers and ratepayers will certainly be missing from this week’s energy conversation on the other side of the Capitol. The Senate is poised to approve bills this week that could send electricity costs skyrocketing — no one knows by how much. And Senators, it seems, couldn’t care less…

Two years have passed since Winter Storm Uri plunged Texas into darkness — yet policymakers are still far from ensuring a reliable grid. There are a multitude of reasons for this. For instance, Texas hasn’t done nearly enough to winterize power plants, gas supply, or homes and buildings.

But the biggest problem may simply be one of vision: policymakers aren’t seeing — or, at least, aren’t acknowledging — that there are a multitude of grid challenges facing them, and, by necessity, they will require varied solutions. No single answer will solve them.