Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick ramped up the blame game for Hurricane Beryl on Friday when he called for an investigation that Governor Greg Abbott demanded from overseas into power outages in the Houston area in a probe that could lead back to them through the Public Utility Commission.
Patrick - the acting governor in Abbott's absence - posted 10 questions for CenterPoint Energy to answer after leaving more than two million customers in the dark without air conditioning in the immediate wake of the storm in an area where almost half that number still had no power on Friday in the scorching heat.
The lieutenant governor's inquiry revolves on whether the massive electric utility was prepared for the storm and its potential for havoc. Patrick scolded CenterPoint in a post on social media that sought to absolve himself of culpability in the temporary position that Abbott delegated to him when he left the country before Beryl made landfall near Houston on Monday.
"CenterPoint must be ready for any storm in the Gulf that could possibly hit Houston, no matter what the forecast says," Patrick said in a post on X. "At the state level, we were well prepared no matter where it landed. We expected the worst and prayed for the best."
Abbott issued the initial call for an investigation into the Houston utility's handling of the hurricane on Thursday. Patrick moves swiftly to get the probe in motion with the grilling of CenterPoint on social media on whether it was properly equipped for the hurricane or cutting corners after failing to take the storm as seriously as it should.
A probe into CenterPoint's handling of the crisis could follow the same basic course that investigations into the Texas power grid collapse in a record winter storm traveled in its wake three years ago. Abbott sought to pin the blame for Winter Storm Uri on windmills before investigations exposed natural gas interests as the chief culprits.
Patrick and the Senate determined that state regulators at the PUC had dropped the ball on the ice storm. The lieutenant governor pressured all three of the PUC commissioners that Abbott had appointed into resigning without resistance from the state's top leader. Abbott selected replacements of whom the lieutenant governor would approve.
Patrick could pose the same questions that he lobbed to CenterPoint today to the PUC as the state agency that has the task of regulating electric utilities. If CenterPoint was woefully unprepared for Beryl, why was the PUC unaware of this? While the PUC is an executive agency that Abbott controls, Patrick exerts immense sway there as well in light of the influence he has in the Senate budget-writing process.
"Once they finally get the power back on, here are the questions on the minds of their customers and me," Patrick said in the post that listed them in the order below.
1. Is this a new and different CenterPoint than in the past?
2. Did they cut corners before the storm?
3. Are they cutting corners now?
4. Were they prepared for the storm hitting Houston?
5. Did they take the storm seriously?
6. What is their mission statement?
7. Are they too focused on their other businesses?
8. Do they need more full-time staff?
9. Will their response to the next storm be better?
10. Most importantly, are Houston and surrounding areas still IMPORTANT to CenterPoint? Are their customers their number one priority in their mission statement and future planning?
"These are fair and legitimate questions," Patrick added. "The Senate and I are committed to getting the answers. You can count on it."
more to come ...
