Sid Miller Rides to Grid Rescue in Abbott
Bad Dream Revival that's Risky Maneuver

Capitol Inside
August 6, 2022

Democrat Beto O'Rourke picked up an unexpected ally in his fight with Governor Greg Abbott this week when Republican Agriculture Sid Miller portrayed the embattled Texas electric grid as a product of cronyism, greed and lax regulation by the state.

Miller - a former Texas House member who was Donald Trump's first supporter among statewide elected leaders here - contended on Friday that the state's failure to maintain a reliable power system had caused considerable damage to the farm and ranch business here.

"The Texas grid is NOT secure," Miller declared in the headline of an email from his campaign.

“Weather happens, but the real tragedy was a human failure… cozy relationships between regulators and industry, too much reliance on low capacity alternative energy, and profit seeking at the expense of safety and security such as winterizing natural gas infrastructure,” Miller said.

“The chaos also had a significant effect on our state’s agriculture industry, just one of the many gut punches delivered to our ranchers and farmers over the past couple of years,” the state farm boss added.

While Miller has been critical of Abbott at times in the past few years, the renewed focus on the grid effectively reopens one of the governor worst wounds on an issue on which he's been highly vulnerable since the grid collapsed for most of a week during the record Winter Storm Uri in early 2021.

The move appears to be high risk considering that Miller's own re-election race could be jeopardized by a poor Abbott showing in the marquee Texas race this fall. Miller is facing Democrat Susan Hays in a clash on on the November ballot below the battle for governor.

In the most partisan climate in the nation's modern history, the GOP's statewide candidates' success or failure could depend heavily on Abbott's performance in the bout with O'Rourke, who had considerable coattails in a bid to oust U.S. Senator Ted Cruz in 2018. O'Rourke lost to Cruz by less than 3 points in a race that the Democrat entered as a prohibitive underdog. But Democrats flipped a dozen Texas House seats, two in the state Senate and two more in Congress thanks in large part to O'Rourke's money and organization. Abbott - by the same token - had no such an effect in down-ballot contests in two previous races for governor.

A staunch conservative who Trump dubbed as his man in Texas during his first race for president in 2016, Miller has displayed an independent streak that sets him apart from fellow Republican statewide leaders who are march in lockstep. Abbott has treated the agriculture commissioner more like a burr in the saddle that he usually ignores. But Miller hit a nerve on the grid - prompting a rare rebuttal from the governor.

Miller has drafted a grid reform proposal that he's dubbed the Texas P.O.W.E.R. Plan - an acronym for Proper Oversight, Winterization, and Electricity Reform Plan. Here are its planks.

* Members of ERCOT, PUC, and other regulatory entities must reside in and be legal residents of the state of Texas.

* Winterization of coal, nuclear, gas, solar, hydro, and wind generation systems – we must make voluntary weatherization requirements mandatory.

* Remove liability shields that prevent accountability in the power system.

* Significantly increased storage capacity.

* Shield Texas consumers from sudden price spikes cause by natural disasters, systemic failures, EMPs, and cyber-attacks.

* Significantly increase accountability and oversight to empower regulators to impose compliance and sanction non-compliance on power generators and retail providers.

* Enhance cyber-security measures to protect grid integrity.Create a severe event early warning system to text important weather updates directly to Texas residents in a timely manner.

* Review, modernize, and harden essential infrastructure to prevent weather, cyber, and EMP disruptions.

* Expand and diversify Texas power to include more nuclear and hydro-power production.

* Limit “maintenance downtime” for power producers to no more than 3% of the state’s total capacity and schedule downtime across the calendar year instead of stacking maintenance in late winter.

* Incentivize back-up, localized power generation systems at essential facilities such as water treatment plants and hospitals.

* Mandate a statewide contingency plan to be implemented when our unreliable sources go offline.

* Create a memorandum of understanding with the military and National Guard to deploy their mobile generators to critical areas of the state.