[caption id="attachment_10842" align="aligncenter" width="834"]
Image Credit - Global News[/caption]
On Tuesday, the top board leaders of Texas embattled power grid operator said that they will resign following the outrage over more than four million customers losing electricity last week during a deadly winter storm, including many whose frigid homes lacked heat for several days in the sub-freezing temperatures.
The resignations are the first since the crisis started in Texas, and there had been calls for wider firings remain in the aftermath of one of the worst power outages in U.S. history. Reportedly all of the five board directors, who are resigning, including Chairwoman Sally Talberg, stays outside of Texas, which only intensified the criticism of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The resignations are effective from Wednesday, a day before the Texas lawmakers are expected to sharply question the grid managers and the energy officials about the failures during the hearings at the state capitol.
Another candidate for the director position, who doesn’t live in Texas, has stepped down as well. Four of the departing board members have acknowledged the concerns about the out-of-state board leadership in a letter to the grid members and the state’s Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT. During the time of crisis, the ERCOT officials removed the contact information for the board members of its website and stated that they had become the target of threats.
The letter read that their hearts go out to all the Texans who have had to go without the electricity heat and water during the frigid temperatures and had to continue to face the tragic consequences of this emergency. According to their biographies on the ERCOT’s website, the other board members are Vice-chairman Peter Cramton, Terry Bulger, and Raymond Hepper. Talberg resides in Michigan and Bulger lives in Wheaton, Illinois. Hepper and Cramton have spent their careers working outside of Texas and the fifth board member leaving is Vanessa Anesetti-Parra.
A total of 16 members on the ERCOT’s board manage the grid manager’s day-to-day operations. The historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures in Texas lasted a week leaving millions without power and water for days. The storm was a part of the icy blast across the Deep South that is reportedly blamed for more than eighty deaths, roughly half of which were in Texas.
The republican government Greg Abbott has hugely blamed the outages on ERCOT and has called for the investigations. But the problems have been wider than ERCOT, including the power plants that were knocked offline by the extreme cold and natural gas producers that didn’t protect the wellheads from freezing.
The Democratic ex-state lawmaker who presides over the largest city in the state and one of the hardest ones to be hit by the recent weather said that ERCOT alone should not be made the scapegoat. He said that when he was in the Texas Legislature, he had filed a bill in 2011 relating to the PUC to ensure ERCOT has adequate reserve power to prevent the blackout conditions.
Image Credit - Global News[/caption]On Tuesday, the top board leaders of Texas embattled power grid operator said that they will resign following the outrage over more than four million customers losing electricity last week during a deadly winter storm, including many whose frigid homes lacked heat for several days in the sub-freezing temperatures.
The resignations are the first since the crisis started in Texas, and there had been calls for wider firings remain in the aftermath of one of the worst power outages in U.S. history. Reportedly all of the five board directors, who are resigning, including Chairwoman Sally Talberg, stays outside of Texas, which only intensified the criticism of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The resignations are effective from Wednesday, a day before the Texas lawmakers are expected to sharply question the grid managers and the energy officials about the failures during the hearings at the state capitol.
Another candidate for the director position, who doesn’t live in Texas, has stepped down as well. Four of the departing board members have acknowledged the concerns about the out-of-state board leadership in a letter to the grid members and the state’s Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT. During the time of crisis, the ERCOT officials removed the contact information for the board members of its website and stated that they had become the target of threats.
The letter read that their hearts go out to all the Texans who have had to go without the electricity heat and water during the frigid temperatures and had to continue to face the tragic consequences of this emergency. According to their biographies on the ERCOT’s website, the other board members are Vice-chairman Peter Cramton, Terry Bulger, and Raymond Hepper. Talberg resides in Michigan and Bulger lives in Wheaton, Illinois. Hepper and Cramton have spent their careers working outside of Texas and the fifth board member leaving is Vanessa Anesetti-Parra.
A total of 16 members on the ERCOT’s board manage the grid manager’s day-to-day operations. The historic snowfall and single-digit temperatures in Texas lasted a week leaving millions without power and water for days. The storm was a part of the icy blast across the Deep South that is reportedly blamed for more than eighty deaths, roughly half of which were in Texas.
The republican government Greg Abbott has hugely blamed the outages on ERCOT and has called for the investigations. But the problems have been wider than ERCOT, including the power plants that were knocked offline by the extreme cold and natural gas producers that didn’t protect the wellheads from freezing.
The Democratic ex-state lawmaker who presides over the largest city in the state and one of the hardest ones to be hit by the recent weather said that ERCOT alone should not be made the scapegoat. He said that when he was in the Texas Legislature, he had filed a bill in 2011 relating to the PUC to ensure ERCOT has adequate reserve power to prevent the blackout conditions.
One thought on “Texas ERCOT Board Members Resign Amidst The Texas Crisis Backlash”
Comments are closed.