Under heavy fire from state politicians over her response to the massive Texas blackouts of Feb. 15-19, DeAnn Walker resigned as the chair of Texas’ Public Utility Commission late Monday afternoon.
In a 15-word press release, the PUC said the resignation was effective immediately. Her picture has been removed from the website.
Walker was subjected to sometimes harsh questioning during 7½ hours of testimony last week before the State Legislature. Afterward, more than a dozen lawmakers called for her resignation. (See “Legislators Focus on PUC’s Walker,” Texas Lawmakers Dig into Power Outages.)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick joined the chorus Monday, issuing a lengthy statement calling for Walker’s resignation and that of ERCOT CEO Bill Magness.
“Immediately following the storm, I pledged to the people of Texas that I would get to the bottom of the crippling power outages that began on Feb. 15, leading to tragic loss of life and billions in damages to homes and infrastructure across the state,” Patrick said.
He said he did not make the resignation calls lightly, saying that neither Walker nor Magness “adequately addressed the challenges” of a storm and freezing temperatures that took off half of the grid’s available generation at one point.
“These are two good people who have worked very hard. ERCOT’s job is to manage our electricity grid, and the PUC oversees ERCOT. The lack of adequate preparation by both the ERCOT CEO and the PUC chair prior to the storm, their failure to plan for the worst-case scenario and their failure to communicate in a timely manner dictates they are not the ones to oversee the reforms needed.”
ERCOT acknowledged Patrick’s comments, saying the corporate secretary will work with what’s left of the Board of Directors “to consider the request.”
“Mr. Magness will continue to work with the Texas Legislature and any state agencies on investigations of the recent winter storm and its reform of ERCOT,” spokesperson Leslie Sopko said in a statement.
The ERCOT board is now down to seven members following the resignations of eight members before Walker’s. Under Texas law, the PUC chair is accorded a non-voting seat on the board. (See “ERCOT Board Loses 2 More Directors,” Texas Lawmakers Dig into Power Outages.)
In a resignation letter hand-delivered to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Walker said she believed stepping down “to be in the best interest of the state.”
“I testified last Thursday in the Senate and House and accepted my role in the situation,” she said, calling on others —the gas companies, the Railroad Commissioner, the electric generators, the transmission and distribution utilities, the electric cooperatives, the municipally owned utilities, ERCOT “and finally the Legislature” — to “come forward in dignity and duty and acknowledge how their actions or inactions contributed to the situation.”
Referring to the lack of action since less severe winter weather knocked out 14 GW of generation in 2011, she chided those named, saying they “had the responsibility to foresee what could have happened and failed to take the necessary steps for the past 10 years to address the issues that each of them could have addressed.”
Walker was appointed to the PUC as its chair in 2017 by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Her term was to expire in September.
She spent 15 years at CenterPoint Energy as director of regulatory affairs and associate general counsel before joining Abbott’s staff to advise him on regulated industries. Walker was also an assistant general counsel and an administrative law judge at the PUC from 1988 to 1997.
Commissioners Arthur D’Andrea and Shelly Botkin remain on the PUC.
