Texas senators are wasting no time filling the Public Utility Commission’s vacancies.
On Tuesday, the lawmakers unanimously confirmed Will McAdams by a 31-0 vote. McAdams, a Senate legislative aide for 10 years, was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott April 1. (See Abbott Taps ABC Texas President McAdams for PUC Seat.)
Thursday morning, the Senate Committee on Nominations asked few questions of Peter Lake, chair of the Texas Water Development Board, who was appointed PUC chair on Monday. Nominations Chair Dawn Buckingham (R) said the panel plans to vote Lake out of the committee on Monday, setting up a confirmation vote before the full Senate.
That would give the commission two members, with a third and final member yet to be named. All three previous regulators resigned in the aftermath of the February winter storms and ensuing long-term blackouts.
Arthur D’Andrea continues to hold the PUC’s chairmanship, which he assumed after former Chair DeAnn Walker’s resignation. D’Andrea resigned in March, shortly after the leak of a phone call in which he told Wall Street investors he was using “the weight of the commission” to avoid repricing $16 billion in ERCOT market transactions. (See D’Andrea Resigns from Texas Commission.)
Lake told the nominations panel that February’s events were “beyond unacceptable” and that there won’t be “any easy answers or quick fixes.”
“This [position] will require very hard decisions to be made,” he said. “If confirmed, I will find out what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how to fix it. We cannot be hampered by institutional inertia or antiquated mindsets. My focus will be to provide the information you all need to craft policy and will work to implement that policy efficiently and effectively.”
McAdams and Lake must both undergo PUC training before they can begin to serve, the commission said.
A meeting scheduled for April 22 was cancelled to allow new commissioners time to get up to speed. The PUC’s next open meeting is scheduled for May 6.
McAdams’ term expires Sept. 1, 2025 and Lake’s on Sept. 1, 2023.
