Texas regulatory commissioner Lori Cobos announced Nov. 21 that she plans to step down from the Public Utility Commission at the end of 2024.

Cobos told her fellow commissioners, PUC staff and stakeholders that she already had shared her plans with Gov. Greg Abbott. She promised a much broader statement during the commission’s last open meeting of the year, Dec. 19.

“It has been a tremendous honor and a privilege to serve as a PUC commissioner,” Cobos said. “I want to thank the governor for the opportunity of a lifetime and for placing his trust in me to serve on the commission after Winter Storm Uri. I’ll say a lot more later … we’ve accomplished an extensive list of important milestones at the commission over the last several years, and I am proud and tremendously grateful to have been part of that amazing work.”

Cobos has played a leading role in the development of major transmission infrastructure projects, including in the Permian Basin region in West Texas and in the Rio Grande Valley. (See Texas PUC Approves Permian Reliability Plan.)

She was one of the three commissioners named to replace the PUC’s incumbents, all of whom left the commission after the devastating February 2021 winter storm that came within minutes of collapsing the ERCOT grid. Cobos joined Peter Lake, who chaired the commission, and Will McAdams. Both left the PUC in 2023.

The commission since has been expanded by state law to five members.

“Like I told Peter and Will when they were leaving, ‘Thank you for being willing to say: yes.’ These were not jobs that people were falling all over themselves to come take right after Winter Storm Uri,” Commission Chair Thomas Gleeson told Cobos. “It took a special kind of person with the heart of a public servant to want to come and do this right after the storm. You will be missed up here.”

Abbott appointed Cobos to the PUC in June 2021. Her term expired that September but by law, she did not have to be reappointed and has continued to serve at the governor’s pleasure. (See Abbott Taps OPUC’s Cobos to Fill out PUC.)

Cobos has more than 20 years of experience in the Texas power industry, including several senior-level positions at the PUC and in-house counsel at ERCOT. She joined the commission after being appointed as CEO and public counsel for the Office of Public Utility Counsel.

Cobos is an ex officio member of the ERCOT Board of Directors and serves on SPP’s Regional State Committee. She also is president of the Southeastern Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.