PUCT now accepting applications for Texas Energy Fund Outside ERCOT grant program
The Outside ERCOT Grant Program provides funding for transmission and distribution infrastructure or electric generating facilities in Texas outside of the ERCOT power region. Qualifying projects must address the modernization of infrastructure, weatherization, reliability and resiliency enhancements, or vegetation management.
Applicants must complete and submit an application on the TEF Portal and file a separate submission statement on the PUCT Interchange under Project No. 57830.
Information on the application process, project eligibility requirements, and additional resources for applicants can be found on the TEF Online website and in PUCT rule 16 TAC §25.512.
The Outside ERCOT Grant Program is one of four TEF programs in the Powering Texas Forward Act. Texans voted to create the TEF through a constitutional election on November 7, 2023. The TEF provides grants and loans to finance the construction, maintenance, modernization, and operation of electric facilities in Texas inside and outside of the ERCOT power region.
Additional information about the TEF and the Outside ERCOT Grant Program is available on the PUCT website.
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The Hill
2 days ago
- The Hill
Texas flooding unpredictable, unmanageable, state emergency management chief says
The flood disaster that struck Texas over Independence Day weekend was beyond the state's ability to predict or fully manage, the state emergency management chief told the legislature on Wednesday. 'People are going to ask, 'Well, what did you know that nobody else knew?'' Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM), told the state's Select Committees on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding during a special session, after weeks of state and national criticism of the disaster response. His agency, Kidd said, 'didn't know anything that nobody else knew. The science is just not there yet.' The committee hearing was held in the wake of the disaster that killed 135 Texans across more than two dozen counties, and in his opening remarks, chair and state Sen. Charles Perry (R) set the parameters of the state's investigation. The committee, he said, 'will not armchair quarterback or attempt to assign blame. To do so and undermine the very goal in the committee's creation.' Instead, he said, 'the goal of our committee is to find constructive policy solutions' to head off future loss of life. That disclaimer came amid a storm of criticism of the local, state and federal response to the disaster, which ultimately killed 135 Texans across more than two dozen counties. Despite early allegations from TDEM that federal forecasts were inaccurate, current and former NWS forecasters have repeatedly argued that the state had enough information to know a disastrous storm was emerging over Central Texas. And while Texas state officials such as Kidd and Gov. Greg Abbott (R) have repeatedly praised the response of the federal government, the Trump administration is under fire too after a series of articles in national media indicated that deep cuts to staff at the Federal Department of Emergency Management and a new process requiring approval for every expenditure over $100,000 — in an agency that routinely deals in the billions — had slowed down both rescues and aid. Those cuts also led to the departure of regional NWS officials — such as the Austin-based 'warning coordinator' who took early retirement in April — specifically charged with making sure local officials are kept abreast of developing threats. Texas Democrats including Rep. Joaquin Castro have argued these cuts could play a role in the confused situation on the ground in Kerr County, where officials took until more than an hour and a half after floods reached 'emergency' levels to send out cell-phone notifications. Climate change is prompting a significant rise in deadly natural disasters, but the panel opened with the assumption that the flooding was more like a one-off. Perry, describing a 9-mile high rain cloud pouring off a million gallons per minute onto the spiderweb of creeks and ravines across Central Texas, called it a '500 year-plus event.' The 'freak' nature of the disaster — a fast-emerging 'rain bomb' condensing over the Hill Country out of the churning remnants of Tropical Storm Barry — made it 'an absolute perfect storm,' KHOU meteorologist Pat Hammond said in a video Perry played for the committee. 'We need to we also should have a deliberate conversation about the credentialing of emergency managers at the local level.' The problem with such a storm, Hammond said, is that it 'really pushes the science of meteorology to the limit. We are not at a point yet where we can pinpoint exactly where these other storms are going to pop up and where that flooding is going to happen.' That ambiguity, he added, meant there was no way to identify where individual flash flooding can happen 'pretty much until it's starting to happen.' That's an area the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has been working on through the Severe Storms Laboratory (SSL) — and that President Trump's budget request would cut, former SSL head of research Alan Gerard told The Hill. On the chopping block, Gerard said, are programs to develop tolls that 'would let us tell a community three to six hours in advance that there's a high probability of the type of intense rainfall that will cause a significant flash flood.' As things were, Kidd told the committee, his department knew enough to pre-position resources but it was caught stretched over an area the size of Indiana, waiting for a disaster that ended up being far more localized. As of the day before the disaster, Kidd said, 'We had no idea where rain would fall, but we knew that there was moisture in the atmosphere throughout Thursday.' In a beat-by-beat recounting of National Weather Service (NWS) updates, Kidd said that the warnings his team received did not coalesce into a flash flood warning until 1:15 the morning of the floods, or a flash flood emergency — the highest level — until 4:45 a.m. 'At 5:56, I personally got the first report of people trapped on roofs,' Kidd told the committee. 'We all know what happened after that.' Three hours of lead time is unusually good for a flash flood — twice what many jurisdictions get, former NWS forecaster Brian LaMarre told The Hill, though he emphasized that the fact that the warnings came overnight played a big role in the ultimate disaster. Once the scale of the disaster became clear, Kidd said, the department was swamped by the response. At the height, he told the committee, the state had 2,700 employees on the ground — and more than six times as many volunteers, a number that swamped the ability of the state to manage them. During the response, he said that he found clear areas of literal communication breakdown: the San Antonio Fire Department's radios didn't work, 'so they had some really cheap Chinese radios they were talking to each other on. Ultimate authority in the crisis, he added, had rested with local officials. 'I always say we are responsible — we are not in charge. The responsibility of being in charge rests with local officials.' With that in mind, Kidd said, the state 'also should have a deliberate conversation about the credentialing of emergency managers at the local level.' Under statute, he said, those officials can be 'whoever the county judge, whoever the mayor appoints,' regardless of their experience. 'We're better than that,' he said.
CBS News
3 days ago
- CBS News
Texas Senate committee advances new THC ban during special legislative session
Just weeks after the governor vetoed a bill banning products containing THC, state senators revived it in the special session, filing nearly identical legislation and passing it unanimously out of committee with a 10-0 vote on Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott explicitly asked lawmakers to regulate, not ban, hemp products. Senators argued on Tuesday that it's not going to work. "We'll regulate it," said Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood. "We'll regulate it by banning it. Because we already tried regulating it." Allen Police Chief Steve Dye and Kaufman County District Attorney Leigh Wiley were the first of several invited witnesses to argue that most hemp-derived products on the market today are harmful. "When I went into the largest of the three warehouses, it looked like a giant candy store," said Dye. "So many packages marketed to our young people." Dye, who has led raids of hemp stores and warehouses, argues regulation would be too difficult and costly to be effective. "Regulation would likely be seen by the industry as carte blanche legalization," Dye said. Advocates argue a ban would close hundreds of businesses and hurt Texans who use these products. "Hemp-derived consumables are affordable, accessible and effective," said Mitch Fuller, who represents the Texas VFW. Fuller said many of the VFW's 65,000 veterans see the industry as an alternative to alcohol and opioids. But senators dismissed those claims. "We're taking a stance on this," said Fuller. "Again, no one's using us; we are doing this on our own volition because it helps us. It works great." Abbott was quoted by Impact News on Tuesday, saying he does want to ban intoxicating consumable THC products, which he views as those with more than 3 milligrams of THC. That's still more than what the Senate seems to want to allow, but it may be a sign he's willing to compromise. Senate Bill 5 now heads to the full Senate.
The Hill
3 days ago
- The Hill
The Great State Government Return-to-Office U-Turn
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) banned remote work for state employees in March. By June, he was signing a bill that allowed it again. This stunning reversal in just three months tells you everything you need to know about the new reality of government work. The Texas about-face isn't an isolated incident. It's part of a fascinating pattern playing out in state capitals across America, where rigid return-to-office mandates are collapsing under the weight of economic reality and employee resistance. What started as executive orders demanding compliance has evolved into nuanced negotiations that treat office attendance as currency. California's Gavin Newsom escalated from two-day to four-day office requirements, only to watch unions trade away salary increases to keep their flexibility. Indiana's new governor included 'limited exceptions' in his return-to-office order from Day 1, signaling that negotiation had always been the endgame. The numbers driving these reversals are impossible to ignore. When California saved $700 million by downsizing office space and Texas discovered that remote work actually boosted productivity while slashing turnover, the economic argument for forcing everyone back to their desks evaporated. This transformation reveals a new playbook in which location has become as negotiable as salary. The speed of Texas's reversal deserves closer examination. When Abbott issued his executive order in March banning telework for state agencies, he positioned it as a matter of principle. State workers needed to be in state buildings, he said, serving Texans directly. The rhetoric was forceful, the timeline immediate. Yet within weeks, the facade began cracking under operational strain. State agencies that had already downsized their physical footprints suddenly faced the prospect of scrambling for office space. Parking lots that had been decommissioned would need resurrection. And employees who had restructured their lives around remote work began polishing their resumes for private-sector opportunities. The bipartisan rebellion that followed wasn't driven by ideology but by data. Texas's own productivity study showed that remote work hadn't just maintained service levels — it had actually improved them while dramatically reducing employee turnover. When Republican Rep. Giovanni Capriglione introduced House Bill 5196 to let agencies set their own remote policies, he wasn't making a statement about worker rights. He was acknowledging mathematical reality. Abbott's signature on the bill in June represents more than a policy reversal. It's an admission that top-down mandates can't override bottom-up economics. But while Texas stumbled into reversal through legislative intervention, California's governor appears to be playing a more sophisticated game. His journey from two-day office requirements to a four-day mandate might look like escalation, but the emerging pattern suggests something more strategic. When the Professional Engineers in California Government secured their one-year reprieve from the four-day requirement, they paid for it with salary concessions. Days later, the attorneys' union struck a remarkably similar deal. Newsom's mandate created leverage where none had existed before. SEIU Local 1000's lawsuit challenging the order cites the state's savings of 'at least $700 million' from office downsizing — money that would evaporate if 95,000 hybrid workers actually showed up four days a week. The California Department of General Services has shed 1.2 million square feet of Sacramento office space, a 14 percent reduction that represents real taxpayer savings. Reversing that efficiency would require a real estate shopping spree at precisely the moment California faces a $12 billion budget deficit. The genius lies in how the mandate functions as a negotiating tool. Unions that might have held firm on salary increases suddenly found themselves trading compensation for commute time. The Professional Engineers accepted mandatory unpaid time off that effectively negates their 3 percent raise for two years. In both cases, the unions prioritized flexibility over pay, revealing just how valuable remote work has become to their members. These reversals illuminate a broader transformation in how governments value physical presence versus actual productivity. When Gallup research indicates that flexible work arrangements can cut attrition by 50 percent, and when replacing skilled professionals costs between half and twice their annual salary, the mathematics of mandatory office attendance stop adding up. Indiana's new governor, Mike Braun, seems to be taking notes from both states with his executive order requiring state workers back by July 2025 but leaving 'limited exceptions' for ongoing negotiations. For public-sector unions, this new reality requires strategy. The California engineers and attorneys who accepted pay concessions to maintain remote work flexibility made a calculated bet that their members value time and autonomy over marginal salary increases. They are establishing that workplace flexibility has become a fundamental term of employment that can't be altered by executive fiat. The return-to-office reversals sweeping through state governments represent acknowledgments that the fundamental nature of work has changed. We are witnessing the emergence of a new employment paradigm where location flexibility has become as negotiable as wages and benefits. The smart leaders are those who recognized that physical presence has become a bargaining chip, valuable precisely because employees prize flexibility so highly. Rather than squander political capital on unenforceable mandates, they are trading flexibility for concessions that actually improve their states' fiscal positions. The organizations that thrive will be those that recognize flexibility not as a perk to be revoked, but as a strategic asset to be thoughtfully deployed. Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller' Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.'
