Texas Blackout - Residents demand regulations amid ERCOT in hot seat during first hearing

On Thursday, February 25th, the managers of Texas' power grid, also known as the Energy Reliability Council of Texas, received a lashing in the first public hearings about the blackout crisis at the state Capitol.

The emerging response to a winter catastrophe that caused one of the worst power outages in US history is something seldom seen in Texas: demands for more regulation. However, that could be a tough reform. For decades the belief that less government is better is reflected in a part-time Legislature that meets just once every two years, and only for 140 days.

With the current session ends in May, it leaves Texas little time to make last week's plunge into freezing darkness that touched nearly all of the state's 30 million residents in one way or another — including grocery shelves left bare and miles of busted water pipes — produce tougher regulations that the state's GOP majority has resisted for decades.

The frigid weather may have also played a role in the death of 95-year-old Doyle Austin. An attorney representing Austin's family filed a lawsuit on their behalf against ERCOT and the main energy provider in their neighborhood, Centerpoint.

Larry Taylor, the attorney, said Austin lives with his daughter in a multi-generational home in the Acres Homes neighborhood, an historically Black section of Houston. On Tuesday, the temperatures dipped below freezing, Taylor said Austin's daughter found him non-responsive and believed he died as a result of hypothermia.

“One of the reasons we filed this lawsuit against (ERCOT) was their failure to ensure the grids were protected, they had every opportunity to ensure things like this did not happen to the citizens of Texas,” Taylor said.

Yi Pan, Max Ren Contributed this article

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