Top Texas utility regulator ousted as recording emerges of pledges to protect Wall Street
Source: Houston Chronicle
POLITICS // TEXAS POLITICS
Top Texas utility regulator ousted as recording emerges of pledges to protect Wall Street
Jeremy Blackman, Austin Bureau
March 16, 2021 | Updated: March 17, 2021 8:13 a.m.
Arthur D'Andrea, the last standing commissioner of the Texas Public Utility Commission, resigned Tuesday night. ... The announcement from Gov. Greg Abbott follows a week of controversy over D'Andrea's reluctance to retroactively lower sky-high electricity prices from last month's deadly outages. Repricing would erase big profits collected by some power providers and investors, but would benefit utilities that lost hundreds of millions of dollars during the freeze.
D'Andrea, who was appointed by Abbott less than two weeks ago to lead the agency, had insisted that repricing was illegal and potentially harmful to ratepayers despite objections from an independent monitor.
But the final straw appeared to be reporting Tuesday from the Texas Monthly that D'Andrea had privately assured Bank of America analysts in a call earlier this month he would protect their investors' earnings from the crisis, which left dozens dead and millions without power in single-digit temperatures for days.
"I took that first step to tip the scale as hard as I could in favor of it being resolved ... to provide some calming force," D'Andrea said during the call. "It's a contentious political issue. The best I can do is put the weight of the commission in favor of not repricing."
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Written By
Jeremy Blackman
Jeremy Blackman covers health and politics out of the Chronicle's Austin bureau. His previous work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Toronto Star, Concord Monitor, PBS NewsHour and Point Reyes Light. He is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley.
Read more: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Ouster-of-top-Texas-utility-regulator-follows-16031381.php
Hat tip, Joe.My.God.
Texas Utilities Regulator Ousted After Leaked Call In Which He Boasts Of "Tipping The Scales" For Investors
March 17, 2021
https://www.joemygod.com/2021/03/texas-utilities-regulator-ousted-after-leaked-call-in-which-he-boasts-of-tipping-the-scales-for-investors/
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