The powers that be appeared to be playing tricks in a Monday Senate special committee hearing on hurricane and tropical storm preparedness, recovery and electricity, as the live stream cut out before CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells was set to testify.
The committee convened by Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took a break until the technical issues were resolved. After the interruption, Houston Mayor John Whitmire went on the offense against the utility company.
“Enough is enough. It’s time to hold CenterPoint accountable,” Whitmire said. “I’m upset. I don’t have any more patience. No more excuses. CenterPoint makes a great return, and they’re just going to have to spend it on preparation, operations and recovery.”
Whitmire took issue with the utility company’s lack of preparation before Hurricane Beryl and botched response after the storm knocked out power for more than two million of its customers, some of whom remained without for roughly two weeks.
Lawmakers questioned Wells, who testified after Whitmire about what went wrong. They touched on the utility company’s inability to provide residents with an accurate way to check the status of power restorations and its expenditures. They also discussed whether it has the operating capacity to keep up with customer demand.
Senator Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) pointed out that Texas’s beloved fast-food chain Whataburger’s outage tracker, which went viral on social media, provided real-time information that CenterPoint’s didn’t.
Senator Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) refused to back down when he grilled Wells about the tool. Bettencourt referred to CenterPoint’s manually-updated version as the “single-most double dumbass decision” he had ever seen a utility corporation make.
Bettencourt asked why, if the utility company had the technology to detect these outages in real-time for years, it had not connected the tracker to it. Wells attempted to defend the decision before conceding to the Houston-area senator, calling the choice “inexcusable.”
Wells confirmed that CenterPoint would have an up-to-date outage tracker online by Thursday. He reiterated to lawmakers concerned by the utility company’s lack of communication that it was in the process of hiring a director of communications.
“I would get on that,” Senator Carol Alvarado (D-Houston) advised Wells.
Alvarado addressed the cost concerns raised by fellow lawmakers throughout the hours-long hearing. Many senators criticized the multi-billion dollar corporation’s decision to purchase multimillion-dollar generators that did not operate during Beryl.
Alvarado said it was unacceptable that 1,000 of the 9,000 employees served as lineworkers and 500 as vegetation specialists. Wells agreed with Alvarado that funds needed to be reallocated to employ those working on downed trees and damaged power lines in-house.
Wells added that the utility company currently relies on outsourcing crews. He could not provide more information regarding reports investigated by several media outlets brought up by Alvarado of crew members waiting hours in parking lots for work assignments.
Bettencourt proposed drafting legislation allowing CenterPoint customers to receive some of the $800 million the utility company used to buy the generators. Bettencourt pointed out that purchasing this equipment provided profit while investing in clearing more trees did not.
Wells repeated similar apologies to residents for CenterPoint’s shortcomings to the ones he made during a meeting with the Public Utility Commission of Texas last week.
Despite the chorus of criticism at Monday’s hearing, when asked by Bettencourt what he would say to calls for his resignation, Wells affirmed that a decision to do so would cause the utility company to lose momentum in the changes it has planned for its operations.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
