Ask Harris County to leave the state’s power grid. May?

HOUSTON – Commissioner Adrian Garcia said Harris County should explore what authority it has to leave the Texas Energy Reliability Council and will propose in the commissioner’s court on Friday.

Garcia said he would seek “an opinion from the county prosecutor on the powers that the court or other county-elected official to have under the Texas Constitution and Texas statutes to remove the county from the ERCOT service area,” among others.

The ERCOT map, which includes most of Texas, with the exception of El Paso, parts of the Panhandle and more than a dozen counties on the eastern edge of the state, has shown about the same time for several decades.

In the Houston area, Harris, Fort Bend, Galveston, Brazoria and Montgomery counties are within the ERCOT map, while Jefferson and Liberty counties belong to another network overseen by the Federal Energy Reliability Council.

That’s been the case for at least half a century, said Ed Emmett, who has been an official judge for Harris County for more than a decade.

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“Can you imagine if 254 Texas counties started weighing if they wanted to be in ERCOT or some other system?” Emmett said. “That’s none of their business.”

The Emmett House in the Houston area, on the ERCOT network, lost power during last week’s winter storm. His cabin in Liberty County, on the MISO network, has not lost its power.

“I think there are legitimate questions to ask why some service areas maintained electricity and others did not,” Emmett said. “I find it very difficult to see a role for county commissioners here.”

However, state legislators have a role, he said.

“The last time I checked, lawmakers represented all the same residents in Harris County,” Emmett said. “It will be a political discussion about whether you are better regulated by the Public Utilities Commission (which is ERCOT overseas) or by FERC.

Hypothetically, if Harris County managed to leave ERCOT, Emmett said he would then have to rebuild power lines and other infrastructure.

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Ed Hirs College, University of Houston, said the cost of the new infrastructure would be “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Garcia plans to present his proposal on Friday, which also includes a “formal approval” of a federal investigation into what he calls the “failures and shortcomings” of the state of Texas during the winter storm.

He was not available for an interview on Tuesday.