The Blast - Wed, Apr. 1, 2026

19 days until early voting begins in the May local elections
31 days until election day for the May local elections
55 days until the primary runoffs

The Texas Senate committee that oversees the state grid offered an early look today at its potential agenda for the 2027 session. Among the possibilities: banning the purchase of grid parts produced by firms with links to America’s foreign adversaries.

The 2021 Lone Star Protection Act already prohibits Texas officials from inking contracts that would give companies tied to certain countries access to “critical infrastructure,” including the state’s power grid. Speaking before the Business and Commerce Committee, officials from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas recommended the Legislature expand the five-year-old law to also bar Texas energy producers from using products or equipment made by companies from nations deemed as threats to national security, namely China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Witnesses said such components could be used to remotely destabilize the grid. Leaders from ERCOT, the state’s main grid manager, recommended that the ban apply to companies and institutions flagged by the U.S. Department of Defense as “engaging in problematic activity,” along with Texas’ prohibited technologies list. That raised concerns for several senators, who feared that some parts might only be produced in places like China.

Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, noted that adhering to the proposed lists could make it more expensive to buy things like solar panels, a point that drew a nod of agreement from Chair Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown.

“It’s just a matter of how far down this road we want to go,” Schwertner said, acknowledging the dual considerations of cost and grid security. “From a cost-prohibitive [perspective], there are maybe some components that are almost solely sourced in China, I would think, in our grid.”

ERCOT general counsel and senior vice president Chad Seely, who presented that recommendation to the committee, said parts like bolts aren’t necessarily the issue. When pressed by senators, Seely offered little detail about the types of equipment that do pose security risks. However, Emma Stewart, chief power grid scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, explained that the scope of susceptible parts is fairly broad.

“If it has a communication system, we can consider it at-risk at this point,” Stewart said.

Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, the Brenham Republican who spearheaded last year’s ban on land purchases from those tied to the list of “hostile countries,” Senate Bill 17, voiced concerns about Texas’ widespread reliance on grid parts from those nations. She noted that 248 energy producers self-reported to ERCOT that they use critical components from countries flagged as national security threats, with 99% coming from China.

“Nobody wants the renewables anyway in their district, and now we find out it’s littered with foreign enemy countries,” Kolkhorst said. “I don’t know. It hasn’t ever worked for me on just the reliability, and it’s enough electrons that they’re putting out there that we are dependent on them, and now we find out and we’re trying to make sure that they can’t remotely click and it’s all gone.”

ERCOT’s recommendation for a law cracking down on grid parts drew additional pushback from Sen. Donna Campbell — the author of the Lone Star Protection Act — who questioned why the grid operator couldn’t draw its authority from her existing law.

A couple other notable legislative recommendations from the panel: The Public Utility Commission asked for authority to consult national partners, like the Energy Department’s labs, in assessing the national security risks posed by components sourced from foreign adversaries, and the attorney general’s office asked for more resources and clarity on their authority to investigate potential links.

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The committee also took up the issue of electric bills, with senators telling Public Utility Commission members to make sure everyday users aren’t on the hook for a disproportionate share of the power consumed by data centers.

PUC Chair Thomas Gleeson said the commission plans to tweak how it calculates commercial and industrial electric bills and roll out the changes in December, as required by last year’s Senate Bill 6. But the nine-month turnaround is only enough to make changes “on the margins,” Gleeson indicated, noting it would take more time to vet alternatives to the current methodology known as Four Coincident Peak calculation.

Under that system, bills for industrial and commercial consumers are tied in part to their usage during peak 15-minute intervals in the months of June, July, August and September.

“I know there have been some discussions about broad, sweeping changes to the current methodology,” Gleeson said. He went on to argue that such wholesale changes would “probably not be prudent” without a longer turnaround time, adding that commission leaders would leave room for the Legislature to provide input after December.

Gleeson’s “on the margins” line peeved Kolkhorst, who said she believed the Legislature gave PUC officials the leeway they needed in SB 6 to take action and cut costs.

“Don’t come back and say we need more time,” Kolkhorst said.

Gov. Greg Abbott disputed the accuracy of recently unveiled data indicating that most school voucher applicants in Texas already attend private schools.

A report last month from the Texas Center for Voucher Transparency found that nearly three-quarters of school-aged applicants to the $1 billion voucher initiative likely already attended private school or were home-schooled. At a press conference in League City yesterday, Abbott contended that the figure “is based on several false premises.”

One issue, the governor said, is how the report handles applications from students who are about to start their first year of school. Those students are counted as part of the pool of applicants who don’t currently attend public schools — inflating the apparent number of those already in private school, Abbott argued. 

The governor acknowledged, however, that he wasn’t sure if the families of public school kids were widely aware of the program yet.

“When we have school choice implemented for an entire year, more and more parents will see this as a viable alternative option,” Abbott said. “I think we will see far more people begin to sign up for it because they’ll say, ‘OK, this is a good product.’”

The preschool and kindergarten argument was the same defense offered by the comptroller’s office and the Texas Public Policy Foundation when downplaying the third party’s findings to Hearst Newspapers’ Isaac Yu.

Property Taxes

Abbott also defended his plan to eliminate school property taxes, the main thrust of his event in League City. Critics of the plan say it would be cost prohibitive for the state without a massive spike in the sales tax rate, but the governor sees an opening.

“The annual surplus Texas has had for the past four years is far more than what would be needed to make up that cost,” he said. “If what we did was to dedicate all of our surplus to property tax reduction, that alone may take care of it.”

In 2023 and 2025, Texas lawmakers approved multibillion-dollar property tax cuts that relied partly on state budget surpluses of $33 billion and $24 billion, respectively. Budget analysts say those surpluses could look a lot smaller in future cycles, as the sources fueling them — federal pandemic aid, inflation-boosted sales tax revenue and a post-lockdown economic rebound — dry up.

Abbott was in League City for the Galveston County Commissioners Court’s resolution endorsing his plan. The Republican-controlled court includes Robin Armstrong, the Texas GOP’s national committeeman for the Republican National Committee and a central player in the landmark redistricting case known as Petteway v. Galveston County.

Notably, Abbott ceremonially signed his property tax pledge at an official-side press conference hosted by the governor’s office. That pledge bears the disclaimer that it is political advertising paid for by Texans for Greg Abbott.

THC

Abbott said he hasn’t heard of any legislative plans to follow up on his executive order regulating THC products. However, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if a bill arose next session.

“With those regulations in effect, I think we will see reforms take place that will satisfy some of the concerns that some legislators had,” the governor said.

Gambling

Abbott was asked whether gambling could generate revenue to pay for property tax cuts. He offered an emphatic no, at least in the short term..

“Gambling is unconstitutional in the state of Texas, and I don’t see that changing in the next session,” the governor said.

Abbott told the Houston Chronicle’s Texas Take podcast last year that he doesn’t “have a problem” with online sports betting. However, in December, he told CBS News Texas that he’s “simply not there yet” on legalized casino gambling and expressed reservations about its impact on sports culture.

He was also asked yesterday about the state’s fuzzy animal exception, as it’s commonly known, which allows games that are definitely not slot machines to award non-cash prizes worth less than $5.

“I don’t know how that works, and I’m not sure about fuzzy bears and things like that,” Abbott said. “We’ll look into the fuzzy bears.”

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A not-so-public event is on the books at the University of Texas at Austin: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is scheduled to deliver an invite-only lecture at Hogg Memorial Auditorium at 3:30 p.m. on April 15, according to an RSVP confirmation email forwarded to The Texas Tribune.

Doug Bech, a UT Law alumnus and donor who helped establish the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, said he received an invitation and plans to attend. Bech told the Tribune he expects Thomas to appear in person and said the lecture is tied to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

“This is kind of a wonderful opportunity to hear one of the most distinguished, controversial Supreme Court justices in our country’s history, and hard to pass that up,” Bech said.

— Jesisca Priest

Next week:

View the full list of upcoming committee notices here and here.

Former state Sen. Don Huffines won the Republican nomination for Texas comptroller in a landslide this March.

Huffines will join our Editor-in-Chief Matthew Watkins to talk about the candidate’s goals for the role, described as the “CFO of Texas,” his relationships with the state’s top leaders and the upcoming general election.

Doors open at the Tribune’s Studio 919 at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, April 14, and the hourlong conversation begins at 9 a.m. Coffee is provided.

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Do you or someone in your office have a birthday you’d like mentioned? Email us.

(April 1) State Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco

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