Originally Published on Renewable Energy World August 1, 2022

By Doug Lewin

A small group of coal, gas, and oil executives are putting together a plan for Texas’ energy future.

They have no website. They have had only one meeting since the Legislature created the group over a year ago — they made no public announcement of that meeting, and there was no livestream, recording or transcript.

The State Energy Plan Advisory Committee is charting Texas’ energy future out of public view and in the dark.

The reasons for the secrecy likely won’t be clear until the group files its report over the next few weeks. But given the membership, it seems likely that the group intends to falsely blame clean energy generators for the state’s electricity woes — and to punish them with discriminatory costs that drive up Texans’ electricity bills even higher. Many observers believe the group’s report is already written.

Some who attack renewables do so for ideological reasons—not this group. It’s purely economic.