Solutions
The Texas Legislature is considering vital consumer protections and consumer-friendly legislation that will protect consumers, help improve our electric grid, and keep electricity affordable! Senate Bill 2012 provides necessary guardrails to protect consumers if regulators try to implement the PCM electricity tax. The Dispatchable Reliability Reserve Service (DRRS) proposal as contained in House Bill 4832 and Senate Bill 7 will create more investment in dispatchable, dependable electricity generation when Texans need it most.
Our Goal
Texas CARES is working to ensure that our state’s electricity market redesign prioritizes consumers and protects everyday Texans from the costly and untried programs promoted only by those who produce power—not the consumers. We aim to keep unchecked, unelected regulators accountable and support Texas legislators in their efforts to ensure affordable and reliable electricity services for all Texans.
Join Us
If you are concerned about rising electricity costs and grid reliability, please join our growing membership which includes the Texas Association of Manufacturers, Texas Chemical Council, Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, Texas Oil & Gas Association and individual members across our state. Our goals are to support consumer protections from rising electricity costs and promote reliable solutions to meet electricity demand.
In The News
May 19, 2023
Residential and Business Consumers Unite! Texans Demand Firm Caps on Performance Credit Mechanism Tax to Protect Electricity Ratepayers
Without a meaningful cap, PCM represents a multi-billion-dollar blank check to generators with no guarantee of increased capacity or improved reliability.
AUSTIN – Organizations representing electricity consumers statewide are demanding a meaningful cap on the proposed Performance Credit Mechanism scheme that will impose billions of dollars in increased costs for Texas consumers if left uncapped. The PCM offers no guarantee of increased capacity or improved reliability and lacks consumer protections and spending oversight.
Why Texas consumers are demanding a firm cap on the PCM:
“Everyday Texans should not have to pay astronomical utility bills to keep the lights on and the electricity running in homes. Rising utility costs are seriously pinching older Texans and other households on tight incomes. Enough is enough when it comes to higher and rising electricity and gas bills.
“To protect residential customers’ financial interests, AARP Texas believes a proposed Performance Credit Mechanism scheme under consideration in the Texas Legislature must include a firm and reasonable cost cap to limit how much consumers are impacted by any changes in the electricity market.
“Modifications to electricity market policy that fail to adequately protect the financial interests of residential customers is not serious reform that AARP Texas can support.”
– Tina Tran, AARP Texas Director
“The PCM is a costly, unnecessary tool that will provide billions in profits to the very generators who failed Texans during Winter Storm Uri. This unproven model has the potential to add billions to the market, and without a firm cost cap, it threatens to significantly increase prices on all consumers without meaningfully improving reliability. Any implementation of the PCM must include strong guardrails to ensure reliability and cost efficiency standards for both business and residential customers.”
– Tony Bennett, President & CEO, Texas Association of Manufacturers
“Enough is enough. Over the last two years, the PUCT, and ERCOT have made decisions that have increased the costs for ancillary services, increased out-of-market Reliability Unit Commitments paid to generators, and significantly increased costs in the market through a new price-adder ‘bridge-solution’ that increase costs by at about $500 million. Electric consumers are paying the price. Now those entities are working with our largest generators who would like to impose an unfettered Performance Credit Mechanism that will chiefly benefit existing generators with no guarantee that it will lead to new generation. They are actively trying to convince the Legislature they need a $9 to $12 billion electricity tax to guarantee the lights stay on. The legislature should reject this greedy electric revenue grab that will hurt large and small consumers and continue to impose cost caps and guardrails on the electricity tax. In addition, we call on the legislature to pass bills that will enable residential consumers to have access to energy saving programs like demand response, and energy efficiency that could be implemented for a fraction of the cost of a PCM supported by the big generators.”
– Cyrus Reed, Conservation Director, Sierra Club, Lone Star Chapter
“Our industry and residential electricity customers have grave concerns about the proposed PCM. The PCM will add billions in costs to all electricity customers without a meaningful improvement in reliability. Unless a firm cost cap is implemented, the PCM will result in skyrocketing electric bills and adversely affect the Texas economy. The Texas Legislature must act this session to protect Texas consumers.”
– Hector Rivero, President, Texas Chemical Council
“The PCM, even with the ‘guardrails’ proposed by the Texas Legislature, is not a solution to ensure reliability of the ERCOT grid but is instead a fundamentally flawed policy that rejects Texas’ successful competitive energy market in favor of a new form of capacity market with no guarantee for new generation.”
– Matt Welch, Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation
“I don’t believe any legislator wants to see a giant electricity tax imposed on their voters. Homeowners and businesses are demanding protections. Consumers want to know what this new scheme is going to cost and no one is being transparent. By adopting meaningful cost caps on a new and untested program, all Texans can have confidence their legislator fought for the best deal possible. Without cost caps, it’s a blank check to power generators paid for by all ratepayers. There is a better way, and the legislature must pass legislation with a firm cost cap to protect consumers.”
– Todd Staples, President, Texas Oil and Gas Association
“Rayburn Electric Cooperative has serious concerns about the financial burden that will be placed on Texas electric consumers with an unrestrained and undeveloped PCM. Rayburn cannot support PCM without a reasonable cost cap and a thorough evaluation of the costs, benefits, and effects on the ERCOT Market and consumers prior to approval of the program.”
– David Naylor, President/CEO Rayburn Electric Cooperative
“The Texas Energy Buyers Alliance supports a PCM that has guardrails and a real cost cap, and that includes all forms of dispatchable energy. Texas needs a fast, stable, and affordable path to reliability that incentivizes the wide range of generation sources that will power the state’s future. A limit on costs creates certainty for consumers, ensures transparency, and protects the state’s economy.”
– Texas Energy Buyers Alliance (txenergybuyers.com)
“The PCM is an untested proposal that will cost residential consumers billions of dollars without the assurance of success for reliability or new generation. If the PUC continues to move forward with this experimental market construct, Texans need a cost cap to maintain control of the constantly increasing electricity bills.”
– Sandra Haverlah, President, Texas Consumer Association
“The PCM is the wrong policy to address issues with our power grid. But if this is the route we’re going, guardrails and a cost cap are necessary protections against runaway payments to incumbent power generators and higher electricity bills.”
– Colin Leyden, State Director, Environmental Defense Fund
Each statement solely represents the views and opinions of the individual organization.