, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.caused the highest possible electricity prices as supply lagged far behind demand and pushed the grid to the brink, consumers in north and northeast Texas began paying an additional $20 per month on average in their electricity bills. These customers included people in small towns and suburban cities who may have already been struggling to make ends meet.
The nonprofit electric cooperatives that were billing those customers and others like them — which primarily sell electricity in rural areas where customers don’t have retail choice — are now looking to the Legislature for their fair share of help in defraying those costs. They’re jockeying with gas companies that also took on a great deal of debt when gas prices surged during the devastating storm.
State senators on Wednesday voted to direct $3.9 billion to pay off some of the costs pushed onto customers because of high prices for gas or electricity. The lawmakers left for future discussion the specific funding breakdown between entities to lessen costs for their customers from the storm. “What we’re trying to do is treat as many people equally and fairly as we can,” State Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, said at a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week. “I think that’s all we can ask.”