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Never Again: How to Prevent Another Major Texas Electricity Failure

June 3, 2021

The historic weather system that hit the South Central United States in February 2021 led to the deaths of nearly 200 Texans and caused over $100 billion in damages to Texans' homes and property. Its impacts on power, natural gas, water, and transportation infrastructure were profound, leading the power grid operator, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), to order all local utilities to immediately decrease power demand early on February 15. This grid reliability order led to cuts in electric service to over four million premises, leaving millions of Texans out of power and in miserable conditions for up to four days. While the February 2021 event was clearly unprecedented, prior outages should have provided a wake-up call to policymakers and regulators to address reliability issues. The events of February 2021 resulted from several policy failures as well as from operational and planning failures across our state's electric, natural gas and water systems.  We must address the causes of this winter's weather challenge and prepare to deal with emerging economic, technology and extreme weather realities. Texas is the world's ninth-largest economy.  We owe it to our families and fellow citizens to learn from this event, plan for the future, and do the right thing for the good of Texas.  We offer the following observations and 20 recommendations, which are organized based on the outage's contributing factors.  Some of these require further legislative action; others can and should be implemented by the PUCT under existing authorities.

2015 Year In Review: The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation

January 1, 2016

The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation's Annual Report is a snapshot of the foundation's grantmaking programs, grantees, and significant stories and activities that contributed to our mission in 2015. CGMF's 2015 Sustainability Program focused on initiatives related to Clean Energy, Shale Sustainability, Sustainability Education, and Water.The foundation also kicked off a strategic planning process in anticipation of launching additional grantmaking programs in 2018.

The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation 2014 Annual Report

January 1, 2015

This report is a snapshot of the activities, programs, and issues important to the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation during calendar year 2014.