Oncor counsel Jaren Taylor told the Public Utility Commission of Texas on August 21 that West Texas already can't import enough power under today's thermal limits, that ERCOT's exit strategy is the Permian Basin 765 kV projects, and that "there can be no better argument for a reliability transmission line than load shed is required if it is not built."

The Commission didn't vote need and didn't pick a route. A Certificate of Convenience and Necessity is the PUC permit a utility needs before it can build a new transmission line. These two CCN applications are the western and eastern legs of Permian Basin Reliability Plan Import Path One: Longshore Switch to Drill Hole Switch across 10 West Texas counties, and Dinosaur Switch to Longshore Switch across 22 counties from Somervell through Howard. Kourtnee Jinks of the Office of Public Utility Counsel put this Import Path One segment at more than $2 billion before routing adjustments, and 600 Texans dismissed on the 180-day clock. Chairman Thomas Gleeson lifted a June 17 pause on Docket 59029, consolidated it with Docket 59315 for need only, and put the ruling over to a future open meeting so the commissioners can reconcile oral argument with the record. Gleeson said he believes the Public Utility Regulatory Act requires consolidating those proceedings. He constrained the join to need only.

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Great weight, four ERCOT products, and a statute that demands action

Taylor walked the rule before he walked the studies. PUC Rule 25.101, he said, requires the Commission to give great weight to ERCOT's recommendations on reliability projects. "We're not talking about dumbbells for bicep curls. This is evidentiary weight." He listed four work products attached to Oncor's testimony: the Permian Basin reliability study, the 765 kV versus 345 kV comparison the Commission ordered, the 2024 regional transmission plan, and ERCOT's finding that thermal import limits already bind West Texas today. Those generic transmission constraints are the problem he said the 765 kV projects exit.

The first three look years ahead. The fourth does not. "This is a problem on your grid today," Taylor said. "With every three-bedroom house, natural gas well, and Raising Cane's chicken that we integrate into the electric grid in West Texas, we make this problem worse." Utilities have to provide electric service. They can't, he said, if they can't build what the grid operator calls essential.

He came back at the close with House Bill 5066. The Permian plan sits in PURA §39.167. The section before it, §39.166(b), tells the Commission to develop a plan to implement each reliability plan "to ensure timely development and approval of necessary transmission service improvements." "This is not a study bill," Taylor said. "It is a bill that demands action."

Elena Fulgaris of American Stewards of Liberty did not dispute that HB 5066 created the plan. She disputed that it "permitted the build out of this entire 765 kV transmission line" and asked the Commission to look at Permian dispatchable generation first. Gleeson stopped her first attempt to argue Docket 59475 because that case was not posted. Meredith McCall, a civil engineer and landowner on the Comanche County D32 segment, said Oncor leaned on ERCOT's plan without its own need proof, that ERCOT is not a party at the State Office of Administrative Hearings, and that she agrees with "over 40 legislators that say these projects are wildly outside of the scope of HB 5066." SOAH is the hearing shop that takes contested PUC transmission cases. The Commission made no finding on that statute fight.

Joe Will Ross, for Cowden Crossbar Ranch and Broken O Land and Cattle, did not brief need on the western-leg panel. "I think the need is there," he said. On the Dinosaur-Longshore queue he asked for finality on routing and no costly do-over.

Route 559 versus Route 713 is the bill that hits ratepayers

Need is still unvoted. The route question is already a ratepayer number. Administrative law judges recommended Route 559 on the Dinosaur-Longshore docket. PUC staff floated Route 713. Brad Bayliff, for Cook Canyon Ranch and H2 Holdings, put the delta on the table. Staff admits 713 is not the cheapest and does not minimize habitable structures. "It's about $67 million more than Route 559, $94 million more than Route 552, and 13 to 15 more homes." "Staff asked you to pay more and burden more families." "No one has shown that spending $67 million more to affect 13 more homes is reasonable." He said 559 builds the least new corridor of any focus route. "Every avoidable dollar lands on Texas families' electric bills."

Counsel who sat the six-day hearing said about 100 miles of 559 drew no intervener opposition. Oncor's "best meets" route is the utility's preferred alignment in the application. Soledad Valenciano, for the D6-D33 Alliance, came in ready to brief that preferred route, then called 559 "incrementally better" after the evidence. Zach Brady, for Spade Ranch, said 559 checks paralleling of compatible right-of-way, habitable-structure count, and a low-cost quartile at once, and that it runs in the same vertical plane as more than 400 wind turbines. He said PUC staff engineer Acosta could identify no feature of the study area west of Highway 183. Garland Richards of historic Fort Chadbourne said he offered to let Oncor cross on 559 and asked the Commission to reject exceptions that would revive H22, I1, or J1 through the heart of the ranch.

Vanessa Halford of White Horse Christian Academy in Stephenville said a 765 kV line would sit 247 feet from a playground at a $4.7 million school the maps missed. David Brown, for White Bluff Holdings, said the filed record puts that line through a hayfield about 800 feet from the school, not over it, and that Segment A3 along Dinosaur Valley State Park drew more than 1,000 comments before the docket started. Tolar ISD Trustee David Cook stayed off need. Town population is about 900. Tolar High has close to 300 students. He said PUC rules treat schools as habitable structures and use 500 feet as the effective distance for lines above 230 kV, with prudent avoidance of magnetic fields when it can reasonably be done, and that EPA guidelines independently point to that same 500-foot distance as worth evaluating near schools. The judges' recommended route avoids that campus and costs less. "If this impact to hundreds of kids can reasonably be avoided, why wouldn't it?"

A commissioner asked Bayliff whether his proposed ordering paragraph mirrors Competitive Renewable Energy Zone language from Dockets 38354 and 38379 exactly or deviates from it. CREZ is the prior high-voltage build Texas used to move West Texas wind. Bayliff said it follows those dockets and adds that a deviation can't move closer to a habitable structure without that owner's consent.

The 180-day clock is the process case

Jinks, for the Office of Public Utility Counsel, represents residential customers and small businesses as a class. OPUC will not pick a landowner's route over another. She asked the Commission to maximize existing rights-of-way and take the least-impact, most cost-effective path, and she called the compressed 180-day clock the largest obstacle in the case. A procedural schedule landed 10 days before the intervention deadline. After that deadline, parties had four days for a route-adequacy challenge, seven days to object to Oncor's testimony, and 15 days to file their own. Landowners who missed a statement of position or testimony were out. She said that dismissal rule was permissive, not required by statute or Commission rule. "600 Texans were dismissed from this case because of this procedural hurdle." She said residential landowners and small businesses are not the main cause of these infrastructure expansions. PURA still requires the Commission to consider probable improvement of service or lowering of cost to consumers.

Taylor handed up Rule 22.52 at the close. Publication of intent, he said, is due no later than the first week after filing. Mail of the application to municipalities and officials is due on the filing date. The public-meeting subsection requires at least one meeting before filing and does not lock that date the way the mail rules do. He said the point of the meeting is feedback, including landowners telling Oncor there were existing lines north of the study area and asking the utility to look there, and that if you sample any 15 commission dockets, including two approved the prior day, you will find links added after those meetings. "These cases are hard. They're personal, and they're human." Notice rules, he said, "notice the people who are negatively impacted by the transmission lines, not the thousands and thousands of people who benefit from the projects when they go into service." Fulgaris said the proposal for decision found Oncor failed notice on 59315, and that failure is not a technical defect because the chance to build a record has passed.

Erath County Judge Brandon Huckabee, who also testified before the House Committee on State Affairs on August 19, opened public comment. He asked the Commission to choose "careful judgment over momentum." "Changing course when the facts demanded is not weakness," he said. "Our responsibility isn't to defend the momentum of government." Emily Martin Howle in Erath County said legal notice arrived in February and she learned of the project from a neighbor on March 9, less than 30 days before the intervention deadline.

After those two dockets were closed for the day, late commenter Jennifer Derrick asked whether the Commission still intends to mitigate land damage. Gleeson said he has been consistent: in all cases the Commission will order land impacts mitigated as best possible. Parties asked for a ruling. He asked for time to match oral argument to the record and to bring the dockets back when the commissioners have digested both.

Need is still open, the cheap route is on the table, and the 90th Legislature can rewrite the clock

Taylor's load-shed line and four ERCOT products are still sitting in this record with no Commission vote. Bayliff's $67 million and 13 to 15 homes are what staff's 713 would add to bills if it beats 559. Jinks's 600 dismissals and four-day adequacy window are what the 90th Texas Legislature can rewrite without pulling a transmission layout already sitting under other studies. The Commission lifted a pause, joined two Import Path One dockets for need, and left the vote for a later open meeting. The Permian thermal limit Taylor described did not move between gavel-in and adjournment.

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Watch the PUCT oral-argument cut: youtube.com/watch?v=1qnXTVXeepo

Sources

  1. Public Utility Commission of Texas open meeting, oral argument on Oncor 765 kV CCN applications, Dockets 59029 and 59315, August 21, 2026. Remux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qnXTVXeepo. Taylor at 00:20:57 and 02:04:52; Gleeson consolidation at 00:10:14 and deferral at 02:09:31; Jinks at 01:14:25; Bayliff at 01:50:30.
  2. Need: Jaren Taylor, Oncor; Joe Will Ross on need existing; Elena Fulgaris and Meredith McCall on HB 5066 scope.
  3. Routing: Brad Bayliff; Soledad Valenciano; Zach Brady; Garland Richards; David Brown; Tolar ISD Trustee David Cook.
  4. Process: Kourtnee Jinks, Office of Public Utility Counsel; Erath County Judge Brandon Huckabee; Emily Martin Howle.
  5. Companion tapes: PUCT open meeting August 14, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW4Uw5RO3jo; House State Affairs 765-kV charge August 19, 2026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahTTxLyNPw.

Dollar, dismissal, and mileage figures are as spoken on August 21. Treat advocacy totals as claimed, not Commission findings.

Not legal advice. Confirm statutes and agency filings against primary sources.