The CenterPoint Investigation: Profits Over People
Texas lawmakers finally have a chance to hold CenterPoint truly accountable for their Hurricane Beryl disaster after they got busted for putting PROFITS OVER PEOPLE! Here’s the latest.
“How is Houston going to be the energy capital of the world if CenterPoint can’t keep lights on?” asked State Senator Bettencourt.
CenterPoint Energy was exposed for its tragic service failure during Hurricane Beryl in July 2024.
“Everything aligns with the decisions that were made, it was profits over people.”
Company executives were publicly chastised by lawmakers who
vowed to make sure this never happened again.
“Y’all got caught with your britches down with this,” argued Texas State Representative Jay Dean.
Texas Lieutenant Governor called for CenterPoint’s boss Jason Wells to resign. And he wasn’t the only one…
“I believe at this point the board at CenterPoint should ask for Jason Wells’ resignation or I believe he should submit it,” said Dan Patrick.
The CenterPoint board of directors tried to evade our questions.
“Why is he still working for you?”, we asked Theodore Pound.
Raquelle Lewis even tried to wrestle our microphone away.
“Why are you holding my microphone?”
But now that the legislature is back in session… Will Texas lawmakers actually hold CenterPoint’s feet to the fire… Change laws to protect us? We’re keeping track.
Hurricane Beryl was just a category one hurricane… but it was a nightmare for the Houston area.
85% or 2 million of CenterPoint’s customers lost power… Some for more than a week.
We know that 16 people died simply due to lack of power or air conditioning.
“I am weary, I am tired, I’m disappointed and I’m disgusted.”
Businesses lost billions of dollars from extended outages.
But CenterPoint board members, executives and investors were sitting pretty because of the guaranteed rate of return coming out of the customer’s pockets.
“They sat on their butts. They didn’t do the investment that they needed to do in the nation’s third largest city,” expressed Bettencourt.
“I feel like I’ve been taken advantage of, to be honest,” declared Senator Phil King in last year’s hearings.
Senator Phil King wrote a law that was supposed to make it easier for utilities to respond after a big freeze or a hurricane.
“CenterPoint saw an opportunity to make money. So instead of spending $5 million, they went out and spent at least $843 million,” he explained.
And that CenterPoint contract stunk to high heaven because of an apparent relationship between a CenterPoint executive and a woman at the company that provided the generators…
“That was an insider deal that in my opinion with a small company, gal meets CEO at a gym,” added Bettencourt.
The lawmakers piled on during Bettencourt’s radio show called The Amigos on 700 KSEV.
Paul Bettencourt: “There was email activity going from the CFO to these people that were bidding it. You know, it was just pathetic, to put it mildly.”
Phil King: “They are the only utility in the state of Texas that misused that legislation.”
Proposed Senate Bill 231 is supposedly designed to prevent further abuses.
Future purchases of generators will require
• Quick set up, 3 hours tops
• Competitive bids… what a concept.
• And pre-approval by the public utility commissions before any deal is signed.
The changes should sail through easily… but King says he’s meeting with CenterPoint executives to get them to give the generator money back to you.
“We have told them, look, you come in with a plan to sell these generators or lease them to someone else and pay this money back immediately, that’s the right way to do it. You do it so we don’t have to do it,” assured King.
After Beryl… Governor Greg Abbott ordered the PUC to investigate the disastrous Beryl response.
“They’re given a monopoly by the state, and they have to take care of their service area,” insisted Bettencourt.
To fix what went wrong, the report came up with 14 recommendations for utilities… The PUC and the legislature lawmakers.
Coordination of storm drills; A better outage tracker (because the CenterPoint one sucked after the hurricane); Ignoring utility lessons from a state like Florida.
“It really, really made my blood boil that in the middle of a category one storm. I’m hearing, we’re going to try out some of this new technology. Well, this technology’s already been used for a decade,” affirmed Bettencourt.
Replacing old poles with ones that meet modern standards.
“I’ve got a piece of legislation this session that is going to help notify customers, the end user of how we can get those, that piece of vegetation off those lines,” added Texas State Representative Will Metcalf.
CenterPoint claimed that most of the outages during Beryl were caused by trees falling on power lines.
State Representative Will Metcalf from Conroe has a plan that will help you request the utility clear vegetation that threatens power lines or poles.
There’s a bill filed to do a cost-benefit analysis of burying power lines in major metropolitan areas.
Another bill filed for making our electric grid safer. Not just from weather, but possible sabotage.
And a bill filed to make sure we get the lights on quicker for hospitals, senior living centers, community centers…
But there are key recommendations by the PUC still awaiting lawmaker action that would beef up the punishment for utilities that screw up. A framework and penalty structure to assess service quality during major outage events.
“What gets measured gets fixed. We don’t have any measurements and any standards on performance. We should have metrics. And more importantly, those metrics have to be set and known to and then the public needs to be able to respond,” continued Bettencourt.
Bettencourt says there’s a legislation backlog right now… But this is in the works…
And he wants to make sure the standards are set for best practices…
As for penalties… current law has no teeth.
The PUC writes that penalties are capped at 25 thousand dollars. Per year.
It’s likely cheaper to pay the penalty than for companies to improve their customer service.
“This is the application of CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric LLC for determination of system restoration costs,” stated Judge Meitra Farhadi.
While CenterPoint’s customers are still feeling overcharged for service… And bad service at that… CenterPoint was trying to charge you a bunch more…
It’s asking to recover more than 500 million dollars for damage done to their equipment and power lines from the Houston dericho and another bad storm we had in May.
Consumer groups and the city of Houston said no way.
“Everyone votes against CenterPoint’s application for an increase. 14-0 (taps gavel) motion passes,” announced Mayor John Whitmire.
Claiming CenterPoint was trying to double count 6 million dollars of labor already covered in their bills to us…
We agree. Customers shouldn’t have to pay for broken utility poles and meters that should have already been replaced with proper maintenance…
And they also want to exclude a $1.3 million return CenterPoint got for that stupid investment in unused giant generators.
But consumer groups want about $100 million of this request to be disallowed…
“The parties are happy to… report that we believe we have an agreement in principle,” stated CenterPoint lawyer Mark Santos.
One of the rate cases has been settled. The first time that’s happened in four years.
CenterPoint has agreed to reduce the rates…by a dollar.
CenterPoint promises to be the poster trial for electric utility excellence if we will just keep giving them more money.
State Senator Bettencourt believes state lawmakers have the power to force CenterPoint to be excellent… more money or not.
“Well, look, there’s already been progress on winter storms when we had winter storm Uri four years ago. We insisted on weatherization on gas plants,” added Bettencourt.
“The great news was we went through this last winter storm and there was always a very comfortable, comfortable margin of about 10,000mw,” he concluded.
Can lawmakers really force CenterPoint to be excellent? So the system doesn’t come crashing down with every storm that rolls through.
We may have to experience another hurricane to find out.
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