PUC approves two statewide transmission lines - The Texas Tribune

The commission approved amendments to two Certificates of Convenience and Necessity filed by Oncor, pushing forward despite calls from the Texas Senate and some House members to hold off until the Legislature could weigh in on reforms to the approval process. The vote puts the state's electricity buildout on a faster track than some lawmakers wanted.

For West Texas, this matters. The Permian Basin's oil and gas operations have long strained against limited power supply, and the new lines are designed to ease that bottleneck for energy-hungry industrial users. Whether those benefits trickle down to residential ratepayers or stay concentrated in industrial corridors is a separate question the PUC did not answer Tuesday.

Landowners along the proposed routes are already pushing back. Their opposition was loud enough to reach the Legislature before the commission voted, and the PUC moved forward anyway. Property rights disputes and eminent domain fights are likely the next chapter of this story.

Texas has added more wind and solar generation than it can reliably move across its grid, making transmission one of the state's biggest infrastructure gaps.