Texas Scorecard by Bo French June 8, 2026
Texans deserve regulators who put the public interest ahead of ESG scorecards.Travel anywhere in Texas today and you’ll hear the same concerns: the cost of living is rising, and families are struggling to keep up. Among the biggest drivers of that frustration are energy costs and affordability.
Texans have every right to be angry.
We live atop some of the most abundant energy resources in the world. No state is better positioned to provide reliable, affordable power to its citizens. Yet instead of embracing the resources that made Texas prosperous, powerful special interests are pushing costly ESG-driven policies that threaten to make energy more expensive while delivering little benefit to the people who pay the bills.
The latest example is the Strategic Transmission Expansion Plan, or STEP.
Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature directed the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to address growing energy demand in the Permian Basin. The objective was straightforward: increase generation capacity, improve reliability, and keep energy affordable.
What Texans got instead was a massive transmission project that appears designed to satisfy corporate ESG goals rather than meet the state’s actual energy needs with reliable and dispatchable power.
Under STEP, regulators are pursuing construction of 765-kilovolt transmission lines stretching across Texas to move electricity generated from intermittent and unreliable sources to the Permian Basin. According to an analysis by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the lifetime cost Texans have to shell out for the project could approach $100 billion.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/opinion/french-texas-must-reject-the-politicization-of-texas-energy-prioritize-oil-and-gas/
