11/17/2025
November 13, 2025- Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
My family and I are opposed to the proposed Transmission Projects which are the result of HB 5066 and the Permian Basin Reliability Study.
We are asking that our regulators and lawmakers intelligently and thoughtfully consider all options with transparency and accountability to Texans and Ratepayers. The common names are Dinosaur to Drill Hole, Bell East to Big Hill and Howard to Solstice. We are specially commenting on Howard to Solstice, but our comments can be applied to ALL.
PUCT’s core mission is to provide reliability of utility service at fair and reasonable rates. The reliability of our grid is heavily burdened by increasing wind turbine and solar panel farms. This was the problem with winter storm Uri. It was not a question of too many or too few transmission lines. It was too heavy reliance on renewable energy.
The affordability will not be attained by PUCT for several reasons.
The ratepayers are paying the estimated $33 billion price tag. And that is an ESTIMATE. It will likely cost MORE due to legal battles, escalating land and business prices, and inefficient and lengthy processes.
ONE-THIRD of Texas ratepayers already struggle with paying their utility bill. Now you impose this cost of $33B+ on our bills.
There are increased costs due to wind and solar electric generation facilities oversaturating the market with intermittent supply entering the current grid as well as the proposed grid, causing inefficiencies and need for substations to convert their electric generation into something usable that can enter the grid.
Wind and solar cost us money, provide unreliable energy, require billions of federal tax dollars, devour thousands of acres of farm and ranch land, are environmentally untenable and toxic, cause erosion and harm to habitat and wildlife, kill our bats and eagles, emit infrasound, need transmission lines and all for the minimal benefit from all the energy they can possibly produce that is difficult to convert into useable energy.
The ones who benefit are the developers who receive federal subsidies and county tax relief and the foreign entities that own them. They require back-up generation from stable baseline energy for the daily event of the sun going down and the wind inconsistencies.
What is the backup generation? Natural gas electric generation . . .
Brent Bennett from the Texas Public Policy Foundation told the Texas Scorecard in an October 28, 2025, article “that the estimated total cost of the project is $80 BILLION after financing and maintenance, with an annual cost of $3 BILLION.” ANOTHER excerpt from the article. “In September 2024, State Rep. Charlie Geren (R– Fort Worth) sent a letter to ERCOT expressing concerns with the plan, “My legislative intent is that HB 5066 be implemented without delay,” he wrote. ‘“The Permian Basin Reliability Plan should be kept separated from the larger state plan and should not be the trigger for such a state plan without robust stakeholder and legislative input.”
Six days later, ERCOT responded to Green. “We thought it was important for all stakeholders to begin contemplating building a more robust system to serve the projected growth we see happening across the State of Texas,” said the council.
THEY THOUGHT??? WHAT HAPPENED TO LEGISLATIVE PROCESS AND THE LAW?
https://texasscorecard.com/state/permian-basin-power-fix- becomes-33-billion-statewide-project/
Transparency of the need – The need cited is to electrify the Permian Basin, BASED ON A BIDEN ERA MANDATE. It is NOT to improve service for local populated regions. Then why are local populations paying for it? Shouldn’t the industries and corporate businesses that the Plan benefits pay for it? And why does the Permian Basin need to be rescued by this Plan when the Permian Basin generates power for so much of Texas and the world? Why are we not investing in natural gas plants which burn clean and utilize microgrids and utilize localized generation that is much cheaper, readily available and less destructive??? There is no clarity or logic to the stated need. There needs to be more public explanation as to what is really happening and why. The stated need is generic and vague. It leaves citizens left to assume this is to benefit big corporations and industries at the Ratepayers’ expense.
Twelve billion was spent on the CREZ lines, which traversed Texas bringing wind generation from West Texas and yet that transmission failed to prevent the 2021 blackouts and disturbances. Will this be any different?
Datacenters require stable baseline power such as natural gas or nuclear, not intermittent wind, solar, or short-duration batteries. Most of the batteries on the ERCOT grid are currently able to provide one to four hours of local stabilization at best. Shouldn’t these industrial businesses provide their own disproportionately high generation and transmission rather than shift costs to Texans?
New technologies are emerging at an incredible pace. They will help with many transmission issues. These lines will be outdated before they are even built.
Environmental factors of cutting across Texas open land and wild rivers should cut across the CONSCIENCE of everyone at the PUC, ERCOT and State government. But apparently that is not so!
The destruction of natural and cultivated land, resulting in severe erosion, redirection of natural drainage, removal of trees affecting carbon footprint, destruction of habitats, loss of wildlife and natural migration paths can NEVER be undone once these areas have been violated. The wild Texas river basins of the San Saba, Devils, Frio, Nueces, Medina, Guadalupe and Llano rivers plus the last remaining vestiges of open land for recreation, state parks, conservation easements, agriculture, ranching, wildlife, habitat and hunting should be PRESERVED AND PROTECTED, not marred and corrupted!
Security is not adequately being addressed! The plan appears to ignore EMP and GMD (electromagnetic and geomagnetic pulse) protection that should be added at buildout. There appears to be no available public information on “hardening the grid” by any of the TSPs who the PUCT is empowering to build them. Isn’t this a valid concern given the current geopolitical environment and technological advances in weaponry? Who pays? Or would it dip into the TSPs already outrageous profits?
Landowners – Citizens who have owned family land for generations, folks who are homesteading, ranchers and farmers who earn a living from their land, and recreational, tourism and hunting enthusiasts, which make up a LARGE part of Texas GDP, should have a voice. They should be able to ask questions, and they should be given transparency BECAUSE THEY ARE SACRIFICING THE MOST. Their property will be devalued anywhere from 25-45 percent (depending on the tract and circumstance substantiated by appraisals) for a one-time payment, while paying an attorney to represent them. Many landowners will be near-by, but will not receive any remuneration for the destruction of their land value! Their view-sheds and land value are destroyed while living next to harmful EMF now unable to relocate since their land no longer has the value it once did. Is this how Texans treat Texans? Do not underestimate the VALUE the open view sheds and open hill country lands give to Texas.
EMF – While it is the PUCT’s position in a 1992 paper to assert there are no detrimental health benefits to humans or animals, their paper is flawed, in that it does not address EMF effect OVER TIME. The paper is clearly written to support Transmission Service Providers and Industrial and Corporate Interests who profit from the building of these lines at ratepayer expense. While it is likely not a convenient time to state detailed resources and comment here in a brief public comment, suffice it to say that to deny health risks, which have been established by the scientific and medical communities, is completely inappropriate by you who are supposed to be experts.
THE VOICES OF LANDOWNERS, TRUE ENVIRONMENTALISTS, RATEPAYERS, AND CITIZENS MATTER. It is OUR money you are spending, OUR land you are devaluing and destroying, and OUR health you are impacting. You need to LISTEN TO US.
William McAfee
Sutton County
