Town Halls, MSU Turns 100, and the Grid

February 4, 2022

Over the past two weeks, there have been a number of events that I have participated in. On the political front, I spent two days last week with our state senators, Charles Perry and Drew Springer, participating in town halls and meeting with local leaders. While I currently share three counties each with these senators, Wichita County will essentially be split down the middle when redistricting is finalized in January 2023. The senators were in town to meet and field concerns and try to make this transition go as smooth as possible. I truly think that it could be very beneficial for the area to have two senators representing it for the coming decade.

I was also able to participate in MSU’s 100 year anniversary celebration. It is amazing to remember the kind of impact that MSU has had on this area over the years. I am truly excited about the relationship with the Texas Tech System and what that will mean for the University and the City going forward.

We also had the first major winter storm since last year’s winter storm Uri and while this wasn’t nearly as severe as Uri, the grid appeared to handle the extra load very well and the communication and coordination were much better than last year (as should be expected).

Finally, primary elections (for those races where more than one person filed in either the Republican or Democratic Primary) begin February 14th and finish March 1st. I will be sending out several e-mails over the coming week to discuss these important races at both the state level and the local level.

As always, please reach out to me or my staff if there is ever anything we can do for you.

May God bless you and your family,

Representative James B. Frank 

Recap of Town Hall with Senators Perry and Springer

Last week I had a series of meetings around Wichita Falls with Senator Drew Springer and Senator Charles Perry. As I've talked about before when we did redistricting last fall, Wichita County will be represented by these two senators in the state Senate starting in January 2023. They were troopers as we had a great town hall with nearly 100 folks (who asked great questions), spent several hours touring the MSU campus (and meeting with MSU leaders and students), met with the Chamber leadership, WFISD leadership, Helen Farabee mental health leadership, not to mention most of our city and county elected officials and leaders!

I absolutely love the way both senators want to work on issues that matter to Wichita County and work together for the absolute best for our area. Thanks to everyone who came out for the various activities and for the good questions at the town hall and in conversations afterwards.

(Senator Springer, Senator Perry, and Rep. Frank hear from Dean Marsden as they tour the McCoy School of Engineering building)

(A nearly full house for the Wichita Falls town hall with Senator Perry, Representative Frank, and Senator Springer)

(Senator Perry will represent the gray portion of Wichita County while Senator Springer will continue to represent the yellow portion. If you want a fully zoomable map, you can find it here.)

Happy 100th Birthday MSU Texas!

Also last week, Alisha and I had a great time celebrating the 100th anniversary of MSU Texas. I believe the combination of a strong current foundation and our addition to the Texas Tech System is about to bring unprecedented growth to the university and to our region. I know that I (and Sen Perry and Sen Springer) stand ready to help MSU and TTU in any way we can.

Changes to the Electric Grid Passed by the Legislature

The Texas Legislature passed legislation during last year's regular legislative session to take several major steps to reform Texas’ electric grid by increasing oversight, accountability, and reliability of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the Public Utility Commission (PUC). Here are a few of the specific changes made: 

• SB 2 reformed the board membership and increased the oversight of ERCOT by the PUC, ensuring that our grid operators are held to a higher standard.
• SB 3 ensures that generators are prepared for severe weather events, makes rules preventing lengthy rolling blackouts, and requires the issuance of fines to utilities that are not prepared for severe weather events.
• HB 16 protects consumers from sky-high electric bills by banning the sale of wholesale indexed products to residential customers.
• HB 1510 expanded the lower-cost financing mechanism that is used by electric utilities to fund system restorations. HB 1510 better ensures the winterization of Texas’ power grid by including weatherization costs as system restoration costs in the financing mechanism.

While I don't think we're finished with improvements, the start we made last year helped make sure the grid was ready to withstand this week's winter storm.

STAY CONNECTED

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