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Among Railroad Commissioner Elect Joe Rosenthal’s priorities, including plugging orphan wells, banning flaring and increased groundwater monitoring, is a commitment to working with the industry where he built expertise. And oil and gas leaders seem to be welcoming that cooperation.
“Texans’ economic security and energy future depend on sound, science-based legislation, steady executive leadership, and a Railroad Commission that regulates with fairness and predictability,” [treasurer of the Texas Oil and Gas Association Good Government Committee Todd] Staples said. “Those taking office in January inherit this responsibility, and we intend to be a constructive partner in the legislative process and a committed advocate for the industry.”
New analysis from the Rhodium Group models the effects of BAAJA on the country should it pass in current form. This comes as the bill’s future is uncertain following Democratic gains in the midterms.
We project that the combined impact of these provisions would reduce household electricity bills by $50-78 per year in 2040 compared to without BAAJA, both because easier permitting would allow lower-cost resources to connect to the grid and because the bill explicitly prohibits charging non-data center customers for data center costs. The transmission provisions of the bill enable accelerated average interregional transmission build rates nearly triple that of the last decade or more and drive an additional 17-249 GW of clean resources to be built through 2040… Taken together, these provisions uniformly reduce economywide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5-148 million metric tons annually in 2040 and as much as 1.5 gigatons cumulatively, compared to without BAAJA.
Grid Strategies also released estimates about what BAAJA might do, specifically what the ratepayer protection section would mean for data centers. The bill would have the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allow so-called “and” pricing for transmission service, so data centers would pay both the embedded cost of the existing grid and the new transmission costs they trigger. ERCOT isn’t included in the estimate because FERC doesn’t regulate transmission service there.
“We estimate the ‘and’ pricing policy change in BAAJA will result in $55 billion in transmission service charges to data centers over ten years, or close to $6 billion per year.”
