Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, on Monday announced an investigation into CenterPoint Energy, a national utility company that covers the House of Representatives, where nearly 3 million homes lost power after Hurricane Beryl.
CenterPoint is a national utility whose jurisdiction includes much of Houston, where at least 12 people died of heatstroke during power outages after the storm.
“My office is aware of the allegations regarding CenterPoint and how its actions affected preparedness during Hurricane Beryl,” Paxton said in a statement.
“If the investigation uncovers any misconduct, that conduct will be addressed with the full force of the law,” Paxton said in a statement.
In an unusual move, the Harris County Prosecutor’s Office, which has frequently been in legal conflict with the attorney general’s office, voiced its support for the investigation.
“It’s hard for people to agree on many things these days, but we can all agree that Houston residents did not receive enough support during the Houston derecho and Hurricane Beryl,” County Attorney Christian Menafee told The Hill.
“People have real concerns about how well prepared CenterPoint was before the storm, how long it took to get power restored and why CenterPoint didn’t communicate better,” Menafee said.
“I support the Attorney General’s investigation, and my office stands ready to cooperate.”
Paxton joins other Republican officials in scrutinizing CenterPoint. Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the state Public Utilities Commission have all called for investigations into the company since the storm, and in July a select committee of state senators spent hours grilling CenterPoint and its management over the blackouts and subsequent deaths.
“One company failed,” state Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Ill.) told his colleagues last month, setting the tone for an unusually bipartisan critique of the utility’s executives.
Much of the criticism was directed at CenterPoint’s $800 million purchase of 15 ostensibly portable generators, which made the company about $50 million in profit but proved too large and cumbersome to deploy during the event.
After his questioning last month revealed that CenterPoint had chosen a generator vendor that was 40 to 60 times more expensive than the next closest competitor, Bettencourt accused the company of “fraud” and called for a change in management within the company.
“So what do you say to the public?” Bettencourt says. asked CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells: “Should I resign?”
Wells demurred. “If I resign today, I think we’ll lose momentum on the things that will best impact the Greater Houston region,” he told Bettencourt.
Whether an investigation leads to indictments is one thing, but whether indictments lead to further action is another.File a lawsuitProtests against petrochemical polluters — oftenWith vocal supportGovernor’s — andAnd “it’s slow”The Texas Tribune reported.
