February 20, 2021 — The Public Utility Commission of Texas met in a special virtual session Friday evening, opening an investigation into this past week’s power emergency, with Chair DeAnn Walker also said the PUC needs to look into “what we could do better”

Chair Walker also said the PUC needs to look at the “market aspects” of what happened.

A likely date of March 18th has been set to formalize the scope of the probe, the date of an upcoming PUC meeting.

The agency joins the governor in calling for an investigation; the state attorney general and the Texas Legislature have already launched investigations.

Ms. Walker said the PUC hasn’t gotten the message out that the agency cares about the crisis, and that’s “made it appear like we don’t care, and we do.”

That’s why, she said, the agency needs to “open up a formal investigation into everything that has occurred through this storm.”

Ms. Walker added that she doesn’t know “if we have the money to do it” — or the staff “to do a heavy lift on this” — so a 3rd party consultant might be needed to conduct the investigation.