Texas regulators have approved a massive $33 billion transmission expansion — called the Strategic Transmission Expansion Plan (STEP) — without a single legislative vote. When you factor in financing, maintenance, and taxes, the lifetime cost to ratepayers could reach nearly $100 billion.
That works out to roughly $150 more on your electric bill every year.
But according to independent research from Life:Powered, Texas families and small businesses may see almost no benefit from this plan. These lines move electricity — they don’t generate it. Experts suggest that building gas generation closer to where demand actually exists could deliver a more reliable grid for roughly the same cost, without seizing the private property of thousands of Texas landowners.
So who does benefit? Large industrial consumers chasing corporate emissions targets, and transmission companies positioned to collect an estimated $25 billion in guaranteed equity returns.
Even more troubling: the demand forecast used to justify the West Texas portion of STEP was funded by six large oil and gas companies and based on their own voluntary ESG commitments. ERCOT commissioned its own independent study from UT Austin — which projected less than half the demand — and set it aside in favor of the industry-funded numbers.
The Texas Legislature voted on reliability upgrades in the Permian Basin. They did not vote on a statewide transmission buildout. Alternatives were never seriously studied.
This debate needs to happen before another mile of line gets approved.