Wind turbines operate next to a field of flowers Friday, July 8, 2022, near Garden City.

A pumpjack is obscured by the heat as it operates on dry farmland with large windmills Friday, July 8, 2022, near Midland.

The natural gas power plants at NRG's WA Parish power plant on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 in Richmond.

A group of reporters talks with Danny Lynch, site manager, as they stand in a battery storage yard Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, at the Blue Jay solar and storage plant in Iola.

Texas lawmakers slowed the growth of clean energy, and thereby weakened the electric grid, but experts managed to pass some crucial reforms that should help the next time demand spikes.

Politics have plagued the grid operated by the nonprofit Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which covers 90% of Texans. Lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry, power generators, transmission line operators and electricity retailers have pressured the Legislature and the Public Utility Commission of Texas to favor them at the expense of consumers.

With the bad, though, came some good.

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Texas for the first time will require utilities that operate transmission and distribution systems to routinely inspect and maintain their poles and wires under a law introduced by........

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