Texas Lawmakers Set To Investigate Causes Of Winter Disaster

The head of the state's power grid operator on Thursday defended the group’s decision to order widespread blackouts during last week's winter storm, telling state lawmakers that doing so helped prevent a larger disaster.

Last week’s freezing weather led to skyrocketing demand and unprecedented strain on the power grid, forcing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to enact sustained outages across the state to keep its grid from collapsing.

But in response to a question from state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, ERCOT CEO Bill Magness said that he had no regrets about the response, and that he made the right call to avoid a major grid failure that could have left Texans in the dark for weeks.