Sierra Club Monthly Program – ONLINE: The Austin Energy Rate Case

Our monthly Austin Sierra Club meeting will be online via Zoom. In the future we will mix Zoom programs with in-person/hybrid programs.

ZOOM LINK: https://zoom.us/j/5133069449

We’ll start off with Announcements on current events…
Tonite’s main program is
Assuring a Clean Energy Future in Austin and Texas:
The Austin Energy Rate Case, the Public Utility Commission
Sunset Process, and You
with Cyrus Reed, Ph.D.
Conservation Director, Lone Star Chapter, Sierra Club

Cyrus Reed will cover two big topics that will impact the future of Texas and Austin. First, Austin Energy has proposed significant changes in their rates and rate design that could undermine efforts to build a clean energy future in Austin, and close the Fayette Power Plant. Fortunately, no decisions will be made until later this year, and we can make a difference.

Second, following the catastrophic winter storm Uri, and the failure of the ERCOT grid, the Legislature has tasked the Public Utility Commission with making changes to our energy market, while also putting the PUCT, ERCOT and the Office of Public Utility Counsel through sunset, meaning a unique opportunity to influence what our electric future will look like in Texas.

Cyrus Reed has served as Conservation Director for the state chapter of the Sierra Club for the last 15 years. He has a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin, with a focus on water policy and the dispute over the Rio Grande water with Mexico. Reed serves on several committee at ERCOT, is the state chapter’s main lobbyist during legislative sessions, and also serves on the City of Austin’s Electric Utility Commission.

Prior to becoming conservation director, he served as Sierra Club’s lobbyist on energy and air quality issues during the 2005 and 2007 legislative sessions, and directed the Texas Center for Policy Studies, an environmental policy and advocacy organization based in Austin, for five years. He is presently working on energy issues and their impacts. Cyrus has also worked as a journalist and has spent considerable time in Mexico, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Reed also has been a Girl Scout and Boy Scout leader as well as a volunteer soccer coach. He is married with three children, only one of whom is still at home.