SB1877

Information covered: the new entitlement includes data about reliability, whether generation resources are adequate, long-term transmission planning, and resilience of transmission and distribution systems. It is added alongside the office’s existing access to commission-gathered records and discovery of relevant nonprivileged material in proceedings. This is a right for the consumer-representation office, not a new right for every member of the public to obtain all market data. Final law, Section 13.003(a)(5)–(6).

Confidentiality follows the information: data submitted under the new authority is confidential and exempt from disclosure by the office if it would be confidential and exempt under the Public Information Act or another law if the commission held it. The condition matters: the act does not declare every item confidential merely because it is electricity-market data. Final law, subsection (a-1).

Changes during passage: the Senate substitute removed “market” before “reliability,” expressly added distribution-system resilience alongside transmission resilience, and clarified the confidentiality test to ask whether the information would be protected if held by the commission. The Senate-passed, House committee and final versions retain those operative provisions unchanged. No floor amendments are listed. Introduced; Senate substitute; Senate-passed; House committee; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Residential and small-business customers may benefit if their state advocate can use better information in utility proceedings and policy work. The commission, grid organization and utilities are subject to the new data-access entitlement, while the office must preserve applicable confidentiality. The act does not guarantee lower bills, fewer outages or a particular regulatory outcome, and it sets no new response deadline or monetary penalty in these provisions. Final law.

The March 27 fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local-government fiscal implication and assumes costs can be absorbed with existing resources. The March 22 introduced-version note reached the same conclusion. These notes do not quantify consumer savings or utility data-production costs; the act makes no appropriation. Substitute fiscal note; Introduced fiscal note; Final law.