Economics

Rick Perry’s Home State Doesn’t Want Him Taking Over Its Grid

  • Regulators spurred into action as independence under threat
  • Texas seeks waiver or may cut power links with Mexico
Rick Perry, former governor of Texas.Photographer: Daniel Acker
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The independent Texas power grid, long a source of state-wide pride, is facing an unprecedented threat.

The grid that serves 24 million Texans has been free of government control for decades because it’s largely self-contained. That autonomy is now being tested by Mexico’s growing power ties with the U.S. and the risk that electricity supplies originating in Texas could end up in other states, thereby triggering federal oversight.