American Stewards of Liberty is asking the Public Utility Commission of Texas to delay deciding whether four segments of proposed extra-high-voltage transmission lines are needed until the administrative law hearing on the fifth segment is completed.
The five segments that make up three proposed extra‑high‑voltage import paths are designed to move large amounts of power from Central, North, and South Texas into West Texas and the energy-rich Permian Basin. Each segment has been the subject of administrative law hearings, in which administrative law judges decide which route to recommend to the Public Utility Commission (PUCT). Intervenors, including hundreds of landowners, participate either to oppose certain proposed routes or the entire project.
The final hearing, taking place this week, concerns the Bell County East to Big Hill segment. Spanning about 199 miles from just north of Austin to south of San Angelo, it forms the central 765‑kilovolt import path together with the Big Hill to Sand Lake segment from south of San Angelo to Pecos.
On Friday, American Stewards of Liberty filed a motion asking PUCT to defer determining if there’s a need for any of the other segments until the hearing for the Bell County East to Big Hill segment has run its course.
“There were five CCN [Certificate of Convenience and Necessity] applications filed, and an issue that is constant throughout all of those dockets is the issue of need, and that is a statutory factor that the commission has to essentially establish before they can grant the applications,” Attorney Elena Folgueras, representing American Stewards of Liberty, told Texas Scorecard.
“Because the issue of need is stemming from the Permian Basin Reliability Plan, we are asking them to defer that determination until this docket has been completed, so there is a complete record for their consideration,” Folgueras continued.
PUCT approved the Permian Basin Reliability Plan in April 2025. Critics have said state lawmakers originally authorized it in House Bill 5066 as a limited fix for a specific region, and that PUCT, grid operator ERCOT, and electricity delivery company Oncor expanded it into a broader buildout of these 765-kV transmission lines with minimum public input and without state lawmakers’ authorization.
American Stewards of Liberty has called the 765-kV transmission line project “akin to hauling water to the sea.”
According to the filing, multiple issues have been raised through the process for the four other segment hearings that challenge “the premise that the Permian Basin lacks sufficient electrification to support anticipated load growth in the region and therefore requires substantial new transmission infrastructure to import power from other regions of ERCOT.”
These issues include whether “alternatives involving additional local generation were adequately studied before recommending approximately 1,255 miles of new 765-kV transmission facilities,” and “whether the analyses underlying the PBRP effectively embedded the conclusion that long-distance transmission expansion was necessary by assuming that future generation would continue to be sited away from load.”
While House Bill 5066 shortened the timeline from one year to 180 days for PUCT commissioners to approve or deny a transmission line project—with a bias towards utility companies and the commission—ASL’s filing argued that the deadline “may be extended upon a showing of good cause.”
“We’re asking that, because the foundation of need is stemming from one plan, one study, one thing that ERCOT put together, we’re asking for that determination to be pushed off till the end of this docket,” Folgueras said. “If the commission finds that the need element has not been satisfied, theoretically that should mean that these projects cannot move forward, so that need … is a statutory factor that needs to be satisfied in order for the CCN applications to be approved.”
Folgueras explained that this motion is limited only to determining need, not to picking routes for the proposed lines. “To the extent that the [administrative law judges] or the commission still finds it suitable to pick a route, we are fine with that,” she said.
PUCT did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
Citizens may watch the livestream of the Bell County East to Big Hill hearing this week through the SOAH YouTube channel from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Administrative law judges will make recommendations from these hearings to the five commissioners of the Public Utility Commission—all Gov. Greg Abbott appointees—who will make the final decision.
