Emergency Rulemaking: The Texas Supreme Court's Decision in Luminant v. PUCT.
Can a state agency bypass the Administrative Procedures Act in an emergency?
“The administrative process is a politico-legal fourth dimension in which traditional executive, legislative and judicial functions tend to be merged, obscured, lost and forgotten.”
– Professor Whitney R. Harris, Southwestern Law Journal, Spring 1951, Vol. 5, No. 2.
Texas's severe winter storm DR-4586 of February 2021—which is only unofficially named Winter Storm Uri—has caused quite a stir in the Texas political and legal landscape.
For one, it brought the term “ERCOT” racing to the forefront of public discourse. Previously, electric grid terminology like capacity, megawatts, and renewables were considered niche sleeping aids, but the storm elevated them to campaign fodder and legislative agendas.
The storm also created a quite substantial legal impact, forcing the Legislature and the Texas Supreme Court to wrestle with questions like:
