The expansion of Texas’s extra-high-voltage electrical grid faces a regulatory milestone this week as the state’s administrative court prepares to review a major infrastructure proposal. The formal hearing on the merits for the proposed 199-mile Bell County East to Big Hill 765-kV transmission line is scheduled to convene this week, according to scheduling records from the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH).
The proposed infrastructure segment is designed to link power substations between an area just north of Austin and a destination south of San Angelo, serving as a primary import pathway for the state’s Permian Basin Reliability Plan. The scheduled courtroom proceedings are moving forward after a panel of administrative law judges rejected a formal motion from local landowners seeking a procedural delay.
Under Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) Docket 59475, a coalition of 178 landowners—led by John Burrow, David Hillock, and Amy Hillock—submitted a motion alleging that utility developers Oncor and the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) Transmission Services Corporation added approximately 400 miles of unannounced route links following the initial June 2025 public forum.
According to the landowners’ filings, the modifications impacted between 1,300 and 1,400 additional properties, drawing roughly 2,000 property owners into the path of the project. The petition asserts that the developers relied on obsolete county tax appraisal rolls when distributing mandatory direct-mail notifications, resulting in a failure to properly notify current property holders.
The administrative panel denied the requested delay, ruling that the case remains strictly bound by state law. The judges noted that the proceeding is subject to the 180-day statutory deadline established under Section 37.057 of the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA), making an extension of the current procedural schedule legally unfeasible. The ruling also noted that the filing party failed to identify a specific, codified notification rule that the utility applicants had violated.
The primary utility developers maintain that their pre-construction notification protocols fully met or exceeded all state regulatory thresholds.
“Oncor and LCRA TSC complied with all state laws and regulations when providing landowner notice for this project, and in several ways exceeded those requirements,” Oncor spokesman Andrew Clark stated in a response tracking the dispute. Representatives for the Lower Colorado River Authority similarly released a statement asserting that the agency complied with all applicable rules and regulations throughout the planning process, including all mandatory landowner notification steps.
The coalition of property owners has actively sought to appeal timeline constraints directly to the full Public Utility Commission on the grounds that the current process fails to provide appropriate transparency and due process protections required under Texas statutes.
The resistance to the Permian Basin expansion infrastructure is not isolated to the Bell County segment. During separate administrative hearings evaluating companion segments of the grid buildout, legal counsel representing regional property owners raised national security and corporate bias arguments. These objections included questions regarding proposed routes drawn near Laughlin Air Force Base and Dyess Air Force Base, as well as specific land holdings connected to foreign interests.
The pushback is drawing scrutiny over total projected infrastructure costs and legislative oversight as well. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) released data estimating that the aggregate Permian Basin transmission grid buildout will incur an overall lifetime cost of between $90 billion and $100 billion. Amid these compounding fiscal and regulatory concerns, a coalition of 25 Texas state lawmakers issued a formal call to temporarily pause the overarching project.
The immediate development centers on the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) courtroom proceedings, which are scheduled for public broadcast via the agency’s official YouTube channel. Following the hearing, the presiding administrative judges will draft formal routing recommendations for review by the five appointed PUCT commissioners.
The final statutory decision deadline for the Bell County East to Big Hill segment is firmly set for September 22. In the near term, state energy analysts are also anticipating a final regulatory ruling on a separate, related transmission line proposal—the Longshore-to-Drill Hole segment under PUCT Docket 59029—which faces a final statutory decision deadline of June 9.