The Public Utility Commission has called a special meeting for Friday in a University of Texas hotel ballroom rather than its own hearing room, and put nothing on the agenda but two Oncor applications for what would be among the first 765-kilovolt transmission lines in Texas. No explanation for the change of room appears in the commission’s own notices.
The two cases are halves of the same corridor. One would run from a switching station called Longshore to one called Drill Hole across ten West Texas counties, most of them in the Permian Basin. The other runs from Dinosaur Switch to Longshore across twenty-two counties reaching east into Erath, Hood, Somervell and Bosque. Both are applications to amend Oncor’s certificate — the state permit a utility needs before it can build, and the document that later supports condemning an easement across a ranch.
These lines trace back to a 2023 law that told the commission to have a reliability plan drawn for the Permian Basin, where oil and gas electrification is driving demand ERCOT has projected at about 26 gigawatts by 2038. The commission approved that plan in September 2024 and held open the question of voltage until April 2025, when it chose 765 kilovolts over the 345-kilovolt alternative already common in Texas. ERCOT’s 2024 estimate for the 765-kilovolt package, import lines and local upgrades together, was $13.8 billion; more recent accounts put the full statewide build near $33 billion. Transmission costs are recovered from electric customers across the ERCOT region.
Opposition has been organized and loud. Commissioners courts in Eastland, Erath and Shackelford have passed resolutions against the Dinosaur–Longshore route, and by one condemnation firm’s count of the docket more than a thousand landowners protested or intervened in that case. Sen. Charles Schwertner, who sponsored the 2023 bill in the Senate, has since asked the commission to deny the pending 765-kilovolt applications and let the 2027 Legislature rewrite the process, in a letter written after a Senate hearing on a different leg of the project. The House State Affairs committee took up the planning process Wednesday, two days before this meeting.
What to watch is whether the commission decides both cases Friday or splits them, whether it hears oral argument from landowners before voting, and whether a session moved out of the building is carried on the usual video stream.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:30 a.m. CT Friday, August 21, 2026. The notice was filed August 13.
- Where
- Zlotnik Family Ballroom, AT&T Hotel and Conference Center, 1900 University Ave., Austin — not the commission’s usual seventh-floor hearing room at 1701 N. Congress Ave.
- Governing body & chair
- Public Utility Commission of Texas — five commissioners the governor appoints with Senate consent to staggered six-year terms. Thomas J. Gleeson is chairman.
- Format
- In person. Public comment opens the meeting, three minutes a speaker, and may not touch the two contested cases, which are subject to the ban on one-sided contact with decision-makers.
- Live video
- The commission normally streams and archives its open meetings from its own hearing room. Whether the ballroom session will be streamed was not stated in the notice; check the commission’s site Friday morning.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · commission filing search, control numbers 59029 and 59315
Commissioners
- Thomas J. Gleeson — chairman since January 2024; former commission executive director.
- Kathleen Jackson — commissioner since 2023; former environmental commissioner.
- Courtney K. Hjaltman — commissioner since 2024; former public counsel for ratepayers.
- Morgan Johnson, Austin — commissioner since 2025; the governor’s deputy general counsel.
- Patrick Rhode, Austin — commissioner since 2026; consultant, former federal official.
The roster follows the commission’s commissioners page, cross-checked against the governor’s appointment releases for Morgan Johnson and Patrick Rhode. Rhode’s appointment, effective April 1, 2026, returned the commission to its full five members. Hometowns were published for Johnson and Rhode only; none was found for Gleeson, Jackson or Hjaltman. Accommodation requests: Office of Public Engagement, public@puc.texas.gov, (512) 936-7343.