Texas lawmakers are weighing new bills that would shift the state’s power generation away from renewables and toward natural gas, threatening its status as a wind and solar energy powerhouse and potentially driving up costs for consumers.

The Texas Senate advanced two bills, S.B. 6 and S.B. 7, on Wednesday aimed at funneling more money to natural gas and other sources of energy generation deemed dispatchable, meaning that they can be brought online at need, in an effort to firm up the power grid and ameliorate reliability concerns.

S.B. 6 would use $10 billion in public funds to finance operations and repairs of existing fossil fuel plants in the state.

[How much pain, misery, and millions upon millions has this cost TX and its residents already? Ridiculous. Get ‘er done and Florida should start focusing on the same. ~ Beege]