Texas utilities spent tens of millions on ‘legislative matters’ as electric bills rise
CenterPoint Energy, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC and Entergy Texas spent a combined $58.06 million on “legislative matters,” including lobbying and regulatory advocacy, from 2021 through 2025, according to annual reports filed to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT).
CenterPoint Energy led with the most spending on “legislative matters” from 2021 through 2025 at $25.29 million, with Oncor coming in second at $16.7 million and Entergy Texas close behind with $16.04 million to drive their legislative agenda with Texas elected officials.
The Energy and Policy Institute reviewed the data for eight electric utilities, focusing on vertically-integrated El Paso Electric and seven transmission and distribution utilities: CenterPoint Energy, Oncor Electric Delivery Company LLC, Texas New Mexico Power, AEP Subsidiaries SWEPCO and AEP Texas as well as Entergy’s Texas subsidiary and Xcel Energy subsidiary Southwestern Public Service Company.
EPI reviewed data filed with the PUCT from 2021-2025,the latest reports available since utilities must file these annual reports with the regulatory agency by June 1 for the prior year.
Most Texas utility customers in the competitive market overseen by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) can choose their retail energy supplier, but cannot choose their transmission and distribution utility, giving these utilities a monopoly over customers in their service territories. CenterPoint Energy, Oncor, AEP’s subsidiaries, TNMP, Entergy Texas, and Xcel Energy’s SPS serve the bulk of Texas, with Oncor the largest of the group, serving 14 million people.
Lobbying activity by these electric utilities, including the number of lobbyists retained, spiked in 2021 and 2023, when the Texas Legislature, responding to the dismal performance of the utilities and generators during Winter Storm Uri, which left more than 200 Texans dead in 2021, proposed legislation ostensibly aimed at reforming the grid.
“This is the largest train wreck in the history of deregulated electricity,” The Texas Tribune quoted Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton at the time.
Texas law defines lobbying as direct communications with state officers to influence “legislation or administrative action.”
Texas state law forbids electric utilities from recovering costs related to legislative advocacy expenses, including those embedded in trade association dues, and campaign contributions However, electric utilities can recover up to three-tenths of 1.0 percent of their gross receipts related to “ordinary advertising, contributions, and donations”.
Based on the 2025 annual 10-K reports, CenterPoint’s Houston subsidiary is allowed to charge customers up to $12.2 million; Oncor up to $20.3 million; and Entergy Texas up to $6.3 million for those activities. In that same year, CenterPoint spent $543,861 in advertising costs, according to its PUCT filing; Oncor spent $1.026 million in 2025; and Entergy Texas spent $1.03 million in 2025.
The statute also requires electric utilities under the PUC’s jurisdiction to file an annual report with the agency detailing spending for advertising, charitable contributions and “legislative matters”, which neither the PUC nor statute defines, but which the PUC’s instructions describe as “legislative matters, including advocacy before any legislative body.”
The utilities report their “legislative matters” spending inconsistently. Some electric utilities have disclosed vendors and specific expenses related to legislative matters. Other utilities have not, instead reporting total amounts spent or not reporting any expenses at all, even when firms contracted by the utilities and utility employees themselves reported lobbying expenditures elsewhere. For some utilities, activities labeled under “legislative matters” included political action committee donations, regulatory expenses and industry trade group dues.
A PUCT spokesperson told EPI that utilities cannot charge customers for costs related to legislative advocacy expenses, and failing to comply with the disclosure requirements under PUCT Rule 25.77 could result in an “enforcement action,” by the Commission, following an investigation that showed a failure to comply.
The prohibition has not stopped electric utilities from paying millions of dollars to fund dozens of lobbyists in order to pass favorable legislation. Texas utilities have consistently lobbied for bills that allow for more rate increases and higher profits.
How lobbying delivers for Texas utilities
While the annual 25.77 reports from the PUCT offered a glimpse into utilities’ overall “legislative matters” activities, lobbying expenditures and registration reports filed by utilities at the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) revealed how utilities fund dozens of lobbyists to push forward their legislative agenda.
The years 2021 and 2023 produced legislation aimed at responding to the deadly aftermath of Winter Storm Uri. Utilities facing intense public and legislative scrutiny responded by hiring more lobbyists. In 2021, TEC records showed the utilities retained 88 unique lobbyists, with Oncor, Entergy Texas and CenterPoint leading with the largest numbers at 29, 24, and 23 respectively. In 2023, the number stood, again, at 88 unique lobbyists, with Oncor leading at 34, CenterPoint at 22 and Entergy Texas at 21. In the legislative off-years utilities hired fewer lobbyists.
Lobbyist retainer fees and salaries are reported broadly in compensation ranges to the TEC, leaving unclear the exact amount utilities spend on lobbyists to push forward their legislative agenda.
However, lobbying expenditure reports – disclosures which show how much a lobbyist spent on food, drinks, political fundraising, entertainment, awards, and gifts for a policymaker or state elected official – revealed utility employees spent $1.24 million between January 2021 and July 2026. Food and drinks topped the list during those years, with utility employees spending a total of $1,019,986.
In 2021, Texas passed Senate Bill 3, which required power plants to weatherize infrastructure after reports showed that freezing gas pipelines were largely to blame for the prolonged outages, despite some Texas politicians, including Governor Greg Abbott, repeating anti-wind and solar talking points.
In 2023, the first full legislative session following Uri, utilities threw their support behind two bills: one that allowed utilities to file a rate increase to recover costs associated with distribution twice a year instead of once a year; and one that would identify and propose new transmission lines to the Permian Basin.
HB 5066 directed ERCOT to create a Permian Basin Electrification plan to study and propose transmission lines for the growing demand from the oil and gas industry out to the Permian Basin. Specifically it required the PUCT to consider historical load, forecast load growth, and loads seeking interconnection, including those that had not yet signed an interconnection agreement. Oncor and CenterPoint Energy testified or registered in support of the legislation, along with several oil and gas companies and industry organizations. The resulting plan from ERCOT called for building three major 765-kV transmission corridors split into five segments. The lines have come under fire from some rural landowners who claim they would be impacted by the proposed routes, and the state’s pro-fossil fuel think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
SB 1015, authored by “Mr. Utility” Senator Phil King (R), who received significant financial support from Oncor and CenterPoint, allowed utilities to seek distribution cost rate increases twice a year, and reduced the PUCT’s review time for such proposals from 145 days to 60 days. A 2024 investigation by the Texas Monthly reported that Oncor paid King’s businesses $31 million while he wrote four bills benefiting the utility. Witness lists for the bill showed electric utilities including Oncor, CenterPoint Energy, AEP Texas, TNMP and SPS all testified or registered in support.
Another bill passed in the 2025 legislative session streamlined those requests into one annual comprehensive regulatory case. California-based Sempra Energy, which owns an 80% stake in Oncor, applauded the bill’s passage, saying in a June 2025 8-K filing that the bill was “expected to improve the company’s earnings, cash flows, and credit metrics.”
Oncor, CenterPoint Energy, both AEP subsidiaries, Entergy and TNMP also supported a bill that would have granted them the ability to request interim rate “relief” to “recover costs” while a rate increase request was still pending before the PUCT. That bill failed, but Oncor used the framework and was granted a temporary rate increase until its $560 million base rate request was approved in April 2026 to take effect in June.
In August, Oncor reported a 65 percent increase in profits year-over-year, according to its second quarter earnings report.
Lobbying continued between legislative sessions. CenterPoint Energy’s legislative advocacy came under fire in 2024 after Hurricane Beryl ripped through Houston, leaving 2.2 million residents in the dark for days during the height of summer. A subsequent Houston Chronicle investigation revealed how CenterPoint Energy had for years prior to Beryl courted key state elected officials tasked with legislative oversight at its private fishing retreat, known as the Pond.
EPI reached out to the utilities in this article for comment about their “legislative matters” expenditures.
A CenterPoint spokesperson responded, saying, “Like so many organizations and companies across the state, CenterPoint Energy is proud to engage bi-partisan leaders, as well as local, regional and state stakeholders, who share our goal of working together to build a more reliable, resilient and affordable energy future for the nearly 2.9 million electric customers and nearly 2 million natural gas customers we are privileged to serve in Texas.”
Entergy Texas declined to comment.
Oncor, SWEPCO, AEP Texas, SPS, El Paso Electric, and Texas New Mexico Power did not return EPI’s request for comment.
Methodology
EPI reviewed two sets of data: One from the annual expenditure reports required by PUCT Rule 25.77 and the other from lobbying expenditure reports filed at the Texas Ethics Commission. PUCT data disclosed legislative matters numbers while the TEC data only disclosed expenditures related to lobbying, and limited information on the money that utilities spent to pay lobbyists in the form of broad compensation ranges rather than specific data.
EPI found the PUCT reports had discrepancies between the format and disclosure of legislative matters when comparing them to data found in the Texas Ethics Commission. For instance, some utilities chose not to list any expenses under legislative matters, but TEC reports found records of registered lobbyists, both contracted and in house, and expense reports from in-house lobbying. Other utilities reported regulatory expenses under legislative matters as well.
As a result, EPI chose to reflect the exact totals listed in the “legislative matters” category as submitted by each utility and to add further context with verified expenditure numbers from utility in-house lobbyists from Texas Ethics Commission’s public records.
Review our data by clicking the links below.
Utility in-house lobbying expenditures.
Utility lobbyist registrations, 2021-Present
Oncor PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
SWEPCO PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
SPS PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
EPE PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
Entergy Texas PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
CenterPoint Energy PUCT 25.77 Filings 2021-2025
