July 31, 2026
On the Public Utility Commission’s Certificate of Convenience and Necessity Process for 765-kV Transmission Lines AUSTIN, Texas. We are attorneys who, together, have represented hundreds of landowners in transmission line proceedings before the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Chairman Schwertner's July 31 statement recognizes that the CCN process requires a complete overhaul. Whatever the Commission decides about the pending applications, we urge that genuine reform of the CCN process, and reimbursement of the costs landowners have already borne, accompany any refiling.
On July 29 several of us drew on our experience and shared observations about the transmission line approval process and submitted joint written testimony to the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce. We described a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) process that had broken down under the weight of recent transmission line cases. The system is not working well for anyone. We also provided ten recommendations for the Committee to consider. We thank Chairman Schwertner and the members of the Committee for the fifteen-hour hearing and for the time they gave to landowner testimony, and we write in response to the Chairman’s July 31 statement.
The Chairman’s statement identifies three failures our clients lived through: lack of proper notice from the utilities, Commission timelines too short for cases of this size and complexity, and due process problems at the State Office of Administrative Hearings. That record was built by hundreds of landowners at their own expense, and we are grateful that it was heard.
We offer three points.
First, reform must precede refiling. Denial alone is a reset, not a repair. If the pending applications are denied and refiled under the existing rules, the same deficiencies will reproduce themselves: the same notice gaps, the same 180-day clock, the same inability to develop a record at SOAH. Reform should come first. Our July 29 testimony (attached) sets out the specifics, including restoring the one-year review deadline or adopting objective triggers that extend the schedule in the largest cases, open houses in each affected county, advance notice when links are added to or removed from a study area, pre-hearing conferences set after the intervention deadline, active participation by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and filing systems that a landowner can actually navigate.
Second, landowners should be reimbursed for what this process has already cost them. Hundreds of landowners have paid out of pocket, for attorneys, routing and environmental experts, and travel, to participate in a proceeding Chairman Schwertner has now described as requiring a complete overhaul. If these applications are denied and refiled, those families will have funded litigation that produced nothing, and they likely will be asked to fund it again. The utilities recover their costs of participation through rates. Landowners have no comparable mechanism. We urge the Legislature and the Commission to establish a mechanism to reimburse landowners for reasonable, documented participation costs, including attorneys' fees and expert costs, incurred in CCN dockets litigated under the current process. Cost recovery of this kind is a concrete, fair measure, and it will be part of a reform bill only if it is on the table now.
Third, we do not speak with one voice on the fate of the pending applications, and we do not need to. Our clients are in different postures. Some seek a full rehearing of these routes; others would prefer finality to another round of litigation. This statement takes no position on that question. It is limited to process reform, due process, and cost recovery, and each of us remains free to speak further on behalf of our own clients.
We appreciate the Committee’s attention to these issues and stand ready to serve as resources to the Legislature and to the Commission as CCN reform is developed.
The undersigned collectively bring over 100 years of experience representing landowners in Texas transmission line proceedings.
Bradford W. Bayliff, Bayliff Law Firm PLLC, Blanco
Zachary S. Brady, Brady & Hamilton LLP, Lubbock
Carly Barton and Patrick L. Reznik, Braun & Gresham, PLLC, Dripping Springs
David F. Brown, Ewell Brown Blanke & Knight LLP, Austin
Joe Will Ross, Joe William Ross, P.C., San Angelo
Paul Tough, McElroy, Sullivan, Miller & Weber, LLP, Austin
Jim Spivey and Soledad Valenciano, Spivey Valenciano PLLC, San Antonio
Anson B. Howard, Uhl Fitzsimons PLLC, San Antonio
Jason Fenton and J. Lindsey Rusler, The Underwood Law Firm, P.C., Amarillo
Editor's Note:
On our website, SanSabaNews.com, you can find their Written Testimony for the July 29, 2026 Interim Hearing – Concerns and Recommendations Regarding the PUC’s CCN Process for 765-kV Transmission Lines dated July 29th sent to "The Honorable Charles Schwertner, Chair Members of the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce."