YEARS AFTER THE FACT, HERALD FINALLY REPORTS ON TENASKA DEBACLE; NOW WONDERS WHERE ALL $$$ WENT

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

When the City of Brownsville, its Public Utility Board, and private energy producer Tenaska inked a Memorandum of Understanding to build a $500 million gas-powered 800-MW electric generating plant in 2013, it garnered front-page coverage in the Brownsville Herald featuring then-Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez.

By then, the city commission had dutifully approved a 35 percent increases in utility rates and smaller rate hikes for water and wastewater treatment charges which have remained in effect up to today. 

Depending on who you talk to, the increases to ratepayers raised more than $150 million, all but $29 million of which the utility has already spent.

The city commission hadn't learned that as far back as November 2016 Tenaska had asked then-Cameron County Judge Pete Sepulveda to terminate its tax abatement agreement and notified him it given up on building the plant.

Tansaka vice-president for Robert Ramaekers for strategic development and acquisitions wrote Sepulveda in November 2016 that the private energy company was abandoning the project because the electric market "made it extremely difficult to finance and build new base load electricity generation in the state."

By then, the members of the PUB board already knew that the plant wasn't going to be built, but neither the PUB administration under CEO John Bruciak nor the PUB board notified anyone in the city administration or the city commission to let them know.

The artificially high utility rates have remained the same.

It wasn't until a joint COB-PUB meeting at city hall October 27, 2020 that they told the city commission that plant project had been abandoned. That was almost four years after the county knew. And the admission was forthcoming from the PUB honchos when commissioner Ben Neece forced the joint  meeting and PUB's top three administrators admitted the construction of the $550 million plant had been unsuccessful. 

And while PUB blamed OPEC - those damn Arabs - they contradicted Tenaska's Ramaekers that a glut of electricity created by renewable energy sources (wind and solar power) was the reason the plant was not built.  

The Herald did not report on Tenaska's 2016 letter to the county judge nixing the project. 

Neither did the daily report on the heft pay raises that the PUB board approved for the top three PUB administrators responsible for the debacle that started in 2013 after the 1rates were raised.

For that matter, Sepulveda's successor Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino didn't let the cat out of the bag that the Memorandum of Understanding between the city, PUB and the COB no longer applied. Could it be that Trevino kept mum on the Tenaska failure because he was the PUB counsel in 2013 and earned millions from the public utility and had had a direct hand in putting together the MOU?

The public was denied access to the MOU since its adoption in 2012 and Tenaska fought its release by pleading with the Texas Attorney General that it should not be made public because it would hurt its competitive edge and release "proprietary" information to its competitors.

This blog filed at least three such information requests with PUB that were put in the hands of  PUB's contract attorneys in San Antonio who predictively turned over to the AG. Others also sought the information and were similarly stymied.

The city approved the audit of the Tenaska-COB agreement on October 27 and approved an audit committee composed of City Auditor Patrick Zacchini and a three-member audit committee appointed by Mayor Trey Mendez.

 They are authorized to look into what became of the ten of million of dollars generated by the rate increases. Specifically, they will look into payment made by PUB to "lawyers and consultants" which cannot be recovered.

But before you get too excited about the possibility that the rates may go down, Mendez - as mayor an ex oficio member of the PUB board - already is putting a damper on that dream. He said that since the pact was inked, the cost of producing electricity had gone up, making a lowering of the rates prohibitive since it could hurt the annual $14 million transfer from the PUB to the city and deeming it impossible.

The Herald did not report Tenaska's withdrawal from the project in 2016, or on the October 27, 2020  city meeting when the audit into the PB-Tenaska debacle was approved. It reported it today, November 15, 2020.

Why wasn't the public informed by its First Amendment protector about what was happening to their money  by its much ballyhooed project that it had plastered all over the front page on January 2013?

By reporting it today, years after the fact, it makes today's report on the Tenaska debacle "News You Can't Use."