Private retreat for Texas lawmakers in Center Point seems suspicious

Donald Trump won the White House in part by promising to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C. In Texas, maybe the government should focus its cleanup efforts on the pond.

As an investigative reporter for the Chronicle learned, this is a retreat maintained by CenterPoint to entertain lawmakers who are friendly with the company’s lobbyists.

According to a Houston Chronicle investigation, Texas lawmakers have been visiting CenterPointe’s rustic retreats on 170 acres for years, complete with an open bar, a pool, a kitchen that serves three meals a day and some of the best fishing in the state. Many of the lawmakers who were vocal critics of the utility company in the weeks following its devastating response to Hurricane Beryl have enjoyed visiting the company’s retreats.

The pond’s inspections have drawn a bipartisan who’s who of local and state Texas politics. Democratic state representative Senfronia Thompson recalled wrestling with a redfish so heavy it snapped her line. Republican state senator Phil King’s campaign team has visited the pond at least five times in the past decade, according to Mike Morris, Amanda Drane, Nina Satya and Eric Dexheimer. Mayor John Whitmire said he doesn’t fish much but remembers going once when he was a Democratic state senator, and former mayor Sylvester Turner said he declined the invitation when he was a Democratic state representative, but didn’t necessarily think there would be a problem with accepting.

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In total, the investigation found that “nearly 70 current or former state and local elected officials reported having visited the location, used campaign funds for travel to the location, or had the location appear in public images posted to social media.” Many offered the defense that they had paid for their own vacations there.

“We’re the ones paying the price,” Democratic state Sen. Carol Alvarado told the Chronicle. Alvarado was one of the most vocal critics at recent hearings grilling CenterPoint’s management following the Beryl scandal. “Believe me, if they had any control or influence over me, I probably would have been really quiet during those hearings. I never was quiet.”

“The inference that the opportunity to catch fish impacts doing what’s right for Texas is simply absurd,” King countered.

So is it a coincidence that King has authored some of the most utility-friendly legislation in recent years? Or that Alvarado and Thompson supported his bill that allowed the Public Utilities Commission to approve CenterPoint’s $800 million generator lease, despite a panel of state administrative judges recommending against the ill-advised purchase? King claims he was deceived about the generators, which were barely used, even after the Beryl disaster, and said in a statement that he “took them at the word of CenterPoint’s senior executives.” Did the company earn his trust because of fond memories of the pond? No, it’s just a fishing spot.

It is also, apparently coincidentally, that visitors in the pound passed a bill that would make it easier for Centrepoint to ask for fare increases more frequently. These same MPs also sit on the committee that is set to ask tough questions about the company’s failings.

To be clear, not all members of the committees that study Centerpoint or pass legislation related to the company have had the luxury of spending time on Centerpoint’s campus. State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, for example, said that while his staff is free to attend meetings there, he has never been there since he became a member of the Legislature. Sen. Lois Kolkhorst said in a response that she “couldn’t even find it on a map.”

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MPs pay for their lodging at the Pound, but Centrepoint can cover their meals and entertainment. Who pays for these costs? The company said in a statement that shareholders foot the bill for the property, not customers. But ultimately, much of the shareholder profit comes from Centrepoint’s customers.

It doesn’t take an ethics expert to tell you why this intimacy is problematic, but The Chronicle’s investigation did check with several experts nonetheless.

Alison Silverstein, an independent energy consultant who has worked with the Texas Consumers Association, told the Chronicle that many interest groups want access to lawmakers like CenterPoint does.

“This is a special privilege not given to groups like the Texas Consumers Association or the Texas Teachers Union. What are they going to do? Are they going to invite us into kindergarten and give us graham crackers?”

In a statement to a Chronicle reporter, CenterPoint noted that what happened at the pound did not violate state law.

You don’t have to. You can drive a double-decker pontoon boat through loopholes in Texas campaign finance and ethics laws. Just ask Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Sure, we’ve come a long way since “Chickengate” in 1989, when billionaire East Texas chicken farmer Beau Pilgrim handed out $10,000 checks on the floor of the Texas Senate to block a workers’ compensation bill he didn’t like. He didn’t think it was improper, by the way. “It’s mostly just a way to get your name out there to politicians,” The New York Times quoted him as saying. “They’ll answer your phone, they’ll set up a meeting, they’ll listen to you explain your problems. It’s not meant as a bribe.”

Pilgrim argues that he isn’t buying votes, but other invaluable things: time and attention, and CenterPoint appears to be doing the same, albeit in a much more low-key and dignified way.

So is that OK? If lawmakers were really keeping an eye on CenterPoint, and if Gov. Greg Abbott’s appointees to the Public Utilities Commission were acting as regulators rather than as “emotional support animals” for the industry, as former Chronicle business columnist Lauren Steffe put it in a recent op-ed, they might be able to sue.

Steffi pointed out that this was the same company that forced the Public Utilities Commission to authorize the recovery of billions of dollars in “stranded costs” by charging customers for an old Houston Light & Power plant when the market value was below what it had invested in. CenterPoint then reversed course and sold the plant to a billionaire for $3.7 billion, who resold it a year later for $5.8 billion.

How many more times will Houston electricity consumers be duped?

Where are the lawmakers who are supposed to look after our interests?

Thanks to a report from the Chronicle, we now know one answer: They were out fishing.

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