PUCT: Public Utility Commission of Texas

Table of Contents

⚠ Disclaimer: This entry may be incomplete, out of date, or inaccurate. It is AI-maintained on a best-effort basis. Do not rely on it as a sole source — verify claims independently using the sources listed below. Commission membership changes with appointments, confirmations, and term expirations; the roster below reflects the official PUCT commissioners page as fetched on the last_reviewed date above.

Glossary

PUCT — Public Utility Commission of Texas; the state agency regulating electric, telecommunications, and water/sewer utilities in Texas, and the primary regulator of ERCOT in place of FERC.
ERCOT — Electric Reliability Council of Texas; the grid operator PUCT oversees and directs on policy matters like the ADER pilot.
PURA — Public Utility Regulatory Act; the Texas statute (Title II of the Texas Utilities Code) that establishes PUCT’s authority and structure.
ADER — Aggregated Distributed Energy Resource; the wholesale-market-access pilot for distributed batteries that PUCT directed ERCOT to establish, and later transferred day-to-day management of to ERCOT’s stakeholder process.
Retail choice / REP — The Texas system, enacted under PUCT’s regulatory authority, letting customers pick their electricity supplier from competing Retail Electric Providers.
Senate confirmation — Texas Senate approval required for a Governor’s PUCT appointee to serve a full term, distinct from an interim appointment that serves without confirmation until the next legislative session.

Summary

PUCT is the Texas state agency that plays the role FERC plays everywhere else in the country: regulating the wholesale electricity market, retail electric choice, and utility rates within ERCOT — the arrangement that exists specifically because ERCOT falls outside FERC’s jurisdiction. Under the Public Utility Regulatory Act, PUCT commissioners are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate to staggered six-year terms; the enabling statute authorizes up to five commissioners, though the commission’s official roster as fetched for this review lists three sitting commissioners: Chairman Thomas J. Gleeson, Commissioner Kathleen Jackson, and Commissioner Courtney K. Hjaltman. PUCT’s decisions — setting the wholesale price cap, directing the ADER pilot, approving weatherization rules after Winter Storm Uri — are the direct policy mechanism behind most of what makes ERCOT distinctive for companies like Base Power.

Key Facts

Established: 1975, under the original Public Utility Regulatory Act
Statutory structure: Up to five commissioners per the Public Utility Regulatory Act (Texas Utilities Code §12.051), appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Texas Senate, serving staggered six-year terms; the Governor designates one commissioner as Chairman
Current sitting commissioners (per official site, as fetched for this review): Chairman Thomas J. Gleeson, Commissioner Kathleen Jackson, and Commissioner Courtney K. Hjaltman — three names listed, against a statutory authorization for up to five; this entry could not confirm from the official site whether the other two seats are formally vacant, unfilled, or the result of a roster page that has not been updated — treat the “up to five” figure as the statutory ceiling, not a claim that five are currently serving
Jurisdiction: Electric, telecommunications, and water/sewer utility regulation in Texas; oversight of ERCOT’s market design and rules, retail electric choice, and the ADER distributed-energy pilot
Recent structural role: Directed ERCOT to establish the ADER pilot in 2022 (PUCT Project No. 53911) and later transferred its day-to-day management to ERCOT’s stakeholder process (February 2025); enforces the post-Uri weatherization mandate (Senate Bill 3, 2021) under rule 16 TAC §25.55

Key People

Chairman Thomas J. Gleeson — Appointed Chairman by Governor Greg Abbott January 19, 2024; Texas Senate–confirmed May 21, 2025. Worked at PUCT for more than 15 years before his appointment, including as Executive Director (from December 2020), chief operating officer, director of finance and administration, and fiscal project manager; earlier in his career he was a legislative analyst for the Texas Senate and a budget analyst for the Legislative Budget Board. BBA, Southwestern University; MPA, The Bush School of Government & Public Service, Texas A&M University; graduate of the Governor’s Executive Development Program, University of Texas at Austin. Also former chairman of the City of Pflugerville Finance and Budget Committee and the First United Methodist Church of Round Rock Finance Committee.

LinkedIn: Two candidate profiles surfaced under this name associated with “Public Utility Commission of Texas” and a Pflugerville, TX location (linkedin.com/in/thomas-gleeson-27663350 and linkedin.com/in/thomas-gleeson-74163250) — not conclusively disambiguated in this session; treat as probable but unverified.
⚑ Overlap: Confirmed by the Texas Senate in the same batch of appointments as Commissioner Hjaltman.

Commissioner Kathleen Jackson, P.E. — Assumed office as Commissioner August 5, 2022; served as interim Chair from June 7, 2023 (succeeding Peter Lake) until January 2024, when Gleeson was named Chairman. Registered Professional Engineer; former chairman of the Southeast Texas Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Career background representing agricultural, environmental, industrial, and wholesale-supply interests, including developing water-management strategies for Southeast Texas, and public affairs work for a major petroleum/petrochemical producer. Previously a board member of the Texas Water Development Board (appointed by Governor Rick Perry in 2014, reappointed by Governor Abbott in 2017). Also board member/president of the Lamar Institute of Technology Foundation, president of the American Cancer Society of North Jefferson County, and a board member of Junior Achievement of the Golden Triangle. BS in Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University.

LinkedIn: not found — searches surfaced multiple unrelated individuals named Kathleen Jackson; no profile could be confirmed as this Commissioner in this session.

Commissioner Courtney K. Hjaltman — Appointed by Governor Greg Abbott June 24, 2024; sworn in June 26, 2024. Immediately prior, chief executive and public counsel for the Office of Public Utility Counsel (OPUC) (appointed to that post in 2022), where she led the state agency representing residential and small commercial customers in proceedings before both PUCT and ERCOT — meaning she moved from a consumer-advocate role adversarial to utility interests directly onto the commission that adjudicates those same proceedings. Before OPUC, she was deputy legislative director for Governor Abbott, chief of staff in the Texas House of Representatives, and a legislative staffer in the Texas Senate. BA, University of Texas at Austin; JD, South Texas College of Law.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/courtney-hjaltman-2a5b214a
⚑ Overlap: Confirmed by the Texas Senate in the same batch as Chairman Gleeson; both are Abbott appointees, as is every sitting PUCT commissioner (all three current members were appointed by Governor Abbott).

Key People — Last Reviewed: 2026-07-09

Why This Is Worth Tracking

PUCT is the single point of state control over almost everything that makes ERCOT distinctive for distributed-energy companies: it sets (and, during Winter Storm Uri, held) the wholesale price cap that Griddy’s customers were exposed to, it directed the creation and later hand-off of the ADER pilot that lets Base Power’s battery fleet bid into wholesale markets, and it enforces the weatherization rules adopted after Uri. Because ERCOT has no FERC oversight, PUCT effectively is the federal-equivalent regulator for Texas’s grid — three (or, per statute, up to five) gubernatorial appointees, with no Senate-confirmation requirement for interim appointees, making PUCT’s composition and Chairman’s priorities a more concentrated point of policy control than the five-seat, cross-party-balanced FERC. Anyone assessing regulatory risk for a Texas-based DER company should track PUCT appointments and priorities at least as closely as FERC’s.

Claim Verification

Claim: PUCT’s current sitting roster is three commissioners — Gleeson, Jackson, and Hjaltman — despite a statutory design allowing for up to five

Status: Partially verified

Supporting sources:

PUCT official commissioners page — fetched directly on the last_reviewed date above; lists exactly three names (Gleeson, Jackson, Hjaltman)
Secondary sources (search summaries citing Texas Utilities Code §12.051 and NARUC/Ballotpedia-style descriptions) describe PUCT as a five-commissioner body

Summary: The three-name roster is directly confirmed from PUCT’s own website as of this review. The discrepancy with “five commissioners” describes the statutory ceiling, not necessarily current occupancy — this entry could not determine from official sources whether two seats are formally vacant, whether the commission currently operates with three as a matter of practice, or whether the roster page is simply not displaying all current members. Re-verify directly against the official page at next review, and treat any claim of “five sitting PUCT commissioners” as unconfirmed until seen on the official site.

Claim: PUCT commissioners are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate to staggered six-year terms

Status: Verified