Will McAdams, who resigned from the Public Utility Commission of Texas in December, will join Mike Toomey & Associates as a partner starting Feb. 1, he confirmed Monday. Mike Toomey, a storied lobbyist in the Texas Legislature, has served as an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott and as chief of staff to former governors Rick Perry and Bill Clements.
“I had a pretty good background in business-related policy, development (and) industrial policy, economic development-related policy. My partnership with Mike Toomey & Associates is going to be getting back to those roots and working on policy issues that grow business in Texas,” McAdams said in an interview.
McAdams was the first commissioner appointed to the PUCT following Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, which led to mass outages and hundreds of deaths. Later that year, Abbott signed State Bill 2154, which prohibits former commissioners from lobbying in front of the commission for a year after they leave the agency, among other reforms.
Toomey confirmed in an email statement that McAdams, a “well-respected and experienced individual,” joined his firm as a lobbyist. “He will, of course, follow the law on no PUC lobbying,” Toomey wrote.
McAdams said he wouldn’t engage in front of the commission for two years or lobby for any utilities for a year.
The former commissioner has also launched his own consulting firm, McAdams Energy Group, to focus on energy and infrastructure development. Thus far, McAdams said he has one client under that firm, the regional state committee of the Southwest Power Pool, the grid operator for a several of states across the central United States. Until December, he had served as that committee’s vice president via his role as a PUCT commissioner.
Published originally at The Houston Chronicle. Click here to read the original article.