Avoiding a complete blackout by mere minutes, Texas’ power grids barely held up in the face of last week's snowstorm. While the definite cause of these outages is unclear, there is one undeniable takeaway: reform is needed.

One of the major reasons that Texas was unable to deal with the influx of supply was that Texas refuses to impose general capacity requirements. The Texas government cites that the deregulation of electricity lowers the price to consumers, but other states that maintain regulations have electrity prices lower than ours. As the past week has shown. this lack of regulations is deadly and change needs to happen now.

The government needs to require, rather than recommend, companies to create plans for emergency events, such as the snowstorm, and create more regulatory standards for power generators. Furthermore, some, such as Energy Secretary Granholm, have even cited these outages as an opportunity to completely revamp Texas’ power system and turn towards a clean energy system.

Whether Texas legislators will enact these changes is questionable, but it is unquestionable that change is needed.