If you manage an electric cooperative or municipal utility in Texas, House Bill 144 is the most significant regulatory change to hit your operations since ERCOT restructuring. Signed into law in 2025 by the 89th Texas Legislature and codified as Texas Utilities Code Sec. 38.103, HB 144 requires every electric utility in the state to develop, submit, and maintain a formal pole inspection and management plan — and to report on it monthly to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT).
The deadline for initial plan submission is January 1, 2027, so every Texas cooperative needs a compliant system in place before then. This article explains what the law requires, why it exists, and what your options are for meeting its requirements. For a section-by-section breakdown of what the plan itself must contain, see HB 144 Pole Management Plan: What Texas Utilities Must File.
Why HB 144 Exists
HB 144 was born from a simple problem: when a Texas landowner reports a damaged or dangerous utility pole, there was no standardized process to document the complaint, track the response, or prove the resolution. Utilities handled complaints informally — phone calls, paper notes, spreadsheets. Some complaints were documented well. Many were not documented at all.
This lack of documentation created two problems. First, landowners had no way to verify that their concerns were addressed. Second, the PUCT had no way to audit whether utilities were actually managing their pole infrastructure or just claiming they were. HB 144 closes both gaps by requiring structured, verifiable documentation from complaint to resolution. Our complete guide to Texas landowner pole rights explains what HB 144's complaint provisions mean in practice for property owners.
What an HB 144 Pole Management Plan Must Include
HB 144 (Sec. 38.103(b)) sets five statutory categories, which the PUCT rule (16 TAC Sec. 25.63(c)(2)) disaggregates into seven required plan elements. Here is a plain-English summary of each:
Scope and Objectives
The plan must state its scope and objectives for ensuring public safety through management, inspection, maintenance, and repair of distribution poles.
Roles and Responsibilities
The plan must name the individuals responsible for overseeing and executing it — who signs off, who executes, who audits.
Training and Certification
The plan must describe how personnel — including third-party inspection vendors, not just employees — are trained and certified to inspect poles.
Inspection and Remedial-Action Timeline
The plan must give a timeline for completing inspections and remediation on any pole found unreliable, unsafe, or needing repair, consistent with the SB 1789 structural-integrity standards.
Landowner Complaint Documentation and Response
The plan must describe how the utility documents and responds to landowner reports about a pole's condition or repair — a documented complaint-to-resolution audit trail.
Estimated Cost of Implementation
For electric utilities (IOUs), the plan must estimate the cost of implementing it. Cooperatives and municipal utilities are exempt from this element in the initial plan.
Compliance-Monitoring Methods
The plan must describe how the utility monitors its own compliance — self-audit cadence, KPI tracking, and escalation triggers.
What This Means for Your Cooperative
For the 75 electric cooperatives in Texas, HB 144 creates a new operational burden. Most co-ops have 3,000 to 30,000 poles and operate with thin staff — often a general manager, a few linemen, and perhaps one compliance person who also handles safety, training, and regulatory filings. There is no dedicated IT department. There is no compliance software budget line item.
The challenge is not understanding what the law requires — the seven required elements are clear. The challenge is building a system to meet those requirements without hiring additional staff or spending six figures on enterprise GIS software. A co-op managing 15,000 poles cannot manually generate monthly per-pole pass/fail reports in Excel. The math doesn't work.
The Guidehouse Factor
The PUCT has engaged Guidehouse, a major consulting firm, to review every utility's plan submission. This means your documentation won't just be filed — it will be scrutinized by professional auditors. Utilities that submit structured, section-by-section documentation aligned with Sec. 38.103 will have smoother reviews than those that submit ad-hoc spreadsheets.
How AcreSeal Addresses HB 144
AcreSeal maps to all seven required plan elements. Landowner complaint documentation, inspection and remedial timelines, and compliance monitoring are fully automated; scope, roles, and training are template-assisted; and the estimated-cost element (electric utilities only) is on the roadmap. The ongoing monthly PUCT reporting is fully automated too — all from a single platform.
Every record in AcreSeal is sealed with SHA-256 forensic hash chains — the same cryptographic approach used in legal evidence systems. GPS coordinates, timestamps, photo evidence, and environmental conditions are bound into every hash. Any modification to any record breaks the chain and is mathematically detectable. Any auditor — PUCT, Guidehouse, or an attorney — can verify any record's integrity from a public URL without logging in.
Next Steps
If you're a cooperative GM or compliance officer evaluating your HB 144 readiness, here are three actions you can take today:
Take the free HB 144 Readiness Assessment — 10 questions, instant gap analysis mapped to Sec. 38.103.
Review the section-by-section compliance mapping to see exactly which requirements your current process covers and which have gaps.
Schedule a 20-minute demo to see the platform in action with your pole data.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Texas HB 144?
Texas HB 144, signed by the 89th Legislature in 2025 and codified as Texas Utilities Code Sec. 38.103, requires every electric cooperative, investor-owned utility, and municipally owned utility in Texas to develop and file a distribution pole inspection and management plan with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), and to report on it monthly.
When is the HB 144 compliance deadline?
The initial pole management plan is due to the PUCT by January 1, 2027.
Who must comply with HB 144?
Every electric utility in Texas — electric cooperatives, investor-owned utilities, and municipally owned utilities. That is roughly 153 utilities, including about 75 cooperatives.
What must an HB 144 pole management plan include?
The PUCT rule (16 TAC Sec. 25.63(c)(2)) requires seven elements: scope and objectives, roles and responsibilities, personnel training and certification, inspection and remedial-action timelines, landowner complaint documentation and response, estimated cost of implementation (electric utilities only), and compliance-monitoring methods. Utilities also submit ongoing monthly per-pole reports to the PUCT.
Who reviews HB 144 plan submissions?
The PUCT engaged Guidehouse, a major consulting firm, to review every utility's plan submission.
By the AcreSeal Team
AcreSeal builds forensic compliance documentation for Texas utility pole management. Every record is sealed with SHA-256 hash chains and independently verifiable at acreseal.com/verify.