TEXAS – The Texas Senate hastily convened Monday to pass the first bill of the legislative session, targeting billing errors from the state's embattled utility regulator.

Senate Bill 2142 allows ERCOT to undo $16 billion in charges for wholesale electricity during the fatal winter crisis last month.

Senators suspended their own rules to get around a bill filing deadline, and swiftly pushed through the legislation in just a few hours. 

For weeks, lawmakers have argued with energy officials over who can erase those billing mistakes. Officials with the Public Utility Commission say high energy prices are meant to incentivize power generation during the widespread outages. But some state leaders believe it went on for far too long and that the PUC should've stepped in.

"The market is supposed to go up there by demand, not by decree," said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in a press conference after the vote.

Gov. Greg Abbott, for his part, has said that the PUC does not have the authority to erase these charges. That’s something Patrick pushed back on Monday.

“The Senate has acted,” Patrick said. “We are asking the governor to join us, and I think if he says he’ll sign this bill, the House will join us.”

But the bill’s future in the House is unclear. Leaders signaled wanting to take a slower approach before taking such decisive action.

Electricity providers and distributors are facing financial woes brought on from fatal cold snap. Monday, the power company Griddy filed for bankruptcy and in a statement criticized the decision to keep energy prices high.

Some experts warn the move to erase billing errors could have unforeseen financial consequences. Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston, says the problem is complicated because these transactions have already been made.

“This is like having Vegas tell the NFL how to play the fourth quarter of a football game because they’ve already paid out the bets,” said Hirs. “We don’t know how many billions we were wagered by speculators, hedge funds, investment banks on the ERCOT debacle. And that’s something that’s hard to a lieutenant governor, a legislator, to pay any attention to.”