In response to the 2024 Panhandle wildfires, House Bill 144 establishes a new regulatory baseline that moves pole inspection and management from an operational best practice into a formal, auditable compliance program.
The law requires every electric utility, electric cooperative and municipally owned utility in Texas to file a distribution pole inspection and management plan with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and to report annually on progress. House Bill 144 took effect June 20, 2025, with initial plans due no later than Jan. 1, 2027. Unlike prior guidance-driven approaches, the statute specifies what those plans must contain: inspection schedules, defined roles, cost estimates for electric utilities, and methods for monitoring compliance, training inspectors and handling complaints from landowners.
A companion measure, Senate Bill 1789, supplies the technical backbone. It directs PUCT to adopt statewide structural integrity standards for transmission and distribution poles, including a uniform serviceability classification system. Utilities are required to inspect, maintain, remediate and replace poles on commission-set timelines; maintain detailed records; and submit an annual report summarizing inspections and remediation activities. Senate Bill 1789 took effect Sept. 1, 2025.
Together, the two laws mark a clear shift toward pole programs that are systematic, evidence-based and repeatable rather than episodic or reactive.
Operational Implications for Utilities
For Texas utilities, the biggest challenge is operationalizing a program that can withstand ongoing regulatory scrutiny. House Bill 144 largely mirrors processes many utilities already perform, but it requires those processes to be demonstrable, consistent and review ready.
Utilities must be able to clearly document:
The statutory deadlines clarify the immediate path forward. Utilities must file a compliant plan by Jan. 1, 2027, then execute inspections and remediation on a steady cadence, with annual reporting and PUCT feedback shaping program adjustments. Senate Bill 1789 adds consistency by standardizing how pole condition and serviceability are defined across the state.
PUCT is expected to align its rules closely with the National Electrical Safety Code and United States Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service guidance, calibrated for Texas geography, weather exposure and wildfire risk. The required serviceability classification will push utilities to segment pole inventories into risk-based categories, associate each category with defined remediation timelines and maintain defensible records.
Building the Program as a Living System
Taking a geospatial approach can improve outcomes. Modern geographic information systems (GIS) enable utilities to implement House Bill 144 and Senate Bill 1789 as operational programs rather than static compliance filings. Enterprise or cloud-based geospatial platforms support field data collection, compliance tracking and reporting within a single environment.
A practical starting point is to structure the inspection and management plan as a spatial data model. Required plan elements, including scope, roles, training attestations, inspection windows, complaint workflows and compliance monitoring, can be represented as attributes, rules and relationships tied to physical assets.
Inspection execution can then shift to mobile, map-centric workflows. Inspectors capture pole condition, intrusive and nonintrusive test results, hardware deficiencies, photographs and notes directly in the field. All information is automatically time-stamped and georeferenced. This supports Senate Bill 1789’s emphasis on record keeping and establishes a defensible audit trail showing who inspected each pole, where it is located and when the work was performed.
Figure 1: Mobile, map-centric inspections display green dots for inspected poles and triangles for locations not yet started. The system captures pole condition, test results, photos and notes with automatic GPS and time stamps to create complete, defensible records.
Geospatial analysis also provides a practical way to implement serviceability classification. Configurable scoring models can incorporate factors such as pole age and material, loading conditions, soil and weather exposure, wildfire risk overlays and historical defects. These classifications can then drive remediation priorities and replacement timelines.
Connecting Geospatial Data to Work Management
A geospatially driven program enables asset data to serve as the foundation for inspection planning and execution. Work management platforms support this process by handling task creation, scheduling and tracking. Asset intelligence, including likelihood of failure, consequence of failure, inspection history and resulting asset risk, can inform how often assets are inspected and how work is prioritized.
Risk-based inspection strategies use this information to define cycle intervals, inspection thresholds, overdue conditions and complaint-driven triggers. Once inspections are created, scheduling can account for geography, crew territories, access constraints and coordination with other field activities.
As inspections are completed, results feed back into the asset record to update condition, risk and inspection history. The result is a more defensible and efficient inspection program that aligns daily field activity with long-term asset risk management and compliance obligations.
Turning Compliance Into a Shared View
Compliance does not have to be an annual scramble. Geospatial dashboards and shared operational views allow utilities to manage pole programs as an ongoing, transparent process instead of a retrospective reporting exercise.
Figure 2: Interactive dashboards turn compliance into a shared, real-time view of inspection coverage, remediation progress, backlog aging and reporting readiness.
Interactive dashboards can display inspection coverage, remediation completed, backlog aging and readiness for the May 1 regulatory reporting deadline. These shared views align leadership, engineering and field teams around a common understanding of progress and risk.
Public inputs can be integrated directly into this system. Landowner submissions, customer complaints or 311-style public service reports can be routed into geospatial workflows, linked to specific assets and tracked from intake through resolution. This documentation reflects the type of evidence House Bill 144 anticipates being included in both the plan and its annual updates.
Supporting a Blended Workforce
This approach aligns with how utilities operate today. Many transmission and distribution teams already manage spatial data, deploy mobile devices in the field and rely on digital workflows.
The same system also supports a blended workforce. Role-based access allows utilities to share only appropriate data with contract partners, from turnkey inspection firms to specialized testing crews. Contractors authenticate with their credentials, collect data using standardized mobile forms and access only the geographic areas or assets assigned to them.
Quality assurance and quality control checkpoints allow third-party submissions to be reviewed before becoming authoritative records. The result is flexibility without loss of control — a single source of truth supported by multiple internal and external teams, all working from the same spatially grounded understanding of the system.
Why It Matters
The policy intent behind House Bill 144 and Senate Bill 1789 is straightforward: Reduce avoidable outages and wildfire ignition risks by replacing ad hoc practices with standards-based, evidence-backed pole programs. The legislation signals a clear move toward consistency, accountability and defensible decision-making.
For utilities, this shift presents an opportunity. Programs built on transparent data and repeatable processes not only meet regulatory expectations but also strengthen reliability, reduce risk and build public trust. In that sense, compliance becomes more than a requirement. It becomes a measurable demonstration of commitment to safety, resilience and long-term system stewardship.