When Texas lawmakers convene Thursday for a series of hearings aimed at examining power outages that left millions of people in the cold and dark amid a winter storm, it won’t be the first time they’ve talked about the issue.

The question is: Will they do anything about it this time?

Past legislative efforts to make changes to the state’s electric grid and at the Public Utility Commission stalled, including after winter storms in 2011 that prompted rolling blackouts. But lawmakers say the catastrophic impact of this year’s storm, the spotlight on past inaction and early pledges from state leadership to make changes mean the Legislature has no choice but to act.

“We can’t fail again,” said state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin.

Howard serves on the House State Affairs Committee, one of three legislative panels convening Thursday to examine the outages. The House Energy Resources Committee will hold a joint meeting with the State Affairs Committee, while the Senate Business and Commerce Committee will hold its own hearing.

Both hearings will feature invited testimony from leaders at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (which oversees the electricity grid that serves most of the state and is commonly known as ERCOT), the Public Utility Commission and the Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry. The meetings will be closed to public comment, but individuals wishing to register their opinions can submit comments in writing to both the House and Senate committees.Some changes are already in motion at these regulatory agencies — including the resignation of five board members at ERCOT — but energy experts say the Texas legislature is ultimately responsible for ensuring that reforms are adopted.

“The buck stops with the state legislature,” Michael Jewell, a Texas energy lawyer, said during a Wednesday webinar about the power outages. “We’re a state with a weak governor system, we’ve kept federal regulators out of our business and each agency only addresses one piece of the problem — ERCOT with the power grid, the Railroad Commission with the oil and gas pipelines. This is going to need a fix from the state legislature.”