And the Texas Power Scandal Grows
Just as we figured, the Texas Power Scandal is growing, and it’s going to be as bad as we feared. It turns out that the Abbott appointees to the PUC have been systematically undoing safety and reliability protocols put in place after the 2011 power grid failure. In November of last year, the PUC unilaterally canceled the contract with the Texas Reliability Entity, the outside entity which had been monitoring compliance of Texas power grid since the FERC delegated congressional authority to a private non-profit corporation to monitor the national grid. No entity replaced Texas RE, so no one was minding the store on compliance, winterizing, and reliability.
Even worse, the previous July, the PUC disbanded the Oversight and Enforcement Division, firing it’s chief attorney and reassigning the rest of the staff within the agency. This committee had been charged with overseeing power providers’ operations and enforcing safety and reliability rules.
So, Greg Abbott, whose appointees had dismantled the PUC’s safety and compliance functions of Texas power producers, is now calling for heads to roll – the heads that he appointed himself. I think he can start the rolling with his own.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s hand-picked utility regulators decided they no longer wanted to work with a nonprofit organization they had hired to monitor and help Texas enforce the state’s electric reliability standards.
So propinquity bad… deregulation however, lets us take it easy and relax. Good times.
1John Cornyn to the rescue! JC’s up in DC pushing a bill which’d provide federal grants for weatherization of power plants — you know, like the ones in Texas which aren’t.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/02/26/texas-power-grid-bailout-sought-by-us-sen-john-cornyn/6826281002/
2poor taste comment: Considering the deaths that occurred.
For some reason I keep seeing the ghost of the woman in the wheelchair pushed down the stairs by a sneering Richard Widmark film: Kiss of Death – come back to do likewise to Abbott.
3In football, when the team reaches a certain level of dysfunction the coach or the quarterback get fired, or traded.
In Texas, the governor is the coach, the quarterback, and the general manager – – so he can blame and fire the team he assembled and keep his job. For the idiots who vote “wait for next year” they can look forward to nothing more than another losing season.
4And we’re surprised??!
Why spend today’s penny when the cost of tomorrow’s disaster dollar will be carried by the rest of the country…
5I’ve been reading comments and testimony and talk about a circular firing squad – between the PUC, ERCOT and Abbott it’s a race to the bottom!
6So I guess all that so-called Texas Lone Star independence is only good until they have to run to Washington to bail them out when they screw it all up.
7Ahh, everyone seems to forget the Republican methodology. This all proves that regulation doesn’t work, and so we need to remove even more of those pesky rules (and provide tax cuts for all the power companies, to ease their pain and suffering!). Remember how the Republican-owned and -operated state handled the West, Texas explosion and fire? Certainly not by taking any actions that might prevent future ones.
And let’s not forget: 2011 and 2021 both had Democrats as President. Therefore, it’s all the fault of those socialists and BLMers and Antifa-oids.
I guarantee: none of this will change any Republicans’ alleged minds. Something bad happened, so it must be the fault of Democrats and AOC and Soros.
8AlanInAustin @2, thanks for the heads up. Will contact our Senators to explain why Cornyn needs to be stopped. Pay for it? Yeah. Let ERCOT pay for the fixes from their windfall profits, then hit ERCOT again by refunding the profiteering $$$ to the users.
9The typical hypocrisy of cornyn and repugnanticans- don’t let there be any federal government in their business (like health insurance, etc.) until there’s a disaster, then we’re obliged to bail them out. Wonder how cornyn is voting on the covid relief bill? Same goes for the cruzer.
10Just a guess but bet they both objected to disaster relief in California and other blue states last year.
Bad luck, Texas! Sometimes, you reap what you sow. How about electing competent, honest people, for a change, and jailing the crooks, instead of returning them to office election after election?
11I swear. Overheard a Texan tell someone else that the ERCOT board has “foreigners” on it! I looked up the board and what I saw was a lot of vacancies. By “foreigners” did he maybe meN Yankees???
12Anyone not familiar with the power structures of plutocracy might easily be led to believe that what happened in Texas, lots of people without power, was bad. On the contrary it worked the way it was designed to work and ideologically helped to reinforce the existing power structure.
The vast majority of people with wealth, power, or control either didn’t lose power (funny that), had backup power systems, or, as with Cruz, had the resources to jet off to warmer places. The arranged police escort shows how it was not just the wealth to fly away that makes such moves so easy for some people.
The people who suffered, or died, are examples of why it really sucks to not be in the club and why it pays to be in the club.
Remember that reliability is mainly a problem for the less well off and that it is seen as an externality that interferes with maximizing profits for shareholders.
13megasoid, AKLynne, and Surly Professor, you all *nailed* it.
14A brief Google trip to the PUC and a read of the Bio’s of Abbot’s cronys so “Thoughtfully” placed, makes one really wanta follow the money – time to start looking at bank accounts and Portfolio’s…. and while we’re at it… the TRC might need to slide it’s way under that microscope….. just sayin…..
15Seems to me that the Texas power companies took the modern Wall Street principle to heart – “Privatize your profits, socialize your losses.” Disgusting, but predictable.
16Texas deserves better government.
And they deserve much, much better voters.
17With all the profits generated by deregulation, how could this happen?
Texas power cooperative files for bankruptcy, citing $1.8 billion grid debt
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bankruptcy-brazoselectric-texas-outag/texas-electricity-firm-files-for-bankruptcy-citing-1-8-billion-in-claims-from-grid-operator-idUSKCN2AT1FE
18The Brazos Power Cooperative filed bankruptcy because it “cannot and will not” pass the outrageous spot prices on to its customers (15 power cooperatives-including mine-and one municipality) and therefore onto their customers-including me! I live in the country and buy power from the local folks in my area, thought that deregulation crap was for the birds years ago. Brazos also said that ERCOT and cronies were expecting payments “within days” so they filed bankruptcy instead to protect their customers.
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