It’s hot in Texas.  When God made it that way, he was hoping to melt the fools but that didn’t work out too well.  However, last summer was so hot that it melted a few diamonds.

After a decade of Rick Perry and his money grubbing buddies, Texas has very little infrastructure.  After Hurricane Ike, my 86 year old Momma went without electricity for over two weeks.  Her house was fine – a few limbs down but that’s all.  But it took two weeks to get electricity to her. The power companies admitted their infrastructure was crap surrounded by poop with a load of crud on top.

Back in 1975, we were promised that we’d save enough money by supporting deregulation that we could buy a Cadillac for each day of the week.  And like the promised insurance savings that would come with tort reform, that didn’t happen.  We were lied to.

What we got instead was the promise of brown-outs during the height of Texas heat.  Our power grid sucks.

In a recent report, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation projected that the Texas grid will have the lowest percentage of power reserves this summer of any region of the country.

The Texas Public Utility Commission thinks they might have a solution – stick it to the public.

The Public Utility Commission of Texas, which oversees the grid, has also been working on ERCOT’s power problem. One of its main moves so far has been to increase the maximum amount of money that power companies can get from selling their power. The idea is to give the companies a stronger incentive to build more power plants, though consumer advocates say this amounts to a giveaway to the companies at ratepayers’ expense — without any guarantees that the companies will build more plants.

Oh yeah, they will build more plants because corporations care more about people than profits, right?

The PUC has three commissioners who run it.  They are all appointed by Rick Perry.  You know where this is going, right?  The same place it goes every damn time we raise electricity rates.  No more power to the people, that’s for sure.

Democrats should call them what they are:  Rick Perry Brownouts.