Last Year's Texas Power Outage Will Now Cost Natural Gas Customers $3.4 Billion (arstechnica.com) 174
"Texans will be paying for the effects of last February's cold snap for decades to come," reports Ars Technica, "as the state's oil and gas regulator approved a plan for natural gas utilities to recover $3.4 billion in debt they incurred during the storm.
"The regulator, the Railroad Commission, is allowing utilities to issue bonds to cover the debt. As a result, ratepayers could see an increase in their bills for the next 30 years." During the winter storm, natural gas prices spiked as cold temperatures drove demand up while also depressing supply... The governor's office knew of the looming shortages days before they happened, yet the preparations they made did little to alter the course of the disaster... Gas sellers made record profits in just a few days, together bringing in as much as $11 billion, about 70-100 times more than normal, based on spot prices at the time. Meanwhile, many Texans suffered through blackouts and bitter cold, and 210 people died, according to the latest estimate from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
In the wake of the storm, many officials have called on utilities and oil and gas companies to winterize their operations...
Texans aren't the only ones whose bills are higher as a result of producers' and utilities' unwillingness to winterize their equipment. Utilities around the country were forced to buy natural gas at significantly higher prices when Texas' markets went haywire as a result of low supply and high demand. Ratepayers as far away as Minnesota will be paying surcharges for years to come after their utilities had to pay $800 million more than expected for natural gas.
The article also includes a quote from Katie Sieben, chairwoman of the Minnesota Public Utility Commission, from an April article in The Washington Post.
"It is maddening and outrageous and completely inexcusable that Texas' lack of sound utility regulation is having this impact on the rest of the country."
"The regulator, the Railroad Commission, is allowing utilities to issue bonds to cover the debt. As a result, ratepayers could see an increase in their bills for the next 30 years." During the winter storm, natural gas prices spiked as cold temperatures drove demand up while also depressing supply... The governor's office knew of the looming shortages days before they happened, yet the preparations they made did little to alter the course of the disaster... Gas sellers made record profits in just a few days, together bringing in as much as $11 billion, about 70-100 times more than normal, based on spot prices at the time. Meanwhile, many Texans suffered through blackouts and bitter cold, and 210 people died, according to the latest estimate from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
In the wake of the storm, many officials have called on utilities and oil and gas companies to winterize their operations...
Texans aren't the only ones whose bills are higher as a result of producers' and utilities' unwillingness to winterize their equipment. Utilities around the country were forced to buy natural gas at significantly higher prices when Texas' markets went haywire as a result of low supply and high demand. Ratepayers as far away as Minnesota will be paying surcharges for years to come after their utilities had to pay $800 million more than expected for natural gas.
The article also includes a quote from Katie Sieben, chairwoman of the Minnesota Public Utility Commission, from an April article in The Washington Post.
"It is maddening and outrageous and completely inexcusable that Texas' lack of sound utility regulation is having this impact on the rest of the country."
Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:4, Interesting)
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The best solution is a ground source heat pump [wikipedia.org], although in a mild climate like Texas an air source heat pump [wikipedia.org] would also work reasonably well.
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Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Informative)
But, you have to make it cold-weather capable.
Which is actually trivial (in terms of overall costs) to do, but the inbred republican party in TX are paying dividends out to the oilfield owners who own their souls, so they deliberately sabotage viable alternatives to dead-dinosaur fuels instead.
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point: Texas is "a great place for solar" until you realize the republicans put in "access fees" on everything.
I looked into getting solar on my house the summer before covid. Before the various "access fees" from the republican trash who run this shitty state, I could have locked in a good setup and saved money on electricity.
After the "access fees" from the republican dumbfucks who do everything they can to sabotage solar? Yeah, it would cost me 25% more per month than I'm paying for grid power currently.
Never let a republican tell you they support "free markets". They don't, they're just fucking scammers.
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to do business with local (typically county level) governments all around the country, and Texas was easily the most corrupt. I was at a trade show and there were a bunch of officials from Texas there; usually they didn't come to national meetings but this one was held in an Atlantic City casino. A sleazy salesman I knew landed a whole bunch of contracts by inviting the Texans to a hotel suite which he'd stocked with prostitutes he'd hired for the night. He said it was the best money he'd ever spent. I'd never even heard of anything like that happening before in our industry; I asked him if anyone else used the suite, but he said no, just the guys from Texas.
Now I don't want to say that everyone who works in Texas government is corrupt. To the degree any agency of government works at all it's because workers in that agency care about doing a good job. I've never seen a state where there weren't outstanding individuals in public service, and that includes Texas. But in some states those individuals have to drag along a lot of dead weight.
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I don't know if Texas (well, probably individual cities in Texas) does this, but I've heard of places where not being connected to the grid is illegal (typically a violation of zoning laws that incorporate a common standard that requires external supply) and sufficient reason to get your house condemned.
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Most solar offerings include selling excess power back to the grid in order to reach the price points that are advertised
These are gutted by high fees (or lowered pricing on solar power sold to grid) on putting power back on the grid, this is likely what the OP was referring to as access fees
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Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was a consumer, I would convert my home to electrical heating and put in batteries + solar.
Interesting because if it were me, I would just move to an area not managed by ERCOT because they would comply with federal regulations which ensure this kind of bullshit doesn't happen.
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because people in Missouri and Mississippi know they're backwards. Proud of it, which is disappointing, but not a big deal.
People sitting on Tex's ass are absolutely convinced that they're a shiniest shit that was ever shat.
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:5, Funny)
People sitting on Tex's ass are absolutely convinced that they're a shiniest shit that was ever shat.
The reviews for Texas are generally pretty low -- even their flag only gives them one star.
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The major reason that the Texas power grid failed had nothing to do with the population growth. The major reason that the power system failed is that the power companies wanted to maximize profits and not heed the warning from 10 years earlier. Then years earlier there was a similar freeze in Texas and one of the recommendations at that time was that Texas should winterize their power generation infrastructure. The power companies didn't want to spend the money to do this and thus the power failed again whe
Re:Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:4, Interesting)
I would just move to an area not managed by ERCOT
$3.4B is about $120 per person. Moving to avoid a $120 expense is absurd.
Occasionally paying $120 in surge prices for gas is likely cheaper than the infrastructure expenses needed to avoid the problem.
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How much is worth to freeze to death? Did you think there weren't fatalities because of these outages?
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Hate to pop your cornhole dream but Texas will cost you a gallon or two more than $120 if you understand Keynesian economics.
Re: Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:3)
Reminder, those fees are also spread out over the next 30 years, any any one person's contribution toward paying this off will likely be a function of their personal electricity usage, with a fair portion being paid off by corporations that use a large percentage of grid electricity.
Re: Maybe stop using natural gas (Score:2)
want my money.
come and take it
...And Texans mock California government... (Score:2)
...And Texans mock California government...
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...And Texans mock California government...
The 2000-01 California Energy Crisis [wikipedia.org] cost about $40B, more ten times as much.
How about we compromise and agree to mock both governments?
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Re:...And Texans mock California government... (Score:5, Insightful)
The 2000-01 California Energy Crisis was caused by Enron [marketwatch.com].
Or to be 100% clear for those who were still kids back then: it was a TEX-ASS republican shitbag company engaging in market manipulation to deliberately force up prices. [latimes.com]
There was no actual "energy crisis", it was a result of fraud by corrupt republican party dickholes.
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You have made my day by coining (for me) the phrase "combative prose".
But in a match-up against "fighting words", who would win?
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The Republican farmers in California were very angry about Enron's attempt to manipulate water prices as well, with a subsidiary Azurix. Ie, pump water into the aquifer in wet years, sell it back again in dry years. Never mind that the aquifer itself doesn't respect property boundaries so it was pretty arrogant of them to think they could own the water. But that was Enron through and through; without actually producing or owning resources they insisted in making themselves a middle man seeking rent.
Re:...And Texans mock California government... (Score:5, Insightful)
That California "energy crisis" was caused by a Texas company manipulating the market.
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Re:...And Texans mock California government... (Score:5, Insightful)
And it was because of California's regulation failure it happened.
That is correct, but lets be honest and accurate here.
It was Libertarian-inspired lack of appropriate regulation that cause this to happen and the two culprits were Republican governor Pete Wilson, and Republican Senator Jim Brulte who wrote the deregulation bill that created the "free market" that allowed blatant manipulation.
Now that California is back in the hands of people who believe that government has a regulatory oversight role to play, this market system (which still exists) has the most of the regulation it should have had from the beginning.
A small hole was revealed summer before last during a record breaking heat event in which CALISO -- the is California (Independent, i.e. private) System Operators, relying on their market-conditions based demand forecasting model (rather than one that relied on weather forecasts) failed to contract for enough power the following day one time. This resulted, in the worst case, a 30 minute power outage in some local areas, even though there was plenty of electricity capacity outside California and ample interconnects to supply it. This hole has been patched now. Of course this nuisance non-crisis got huge play in the media because "California".
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That is correct, but lets be honest and accurate here.
Yes, let's do that.
It was Libertarian-inspired
It was libertarian-inspired, but what was implemented was not what the "libertarians" had proposed.
The California government colluded with the utilities (big donors) to de-regulate the wholesale energy market while putting price controls on the retail side.
The idea was that deregulation would encourage new generation capacity, causing wholesale prices to fall, but these generators would not be able to offer lower prices to retail customers because of the price controls. So the incumbent
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>Then Enron et al. saw an opportunity and pounced, sorta like Robinhood investors and GameStop.
And by "pounced" you mean criminally lied about fake holdings and off-the-books accounting practices to regulators and investors? Oh, I thought so!
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I think you're splitting hairs at this point. Fact is conservatives got the pole position in California government and used it to deregulate as they very commonly do right along with the bullshit claims of common prosperity you mention in your own post. Of course regulations exist for a reason and their deregulation caused the crisis.
It's California's Leftist government that the haters love to hate but this crisis was not built of Leftism.
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There was a lot of suspicion because the newly-elected president was a former energy man himself -- and was, in fact, from Texas. One theory had it that the slow action by the (Republican) president was intentional, in an attempt to hurt the political standing of California's (Democrat)
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Other than Enron, the other problem was that California deregulated utilities for a long time and then later the CPUC was relatively lax with them. California used be quite conservative for a while, and it still is when it comes to many voter initiatives, and there was a core set of laissez-faire idiots intent on deregulation.
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The supposed "crisis" was caused by market manipulation by a Texas company, you stupid fuckchop.
let us compare (Score:5, Informative)
"California had an installed generating capacity of 45 GW. At the time of the blackouts, demand was 28 GW. A demand-supply gap was created by energy companies, mainly Enron, to create an artificial shortage. "
I will leave that here onto why it is utterly stupid to trust the "free market" for anything societal infrastructure relevant (communication, electricity, medicine) in a functioning society.
oh and it was REPUBLICAN engineered (Score:3)
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You people slay me. The most prosperous state in the union by a degree so significant we rank amongst the wealthiest first world nations all on our own and you dimwits act like we're a failed state.
California, not prefect but it contributes far more to American prosperity then any state you live in.
California was and still is a petro state.
Hahaha, if you want a petro state go to Texas. While we produce a fuck ton of oil it's such a small percentage of our overall economy to call us a petro state is to just confirm your status as a dimwit.
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To be fair there's lots of ways that the California government deserves to be mocked. When the state was running a big surplus they allowed a bunch of scammers to steal it. (This particular time was well before the Enron event.)
And now they know... (Score:3)
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Just like Californians suing PG&E over fires. OK, but obviously the judgment and the costs of increased maintenance are ultimately coming from higher rates, a better service costs more to provide.
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You'd have a point if the C suite wasn't pouring money into their pockets instead of giving a shit about what "the people demanded".
You can't apply free market ideology to a monopoly. It will never, ever work because the monopoly has no reason to fear losing customers.
Why would private companies issue bonds? (Score:4, Insightful)
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with the blessing of the government? Oh wait, they're not really private. It's just more "privatize the profits, socialize the losses".
Stop it. Just stop it. This is how captialism works. Companies screw up and the plebs pay.
Under no circumstances should those responsible for failure be held accountable. That's the capitalist way.
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Texas is our very own fascist third world country.
Great for capitalists... not so great for everyone else.
Re: Why would private companies issue bonds? (Score:5, Insightful)
"...and then think if government alone ran things they would do it free of corruption."
Who said that? Your imaginary enemy did.
"Socialism is basically capitalism wherein an entity that directly commands an army and police are the monopolist."
Bullshit. Laughable bullshit..
"If you think capitalism is terrible, socialism is capitalism on steroids."
And even more bullshit.
The problem here isn't capitalism, it's unregulated capitalism. The solution isn't for the "government alone" to run things, it's for the government to properly regulate capitalism.
For the record I'm a conservative (Score:4, Interesting)
I want to get to a Star Trek Utopia, but I don't trust revolutions. I also firmly believe we need to carefully iterate over solutions in order to solve the complex problems we face. Otherwise we'll cock it all up. Guys like Bernie Sanders actually agree with me, he's far more conservative than his rhetoric indicates. There's a handful of actual radicals like Beau, Thought Slime and Noncompete over on YouTube and while I agree on a lot of things (and with the end goal of that Star Trek utopia) I don't agree with how to get there, or if it's possible in my lifetime.
But none of that stops the right wing from calling me a socialist because I want things that are both Universal and provably better done by collective action (read:gov't) to not be privatized.
Basically, I don't trust private companies for essentials. And neither does anyone else. Go read up on how our food supply actually works, and how the complex series of subsidies and laws means it's basically socialism. And same goes for the military. When it really matters, just like there's no atheists in fox holes, there's no capitalists at the dinner table.
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The big debates of capitalism or socialism and anything in between are mainly irrelevant in the West today.
Even in this case, this was not unregulated capitalism. It's right there in the summary... there is a regulator here. The problem is the regulator made poor choices; things like not forcing winterisation... and everything else needed to keep prices reasonably stable.
This is as much a government failure as a capitalistic failure.
This is largely an issue for Texas to work out on its regulator and all the
Re: Why would private companies issue bonds? (Score:5, Informative)
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In reality when the individuals who control the army and police are not accountable to anyone, the economic ideology they subscribe to is pretty irrelevant.
On the other hand, a responsive government can make a wide variety of policies work. Norway implements many policies which in the US would be considered "socialist"; it also has very high economic mobility. If you're born into humble circumstances and want to become rich through hard work and enterprise, you're actually better off being born in Norway
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That's true of most western nations. At that the USA consistently comes in close to the bottom of the list along with the UK, when it comes to social/economic mobility and is likely a big cause of their anger.
That's a straw man (Score:2, Interesting)
Private companies are not magic. They are not
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Re: Why would private companies issue bonds? (Score:2)
Where do you live?
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There are socialist govenments of which that can honestly be said. But I don't know which ones you're thinking of. There are also some of which that can't (currently) honestly be said.
OTOH, every centralization of power is an invitation to corruption. But this doesn't mean that decentralized groups are free of it. The "separation of powers" in the US constitutional system was a (reasonably) successful attempt to minimize the corruption, and it worked pretty well for a long time. It sure hasn't been per
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Fuck you're dumb, like really really beyond-reproach dumb. You no nothing of any words you use nor do you care.
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No, a government that doesn't permit market-place competition is communist.
You capitalism apologists are correct, government should not run things but none of us anti-corporatism people ever claimed it should. It's only capitalists who assume the alternative is, the government does everything. The answer, which many capitalists want, is regulating the market.
Let me re-phrase, "[government control of manufacturing] is capitalism on steroids." You mean, because the government ensures that sufficient electr
Shit happens (Score:2)
Texas gas producers could have winterized their equipment for a once in a century event. Minnesota gas consumers could have reserved most of their gas supply directly from reliable producers rather than depend so much on the spot market as well.
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Re:Shit happens (Score:4, Informative)
It will not. They happen about once every 10 years. There was one in 2011, 2001 or 02, and I recall going to a conference in the late 80's in Austin.
But this time they have finally learned their lesson and are working on fixing the problem!
Ba-da-BOOM. Rim shot.
But seriously folks, from the article:
But facilities have to voluntarily submit forms declaring that they're critical infrastructure, and the regulator says that the law includes a loophole that allows gas producers, for $150, to file for an exemption from winterizing wellheads.
Gas company execs and investors sneeze that kind of money into their hankies. And all they really have to do to evade the law is... absolutely nothing.
Re:Shit happens (Score:4, Interesting)
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Minnesota gas consumers could have reserved most of their gas supply directly from reliable producers rather than depend so much on the spot market as well.
Because a spike in spot prices doesn't have any effect on future prices.
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Except it’s not once in a century. It happened before in 2011 and in 1989. They learned nothing and it’s guaranteed to happen again.
Republicans... (Score:4, Insightful)
The same government which has no problem killing 210 of its residents also allows bounty hunting on women seeking abortions. Truly, republicans only care about human life before it's born.
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The same government which has no problem killing 210 of its residents also allows bounty hunting on women seeking abortions. Truly, republicans only care about human life before it's born.
Speak the truth, and get modded as flamebait. Which is kinda funny, because your entire post has not one thing that is false.
I think maybe Texans don't like having their inhumanity and failure exposed. Pay the man Texas.
You know, both things can be true. (Score:2)
To many (most of whom lean right) speaking truth is flamebaiting / trolling. They aren't wrong.
Supply and Demand? (Score:2)
Maybe supply and demand and profits have no place in necessities? This is ridiculous; 210 people died and all the utility companies care about are making a few billion more dollars on the surge pricing they charged for fuel. Fuck Texas.
Re:Supply and Demand? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe supply and demand and profits have no place in necessities? This is ridiculous; 210 people died and all the utility companies care about are making a few billion more dollars on the surge pricing they charged for fuel. Fuck Texas.
I think all the talk by Texans wanting to secede needs to be countered. I say we give Texas back to Mexico.
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Don't think you want to crack open that door with Abbot, DeSantis, Trump and plenty of others on your side of the "which party was bad with Coronavirus" ledger.
Re: Supply and Demand? (Score:2)
Looking at the average deaths of all countries, after accounting for comorbidities(lots of fat people with T2 diabetes in the US and old people in Florida.) Trump, DeSantis, and Abbot did juuust fine.
So much winning (Score:3, Interesting)
It's always amusing when we hear the phrase, "Don't mess with Texas" when one considers how much messing Republicans do in Texas. Between fleeing the state [nymag.com] when things get a little chilly, letting hundreds freeze to death [houstonchronicle.com], to all but prohibiting companies from spending money [texastribune.org] to keep the lights on, to going out of their way to kill as many people as possible [imgur.com] by outright prohibiting medical science principles [texastribune.org] from being implemented, to cancel culture and book burning [nbcnews.com] because the children either need to be protected from reality or prevented from reading about history, it's a wonder Texas isn't a third world shithole by now.
Not just TX, re Xcel Energy, ND (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who is a subsidiary of, invested in, or uses the same infrastructure as those utilities are impacted as well.
People have seen their rates triple in the Fargo area.
A case of capitalist corporate inequity in action.
When the company is profitable, corporations pay out bonuses.
When the company loses money, the customers get to pay for it.
Extreme deregulation isnâ(TM)t much better (Score:3)
Re: Extreme deregulation isn't much better (Score:2)
Than the socialism on the other end of the spectrum. The good people of texas deserve every ounce of economic pain that their choices create. Of course , somehow they will manage to blame others.
How in the heck is extreme deregulation and socialism on the same axis? Do you know what socialism is? Do you seriously think socialism is ... government regulations??
Do you know how much of America's, how much of TEXAS's power is provided by electric coops? Do you know what an electric coop is? They're nonprofit, member owned, democratically run organizations. Most of them can be traced straight back to FDR's New Deal, the Rural Electrification Administration. You might call them socialist.
Industry r
Time machines (Score:3, Insightful)
Texas outages occured in February of 2021.
Guess what year it is right now when this story was posted.
Or do we refer to things that happened this morning as having happened yesterday?
How about natural gas in St. Louis, Missouri (Score:2)
https://www.ksdk.com/article/n... [ksdk.com]
Spire, the natural gas provider for the area, is sending letters out to everyone saying their gas might be cut off as of December 13th. - if they can't get an extension on a temporary permit to keep using a natural gas line that the government wants to shut off, over a dispute about it running through farmland.
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Gotta love Slashdoters that are all about property rights until those interfere with a large corporation's profits.
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I believe (without checking) that the gas company is portraying the dispute as you say. This doesn't mean I believe it is an accurate portrayal. Determining that would require a lot more work than I feel like putting into it.
But when one party of a dispute is soliciting a political reaction through a public communication, I tend to doubt that their description of what's happening is correct.
29 million people in texas... (Score:2)
That's not a lot.
Everywhere (Score:2)
So, we have both of the extremes.
Where Texans pay "free market" rates during the storm, while Californians subsidize and control PG&E all the time. (Without CPUC approval, they cannot almost tie their shoes).
We make sure the "shareholders" are always compensated well in each case, and have the public handle the burdens. The good thing? Taxans pay very cheap rates 9/10 years, and extortion in the 10th, while us Californians have a fixed rate of 4x the national average.
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"It is maddening and outrageous and completely inexcusable that Texas' lack of sound utility regulation is having this impact on the rest of the country."
Asking the GOP of Texas to implement regulations is a nigh impossibility. For those that don't know, Texas almost suffered a collapse due to winter conditions 10 years prior. Recommendations from the near catastrophe included winterizing utilities and regulations that utility companies performed those procedures. Of course, Texas would never do that and never did that.
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"It is maddening and outrageous and completely inexcusable that Texas' lack of sound utility regulation is having this impact on the rest of the country."
Asking the GOP of Texas to implement regulations is a nigh impossibility. For those that don't know, Texas almost suffered a collapse due to winter conditions 10 years prior. Recommendations from the near catastrophe included winterizing utilities and regulations that utility companies performed those procedures. Of course, Texas would never do that and never did that.
I believe that near collapse was the year that The Super Bowl was held in Jerry Jones nice new Stadium.
There really isn't much that can be done for Texas, which is why I would like them given back to Mexico, and then they can be Mexico's problem. Maybe they can privatize the drug cartels.
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"And your king is talking about seceding from the US of A, How's that working out for ya?"
How'a WHAT working out? Talking about seceding? There isn't much talk about it, but it works as intended. No one in Texas actually intends to secede nor is it possible. It should be noted though that Texas is a net payer into the US, not a net taker from the US as is the case for almost all red states.
Also, no one believes the "free market was about the citizens of Texas", it is about republican power, pure and sim
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No-one in Britain seriously talked about leaving the EU either, until one of our parties decided to hold a stunt referendum that had no chance of passing to win the far-right vote - and by some bizarre circumstance the referendum somehow passed.
I can see the same thing happening in some heavily Republican state, some year in future.
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That couldn't happen, because any state would need the approval of congress to execute such a plan. But I can imagine a state convincing congress that the US would be better off it there were no longer a part of it. So while possible, the process would be a lot more convoluted. (I'm not sure, but I think this is a legacy of the Civil War. OTOH, some parts of it may predate that.)
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"And your king is talking about seceding from the US of A, How's that working out for ya?"
How'a WHAT working out?
One of the things that Texas has done is institute it's bounty on those who woulrd dare get an abortion.
It's rather odd, but when I was young, one of the most heinous of practices was the communist concept of spying on your neighbor. Nw, a state that would claim to be patriotic perhaps real Americans has adopted the tactic of our mortal enemiy (I'm a cold warrior A strate that might claim to be all about freedom, is actively trying to prevent people from exercising that freedom.
A state that claims to be all about the free market, has used that as a grift, and has shown thet their business buuds are more important than citizen's lives.
It has been adequately proven.
Are you willing to give up your life for your Republican Ideology Texas government? Better answer yes, because therre might be a movement to stitch on people to get rid of those who do not think right. Talking about seceding? There isn't much talk about it, but it works as intended. No one in Texas actually intends to secede nor is it possible.
A true act of cowardice. I never make a threat I wouldn't carry out - Cowards do all the time. You are saying Texas is nought but the state version of the boy that cried wolf.
Russi has a lot of wealth (actually they do) that doesn't mean I'want them as a state - and Texas is kinda in their corner now. It should be noted though that Texas is a net payer into the US, not a net taker from the US as is the case for almost all red states.
Also, no one believes the "free market was about the citizens of Texas", it is about republican power, pure and simple. Since they have it, Texas slowly degrades into a cess pool. Major cities don't because Republicans lack power there. Texas isn't like other red states mostly because it has incredible natural resource wealth. For a state with such wealth, the roads are complete shit. Didn't used to be that way, but the Republican Party didn't used to be that way either.
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...For when this happens again this winter? And the next?
It's what they want. This isn't just something some evil people decided to d out of the blue.
They voted for this. Regulations are bad, Government intervention in things that should be run for a profit is communism, the invisible hand of the free market and the profit motive is the only way to operate, and whatever government is allowed to exist must be for profit.
Re:So, what is the plan... (Score:5, Informative)
More profit taking, more suffering and more blaming the democrats. This is literally the republican playbook on display. Two Santas, look it up.
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Blame democrats, windmills, greenies.
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The plan is to let the exact same thing happen, because they either made a shitload of money, or will not lose money thanks to this story.
What, you think Texas is going to give a shit about properly regulating anything? There's profits to be had!
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California is finally forcing the power companies to bury their power-lines. But fires are inevitable with increasing heat events, and people living in California to provide ignition sources.
Now if Texas was only willing to fix its problems.
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Burying power lines is expensive and less energy efficient.
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Demanding airbags & seat-belts in your car is expensive and less energy efficient. Let the free market decide. Whoever wants to keep his children from freezing can pay for burying the lines from his own pocket.
That's what you mean, right ?