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Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule

Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.

In February of 2021, a massive cold front descended on Texas, bringing days of ice and snow. The weather increased energy demand and reduced supply by freezing up power generators and the state’s natural gas supply chain. This led to a blackout that left millions of Texans without energy for nearly a week.

The state has said almost 250 people died because of the winter storm and blackout, but some analysts call that a serious undercount.

lemmylommy ,

Corporations are people, my friend. Just people with all the rights and no responsibilities.

girlfreddy ,

Yeah … SCOTUS.

If there are no people, there is no company. If there are no companies, people will survive.

That takes care of whatever stupidity SCOTUS was thinking when they made companies and people equal.

sentient_loom ,
@sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works avatar

They’re not even equal. Corporations are given more freedom than actual people.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You can’t arrest a company. You apparently can’t even arrest the company’s executives for the company’s crimes.

Reverendender ,

I really want to figure out how to make a company and sell it all my debt.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Were you born to rich parents?

Reverendender ,

Sadly no, I’ve been bootstrapping it.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You’re probably out of luck.

SlopppyEngineer ,

You set up a company A. You also make a consultant company B. Company A hires very highly paid consultants from company B. Meanwhile you make paintings. You sell those paintings to company B at high prices with the money you got from company A. Now your debts are gone and company A is in debt. Fold company A and B. Add in some shell companies in the Bahamas if needed.

But, you need to have enough money to set up companies, have expensive accountants and lawyers, and to pay off some officials. You’ll have to be rich to become more rich basically.

Don’t follow this advice, it’s just fiction.

JustZ , (edited )

It’s called the Texas two step.

You file business papers in Texas and open an account there.

You use that business to buy all your underwater assets and other liabilities, leaving you free and clear. Then you declare bankruptcy with your Texas company, wiping out the debts. It what you do when grandpappy and the old board sold asbestos to everyone and their kids and now that you’re in charge you just want that to go away so you can enjoy your trust fund without fear of any destitute widows or their children trying to take any of it.

In any normal state, this is treated as a sham transaction or a straw purchase and is void ab initio. In Texas though, as a handout to the mining, chemical, and business insurance industries, you can follow none of the corporate formalities needed anywhere else to preserve your corporate viel, and just declare that your company is now two, unrelated companies, sort of like that movie Twins where, even though they are genetically identical and born at the same time from the same parents, one of the newborn companies has all the good stuff and the other has all the crap, and you can pretend it was separated at birth, like it never even existed. And that’s how you do the Texas two step. Step three actually is profit.

b3an ,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

And no taxes or very little.

SCB , (edited )

Corporate taxes are a regressive tax on the poor. There’s no benefit to taxing a business instead of people directly, and serious harm caused.

Taxing Amazon doesn’t hurt Jeff Bezos. It just makes products more expensive for people that already struggle to afford them. It doesn’t even effect Amazon’s profit margin.

thisbenzingring ,

It’s the structure of taxing that is the problem. If we tax their holdings or assets, tax the fuck out of their stocks exchanges. Force business to do business and make hording too expensive. Companies with billions in cash sitting in offshore bank accounts is disgusting and should be abolished.

SCB ,

Companies with billions in cash sitting in offshore bank accounts is disgusting and should be abolished.

This is how businesses grow, though. Having cash on hand is extremely important, and the amount necessary scales with the size of the business. It’s effectively overhead.

All of these ideas make things more expensive for poor people for no reason.

thisbenzingring ,

I don’t think you understand how much money big corporations hoard. Investment isn’t what I am talking about. Pure cash holdings, it’s really not normally done like this.

SCB ,

I literally worked for a fortune 100 company. I know exactly how much, because they report on it internally, especially during big shit like COVID.

There’s nothing wrong with a company having money in the bank. That’s an extremely good thing, especially for financial and tech companies.

I don’t know why people hate companies making money at all. If individual people are making more money than is good for society, tax then. If Jeff Bezos owning Amazon pisses you off, carve you off a slice. No issue there.

Taxing companies makes the lives of poor people harder, so I’m against that.

Twelve20two ,

In the opinion, Justice Adams noted that, when designing the Texas energy market, state lawmakers “could have codified the retail customers’ asserted duty of continuous electricity on the part of wholesale power generators into law.”

Wow, so helpful to say that 20 years after the fact

Adubya ,
@Adubya@lemmy.world avatar

So bizarre, you’d think there would be some implicit realities of what is constituted by contracting for grid load power generation & even peaker plants. The grid has to be maintained to function and can’t lose frequency even if that does mean shedding there should be key named emergency services that should be maintained that would warrant liability on power generators. This is all upside with little cost or risk & also why there was no effort to coordinate because nobody is responsible.

DreamlandLividity ,

As I understood it, critical circuits like hospitals were being prioritized and being kept (mostly?) online.

But house heating is generally not on a different circuit. They would normally rotate the houses which are blacked out so they would at least have power some of the time but this one was so bad all the power went into the priority circuits (like hospitals).

wizzor ,

I agree with the problem, but I also kind of agree with the judge. The point of separation of powers is that the judicial system interprets the will of the legislative. We have had similar cases in Finland , where the law clearly should say one thing and the courts conclude that the law in fact says another thing. Fortunately, this situation occasionally leads the parliament into saying ‘well fuck’ and changing the law.

I will admit I don’t really understand the role of courts making law in the US and other common law countries, so it might be different there.

Theharpyeagle , (edited )

It’s a tough spot because most people, and maybe legislators themselves, didn’t think they had to write down “power companies must provide power to the best of their ability” and whatever other legalese that would force companies to do something about winterization. It feels like there should be an implicit “hey, if you’re aware of an issue that might kill people and destroy homes, maybe try to fix it.” The new laws around winterization are little comfort to those who have already lost loved ones to an avoidable problem. Of course, then you have litigious idiots who will sue because the tractor company didn’t say you shouldn’t try to play jumprope with the harvester blades. I don’t know what the solution is there, it seems we can only really be reactive.

Well, I guess the saying “regulations are written in blood” didn’t come from nowhere.

DreamlandLividity , (edited )

Well, they were providing it “to the best of their abilities”. With those maxed out prices, they were sure as hell trying to squeez out every kilowatt. Their abilities just sucked due to underinvsetment in reserve capacity. But you can hardly blame them for that. Unlike in most states, they don’t get paid for reserve capacity in Texas (and are not required to have any either). Therefore, whichever power company invests in it will have to raise prices, become uncompetitive and go bankrupt. Its not the companies to be blamed, its the politicians/officials who set up Texas electricity market like that. Capitalism can’t work if you don’t set up and regulate markets to align consumer and public incentives with company incentives.

I recommend practical engineerings video for technical details.

Misconduct ,

Nah. Thanks for the info but I’m totally fine with blaming both the government and the shady utility company.

DreamlandLividity , (edited )

I mean, if it really is shady then blame away. I am just saying you can’t blame a company for not paying out of their own pocket for something the government should have secured.

It would be literally illegal for a corporation to do that. (breach of fedutiary duty, corporations are required by law to make as much profit for investors as they legally can. I am oversimplifying incredibly but it is mostly true)

Theharpyeagle , (edited )

It’s not just about reserve capacity, ERCOT was warned about insufficient winterization after the last power grid failure due to cold weather, they just didn’t act on it. Should the Texas government have mandated improvements at that time? Absolutely. Do I still believe that ERCOT has at least some blood on their hands because they knew about the problem and chose not to fix it despite the hardship it could cause their customer base? Absolutely.

Also I have seen the practical engineering video, love that guy.

DreamlandLividity ,

Unless I am missing something, ERCOT is a distributor. They don’t own the power plants and would have hard time forcing power plant owners to make those improvements without government mandate, no? Or does ERCOT already make similar regulations for plants?

Theharpyeagle ,

My understanding is that ERCOT manages the reliability of the entire grid. I won’t pretend to understand the exact nature of their purview and powers, but I’ll defer to what Abott describes as their role in this incident:

Five days before the winter storm hit Texas, Abbott said ERCOT ensured officials that the power generator was prepared for the cold temperatures, and even issued notices to power plants to ensure they were winterized properly.

And the statement from ERCOT

ERCOT officials have said that some power generators implemented new winter practices after the freeze a decade ago, but they were voluntary.

Admittedly, I don’t know the extent of ERCOTs control over the individual companies that manage the generators or infrastructure of the power grid, but it does appear they had enough oversight to claim that the grid could weather another storm, which it could not.

Source: www.texastribune.org/…/greg-abbott-winter-storm/

DreamlandLividity ,

Well, even if they had no power to do anything, saying things have been fixed and are fine should make them liable. How should anyone (legislature, public) work on fixing the issue if they hide it? They should be the ones raising the issue in the first place.

frezik , (edited )

The one time I remember something like that happening in the US was the 2003 Do Not Call telemarketing act. There was a court case that concluded that Congress had not properly authorized regulators to enforce the Do Not Call registry. Congress then took a day or two to pass a new law authorizing the thing they forgot to the first time.

This comes down to two things:

  • Americans really, really hate taking telemarketing calls, regardless of party affiliation
  • The telemarketing industry didn’t have significant lobbying at the time to tell anyone in Congress to argue against it
recapitated ,

Is there legislation that says otherwise? What should the judges do here?

archomrade ,

AFAIK it wouldn’t be legislation, it would be damages paid for some kind of breach of contract or some other contract-related issue, since the city delegated energy management to private companies. I’m sure there may be some contractual relationship with the city as well as the customers, but it’s not clear to me what type of contractual basis for damages this would amount to.

I suppose it could be gross negligence for not taking reasonable measures to prevent that kind of catastrophic failure, but honestly the standard of care would seem hard to establish. Still, a week without power seems excessive even by extreme weather standards.

Not saying this ruling doesn’t suck, just that it seems legally kind of ambiguous.

LostWon ,

Yikes. You’d think in a place where they know they will have extraordinary weather events, they would legislate special requirements to ensure everyone’s safety.

Incidentally, I first heard about this saga when I saw a report a while ago about people being scammed by solar panel grifters (who overcharge for installing systems that provide little to no independence from the grid despite making those claims in their ads).

DoomBot5 ,

It’s a good opportunity to remind people: solar panels without a grid disconnect and/or a battery are not independent of the grid. The utility company will shut them off while the power is out.

girlfreddy ,

Three cheers for privatization of public utilities! /s

As an aside, I am gutted by 250+ people losing their lives because Texan politicians can’t get their act together to hold companies responsible. Legislation works … and politicians can, and should, make the laws.

b3an ,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

This was the second time it happened too. It happened ten years prior as I recall. So they did nothing then. Did nothing later. No responsibility for anything later. Fuck Texas.

MagicShel ,

Maybe they decided the right people were getting hurt?

WhatAmLemmy ,

It’s less about the right people getting hurt, and more about the right people making bank (e.g. themselves).

kautau ,

Though they’ll chalk up people that they would prefer not to be in their state to be an absolute win if they can legally kill them

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

We had rolling blackouts for a few hours. Nothing that remotely resembled the state of failure in 2021 where 90% of Texas lost power for several days.

However it was a very clear indication that we had a problem that obviously was never resolved.

That storm was completely crazy though. I don’t think Texas has EVER experienced anything like it before.

Jaysyn ,
@Jaysyn@kbin.social avatar

That storm was completely crazy though. I don’t think Texas has EVER experienced anything like it before.

That will be a yearly occurrence now.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Well…it’s already not so…no.

seth ,

Texas can always be counted on to take the evil side when a moral decision has to be made. Slavery, segregation, suffrage, bodily autonomy, companies’ “rights” over human rights.

lolcatnip ,

They do have their act together. It just doesn’t include doing anything good for Texans.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

Let me guess, if I don’t like it I’m free to start my own power generation company, in a city that’s had only one provider for over 60 years.

Maggoty ,

Oh no that’s California. In Texas there’s 500 providers and no service.

Burn_The_Right ,

Remember when conservatives blamed “windmills” for this? All while conservatives in charge of Texas raked in millions of dollars in campaign donations from ERCOT members. Conservatives will gleefully watch your family die for fun or profit.

A conservative is incapable of empathy or remorse. Be very careful in your dealings with them. They do not value the lives of others the way normal people do.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Conservatives will gleefully watch your family die for fun or profit.

From their beach cabana in Cancun, no less.

b3an ,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

Rafael Cruz 😂

girlfreddy ,

Canada apologizes for exporting that to America.

AA5B ,

Don’t worry about it. We just assume Canada is too sane to support that craziness

girlfreddy ,

Oh I wish that were true. The Conservative party leader, Pierre Poilievre (aka PP or Millhouse) is on the verge of becoming a Trump syncophant.

Pierre Poilievre on “radical gender ideology”

PP wants Canada to be “the blockchain capital of the world”

YeetPics ,
@YeetPics@mander.xyz avatar

Do you mean Fled?

violetraven ,
@violetraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I thought there was a law passed where you have to call people by their ”deadname". If so, all should be calling him Rafael /jk

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

The greatest Canadian to ever live

Reverendender ,

They can’t be bargained with. They can’t be reasoned with. They don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until we are dead.

Burn_The_Right ,

…or until they are dead.

Reverendender ,

You’re not wrong!

girlfreddy ,

I see a ginormous BBQ coming soon.

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

I love long bacon

JustZ ,

Incapable of truth, too. As a lawyer, I will not take them on as clients. They lie constantly to justify their emotions. That’s really it.

girlfreddy ,

But muh feewings!

As an aside, I used to live in a remote fishing area and we had tons of American visitors. I remember one woman told me she knew Obama was the devil because she felt “the evil” emanating from him.

smdh

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

Man, Texas is a real shithole

TigrisMorte ,

It is almost like natural monopolies, such as primary power generation and supply, should be under the control of the Government and not private individuals.

girlfreddy ,

They all used to be. Then Reagan and Clinton happened.

TigrisMorte ,

ding ding ding. We have a winner! Give that man a prize!

girlfreddy ,

Thank you, thank you.

My prize will sit proudly in my woman cave.

Tronn4 ,

Woman caave… go on

Viking_Hippie ,

Down, boy.

captainlezbian ,

Well it’s probably got a tv, comfy place to sit, and video games

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry but lemmy has declared you a male. Your penis will arrive in 3 to 5 business days.

girlfreddy ,

I have a battery-operated one that gives me no drama or grief.

Hopefully that penis is returnable.

EdibleFriend ,
@EdibleFriend@lemmy.world avatar

Best I can do is store credit.

humorlessrepost ,

If she really cared about her battery-operated penis, she’d use the store credit to buy it a fleshlight.

TigrisMorte ,

Please note; man was intended as species as in "give that dog a prize" I'm just a dead cat.

girlfreddy ,

All good. :)

Socsa ,

Most places that are not Texas still have something resembling the old school utility model where the state effectively grants a license to a private company to operate and manage the grid, which is itself a public right of way. This is governed by a state appointed utility board.

Reverendender ,

And in RI, when everyone objects loudly, they nod their heads, and then do it anyway.

YoHuckleberry ,

Can you point me to where I might learn more about this?

girlfreddy ,

This is pretty good article about how and why.

A_Random_Idiot ,

Yep. Essential services should not be for profit.

hobbicus ,

For profit isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the more essential the service should warrant more and more regulations on safety security and pricing. They should not be given unlimited control over these.

Government agencies are more than capable of providing equally shitty service even without a profit motive, see: DMV. Any monopoly is. This is partially why regarding universal healthcare most people aren’t advocating for government owned healthcare facilities, but the government being the single payer to privately run facilities to control prices.

Instigate ,

While government monopolies can absolutely create shitty services, the main difference between a government service and privately-controlled service is that the government (and hence, the people, in a democracy) has the power to direct the service on how to operate. The government can’t just shut down a private power supplier because their customer service is trash, and the individual consumer has no power as to how the service operates.

A_Random_Idiot ,

I assume the DMV being shitty is just a meme, like Taco Bell giving you diarrhea.

cause i’ve been in many DMVs, in several states, and never had a headache with it, and no one I know personally has had a problem either. Small sample base, of course.

SCB ,

The issue here is specifically that they’re not monopolies any more, because of deregulation

Ironically, if they were a monopoly, they would have an obligation to provide power in emergencies, per the ruling.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

So this is more like the spiderman pointing at spiderman thing.

deadbeef79000 ,

Except instead of Spiderman it’s the Monopoly Man.

WHYAREWEALLCAPS ,

I believe cartel would be a better name for it in this case. ERCOT is a cartel.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

No no… Checks the GOP playbook: we just need to offer a premium power support plan so if the power goes out they’ll provide you a backup generator. It just costs twice the normal rate.

NotMyOldRedditName , (edited )

I know your joking here, but this is actually the path forward and is being implemented in other states and countries.

The power company provides at a discount or for free a home backup battery to the residence. If not free, You pay off the battery at a very affordable rate but end up with a smaller power bill as the power company can access its power to balance the load, filling it up when power is cheap and the battery being used when power is expensive.

In a blackout, the home owner gets to use the battery and doesn’t suffer an outage.

It makes the grid more secure by dispersing it around thousands of homes instead of a large expensive failure points and gives them an improved ability to balance the overall load instead of needing a gas peaker plant.

I think it was recently announced that a Vermont power company was going to onboard 100% of their users in the next few years, but it’s happening elsewhere too. If a tree takes something down in a snow storm, people won’t lose power giving them time to fix it.

JoeBigelow ,
@JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca avatar

That actually seems like a really good idea on the infrastructure side. We should still get rid of private power companies.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

We should still get rid of private power companies.

Absolutely.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Batteries are consumable though. Only so much usage available

NotMyOldRedditName ,

An LFP battery will last over a decade of daily full discharges, and that’s not going to be what happens, and even then, it’s still 80%.

Probably looking at 30-40 20-30 years before wanting to replace it due to energy levels.

Peaker plants also require maintenance and staffing and other costs associated with them.

The batteries being consumable isn’t a problem.

Edit: and gas from a peaker plant is consumed too

a9249 ,

What are yah, some sorta communist? /s He’s sayin private companies shouldnt be fuckin us over, get him! /s

jasondj , (edited )

That’s communism and we are a capitalist country.

The right thing to do under a capitalist economy is to buy the government and give yourself a monopoly.

This isn’t a natural monopoly, it’s protected by legislature and cronyism.

A proper capitalist approach to utilities, then the pipes and wires need to be considered no different then the road they are installed on. Recoup money by selling metered wholesale access to the carriers and utilities.

But we don’t have proper capitalism. We have this bastardized American version that sucks.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We settled it before the damn constitution even started. How these nitwits in DC don’t see how publicly run infrastructure doesn’t provide for the common defense or promote general welfare is beyond me. But I guess running water, heat, affordable healthcare, and an ability to communicate with each other and the rest of the world doesn’t count under that, somehow.

Maybe if the courts took the founders intent from the Prologue instead of the secret letters to their mistresses, we’d have a functional system. But that’s just my opinion.

otp ,

A government providing services is not communism, it’s a first-world standard.

jasondj ,

I thought the sarcasm of my first two paragraphs was heavily laid on, but I suppose not.

I don’t disagree with you, however the majority of electoral college and senate voters agree with my first two paragraphs.

We are insistent that we must do things differently. This American Exceptionalism, as if there’s something fundamentally different between humans born inside its walls than the ones born out.

If we must be insistent that we’re different, we should at least be consistent in its application. The preamble basically implies that the ideal is exactly what you and the rest of my post is saying.

In the modern world a countries greatest strength is its ability to utilize its economies of scale. If for no other reason we should at least realize that the existing systems are unsustainably wasteful.

otp ,

I’m sorry. I had someone argue something very similar to me. And since it was someone I knew IRL, I knew they were 100% serious…

Illuminostro ,

You mean the dudes who owned slaves and thought that only white men were people? Ok yeah, they were righteous …

jasondj ,

Many of them were either abolitionists or manumissionists. It’s hard to believe we had always been so conflicted since our founding (as many of the northern states had already abolished slavery before ratifying the constitution), yet still managed to have a reasonably functional government essentially made up entirely of rich white dudes who openly hated each others guts.

Also it’s easy to sit here and poo-poo the whole slavery thing now, 300 something years later. Washington got his first slaves from inheritance. When he was 11. That’s not me dismissing it, that’s just me demonstrating how normalized it was.

thedridge ,

Why did it take me so long to finally realize that by privatizing services like these, governments are preemptively shifting the blame when the service fails? Voters who are angry at the energy company won’t be (as) angry with the politicians.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

Production can be liberalised, but it requires good regulation. Regulation failed to include a rule for responsibility to provided a minimum of energy, the judge can’t do more than the regulation law. It works in EU, we didn’t have blackout past year even though the situation was dramatic mostly due to the Russian invasion, because the liberalised market allowed efficient sharing of energy where it was most needed.
I wouldn’t be so certain a public monopoly could have managed it in such an efficient way (in terms of finance, energy usage and service). People tend to idealize public administration.

Coasting0942 ,

Phew. Worried this could lead to overturning that cops have no duty to protect you.

If you don’t like the service you’re getting then just vote in new leaders who can change things /s

xX_fnord_Xx ,

Thankfully nobody in their right mind chooses to live in this state, those that remain were born with a death wish, or since sort of moral ambiguity to life.

Coasting0942 ,

Supreme Court: How expensive could it possibly be to sue a utility for breach of contract? $10?

wishthane ,

Or they just can’t leave for one reason or another – moving is tough

HiddenLayer5 ,

Second only to the lack of responsibility that Texan judges have.

StopSpazzing ,
@StopSpazzing@lemmy.world avatar

The more and more I hear about these terrible decisions made in Texas, no exception abortion (even if medically deemed necessary) and now this, the more and more I am grateful I don’t live in that trainwreck state.

UncleGrandPa ,

A recent study showed that Texans have the least personal freedom of any state

Caradoc879 ,

Oh the irony

charonn0 ,
@charonn0@startrek.website avatar

Deregulating the electricity industry has been a complete and utter disaster.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@kbin.social avatar

Rich people's electricity stayed on, I'm just saying...

People seem surprised that the face-eating leopards who said that everything was going to be fine if you just allow deregulation of the market, proceeded to then eat the faces of the poors (but not those of the rich, at least whenever it could be avoided).

I'm not even kidding - see no /s - but in Texas, this isn't a bug, it's a feature. This is what "lower taxes" means, bc you don't get something for nothing; and when you pay less, you necessarily get less in return (even though the converse is not always true) - in this case lower robustness to perturbations of the system.

TigrisMorte ,

Texas does not have lower Taxes. That is a myth. Texas has lower Income Taxes. They more than make up for it in the other taxes and fees they collect. Texas is actively trying to force People from their homes such that wealthy connected folks can buy the property and rent it out.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@kbin.social avatar

Texas does not have lower taxes for the poors, but nonetheless it has lower taxes for the most wealthy citizens. Rich people literally cannot buy as much as the difference between what they make vs. the poors, so the lower Income vs. Sales taxes works in their favor, plus whatever other contributions they may make (charity, tips) they get to choose to hold back in return for services rendered - a building (or wing/floor of one) named in their honor, etc.

But since facts rarely matter, "lower taxes" is one major reason why people want to live in Texas, and why bills passed in Texas get passed - e.g. I was presuming that was how the disconnection from the federal energy grid was sold to the populace.

Even (especially) if it's not strictly true, "lower taxes" is the reason for much that is done in Texas.

TigrisMorte ,

The Taxes are not lower, they were just shifted to the wage slaves.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@kbin.social avatar

Yes, but (a) a humongous proportion of people don't know/care about that, compared to let's say owning the libs, and (b) ironically they actually are lower, though only for those up top, thus providing the incentive to claim that taxes are "lower" there (when in fact, to the people they are aiming those messages at, they are higher).

TigrisMorte ,

shifting costs around to other sources of funding isn't lowering costs. Someone else is paying the Taxes is all that has changed.

helenslunch ,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

There were plenty of middle class communities that kept their power and plenty of wealthy communities that did not.

If you have evidence that the ratio is lopsided toward the wealthy, please do share.

braxy29 , (edited )

ncdp.columbia.edu/…/disaster-response-and-equity-…

edit - so it looks like it was less about being wealthy, and more about being white.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@kbin.social avatar

I'm shocked

AA5B ,

This is not even a taxes issue - it’s extremely short sighted regulation, or lack of. But, no sarcasm intended, if regulators don’t set any bar for reliability, I suppose it follows that companies aren’t liable for it.

OpenStars ,
@OpenStars@kbin.social avatar

"Short sighted" presumes that those who enacted it did not realize what effects it would have, but very likely they did, and this outcome is how they wanted things to go.

(1) Companies are free to make moar monay; and (2) the "only people who (should) matter" get electricity, when resources become scarce, whereas minorities do not. Bonus points if infants from the latter group die, thus keeping that population more "manageable", in that "Pro-Life" state that is so against abortion that it would sooner allow the mother to die than to ensure that she receives lifesaving medical care, e.g. in cases of miscarriage or such where for anyone who knows anything at all about biology (or is willing to read through the definition of the word "miscarriage") there is not even the remotest shadow of a doubt that there is no "child's life" involved at all (anymore).

But it is complex a little bc those who write the laws are not those who vote on them. Even more foundationally though... well, this video explains it far better than I could: https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=EX7LDD58Q5AOhHrY (if you need an intro to decide whether to watch the whole thing or not, use from 3 or 4 to 5:30 min from beginning)

Melatonin ,

Cops don’t have to serve and protect or abide by the law. Power companies don’t have to supply power. People who sell you things can deny you access to them.

Hey this is fun, let’s do more!

RGB3x3 ,

Health Insurance companies don’t have to provide payment for health services you pay them to cover.

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