- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
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.
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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!
Deregulating the electricity industry has been a complete and utter disaster.
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.
They all used to be. Then Reagan and Clinton happened.
ding ding ding. We have a winner! Give that man a prize!
Thank you, thank you.
My prize will sit proudly in my woman cave.
Woman caave… go on
Down, boy.
Can you point me to where I might learn more about this?
This is pretty good article about how and why.
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.
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.
A government providing services is not communism, it’s a first-world standard.
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.
Texans must love the abuse, they keep voting for it.
There’s also a lot of voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Suckers with no self esteem.
This election’s got me so low
If they keep it up, people might pack up and go
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.
Oh no that’s California. In Texas there’s 500 providers and no service.
Man, Texas is a real shithole
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
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.
They do have their act together. It just doesn’t include doing anything good for Texans.
Hot take: The ruling is accurate.
Vote for candidates who privatize utilities. Get what you vote for.
Only sucks for those that can’t leave and are stuck with a system they can’t correct.
Is there legislation that says otherwise? What should the judges do here?
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.
Second only to the lack of responsibility that Texan judges have.
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
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.
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
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).
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.
The free market solution would allow communities to negotiate contracts that DID hold the provider liable and allow competitors to emerge that would focus on different aspects like reliability, renewable production or integration with other grids.
If you aren’t aware of the story of Central and Southwest Corporation (a Texas power company) and thr “midnight connection”, it’s the type of story that I’m sure is nearing the top of Netflix’s documentary todo list.
On May 4, 1976, a power company based in Texas sent electricity from a substation in Vernon, Texas, to Altus, Okla. By doing so, they were breaking a deal among power companies in Texas to keep electricity within state borders.
If what Texas has with ERCOT is neither free market nor a public utility, what is it?
The whole social contract thing in the USA is giving off an EULA vibe these days.
