Houston’s ABC News affiliate reports:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called an emergency meeting late Saturday to address the spike in electricity bills due to the impact of the winter storm. In a statement, Abbott said, “It is unacceptable for Texans who suffered through days in the freezing cold without electricity or heat to now be hit with skyrocketing energy costs.”
The emergency meeting will include Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Speaker Dade Phelan and members of the state’s legislature. Electricity supply and demand in Texas has gone back to normal operations, but when it out of whack over the past several days, the cost of power in the wholesale market went crazy.
The first tweet below is from Houston’s mayor.
The Many Things In My Toy Box ….my view may change due to verifiable evidence
We have a banana republic operating inside the state of Texas. The Governor, the legislature, and the energy companies are all involved in a corrupt enterprise. A federal investigation is needed to break up this gang.
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Hello Cagjr. Texas is a good example of runaway destructive capitalism and deregulation for profit via unrestricted legal bribes. Yes a banana republic it is. But the gang is called Republicans and cooperate Democrats. Hugs
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How can anyone “like” this post??!?!? No offense, but this situation is totally and completely unacceptable!
We are working to fix this fast — You idiots! It should never have happened in the first place! If any one of you would stop tending to your bank account and start looking out for the people you represent, things wouldn’t have needed to be “fixed”!!
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Hello Nan. Wealthy Republicans, which these are, do not care about the people, the scum, the workers. To be used and discarded. Like DeathSantis in Florida, giving his wealthy white elderly the vaccines, yet demanding teachers go back to the classrooms with out one. Hugs
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I don’t get how they would get their power bills so fast. . . Here, we get one every other month and it’s always for a time period for the previous 60 days or so. . . Two weeks behind at least. So I just don’t understand how that works. We have a kilowatt hour rate, and when the power’s out we don’t have kilowatt hours accusations. . .so I don’t understand. . .
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Hello Carmen. My understanding is the set up allows them to raise the rate for times of more demand. There is no cap. So when the demand was so great they had to restrict power they could keep raising the rate and surcharges per a formula designed to make profit and prevent loses. Hugs
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Accumulated. . Grrr. .
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Hello Carmen. We have meters that report back to the company all the time so they can see what our use is at any time. So if I go online to the power company web site I can see my usage and possible bill at any time. Hugs
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Ahhh. . We just had ‘smart’ meters installed, which replaced the meters they had to come around and read. . . I suppose they do the same thing. I don’t know if you subscribe to Tom Dispatch but he’s got an article today with suggests that what has happened in Texas is more evidence of white supremacy. . .with which I fully agree.
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Hello Carmen. Shoot me a link and I will check it out. Thanks. Hugs
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I’ll do it when I get back home Scottie. Right now I am sitting in the parking lot at the Library, waiting for my little granddaughter to get finished at Pre-School. I’m on my ipad and don’t know how to do that. .have to be on my laptop. (You know me, the techno-dum dum) 🙂
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https://truthout.org/articles/white-supremacy-set-the-stage-for-texas-miserable-disaster-response/?fbclid=IwAR2Ipa-ILEHCd47XoMhM1DZ26O0vU16OguhtuG01ieKbUIZzRwGyvXJF8rU
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Hello Carmen. Thank you. Hugs
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Hello Carmen. I read the article. Systemic racism is deep into the system in the US. While some people are trying to change it, those who benefit from it are desperate to keep that system. That is what gerrymandering / voter suppression is all about. Hugs
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Considering how energy companies supposedly only get paid due to how much energy’s being used (which means it’s a helluva incentive for the power companies to get the electricity back on)… how can the bill be so high if some folks had power out for DAYS?!!!
Oh, wait. Removing price caps is the mother of all price gouging. They should be ashamed of themselves, and I’m gonna be on the lookout for my bill when it comes. Hope there’s a class action suit because I’ll be a part of it. Gonna look for reporting agencies just in case.
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Hello Chatty Introvert. Yes it is price gouging and it was written into the rules by Republicans doing what the wealthy wanted. Unrestrained capitalism designed to squeeze every cent of the national money toward the wealthy and way from the lower incomes. The Republican motto seems to be “Government must always serve the wants / needs of the wealthy upper class, but must never work for the lower income class who must remain in a desperate struggle for survival with out luxury”. Works out great if you are one of the upper class, sucks to be the lower class. Hugs
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