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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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.
Conservatives will gleefully watch your family die for fun or profit.
From their beach cabana in Cancun, no less.
Rafael Cruz 😂
Canada apologizes for exporting that to America.
Don’t worry about it. We just assume Canada is too sane to support that craziness
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.
Do you mean Fled?
The greatest Canadian to ever live
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.
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
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.
…or until they are dead.
You’re not wrong!
I see a ginormous BBQ coming soon.
I love long bacon
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!
Health Insurance companies don’t have to provide payment for health services you pay them to cover.
Corporations are people, my friend. Just people with all the rights and no responsibilities.
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.
They’re not even equal. Corporations are given more freedom than actual people.
You can’t arrest a company. You apparently can’t even arrest the company’s executives for the company’s crimes.
I really want to figure out how to make a company and sell it all my debt.
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.
Were you born to rich parents?
Sadly no, I’ve been bootstrapping it.
You’re probably out of luck.
And no taxes or very little.
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.
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.
A recent study showed that Texans have the least personal freedom of any state
Oh the irony
Better pull up those bootstraps and start finding your own individual source of power. Maybe you can drill for oil in your backyard?
But don’t do this by installing solar panels. That’s “woke!”
Then once you strike oil find out you never owned the mineral rights to begin with ¯\(ツ)/¯
During the storm one iirc Republican Texan politician said something along the lines of “you people need to solve it yourself”. They bought hard into private market solves everything.
It was Tim Boyd. He called the people complaining “socialists,” lol.
[People want electricity.]
“Is this socialism?”
But pretty sure the one I’m thinking of was a woman.
Deregulating the electricity industry has been a complete and utter disaster.
First world, third world, and Texas.
Texas is a shithole, and even more insufferable are the Texan nationalists. It’s funny from a distance, but being there not so much.
I hate this fucking state so much.
#fuckyourdividends
Texas power plants have no responsibility to
provide electricitysave lives in emergencies, judges rule <- FTFYAfter all, why should they care if you suffer or die? There’s plenty more where you came from.
The judge just said that the lawmakers who wrote the law and were elected by the people to do that writing didn’t consider electricity as a requirement of the people they represented
Fucking Christ, did the judge calculate the amount of legally harvestable cord wood on their property as well?
Not angry at the posters for sharing facts, I’m just Angered by them.
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
What a shithole. And I say that as an Indiana resident. At least our heat stays on in the winter.
Yeah these shithole states are really poisoning the blood of America. Did I get that right? /s
You have the right to food, clothing and shelter, and eventually they’ll rule those aren’t required either.
You must not be from the US…
I’m from and live in Texas, trust me, I realize how bad it is 😑
