Photo / Video Still, WSJ
AUSTIN, TX — In the 1930’s, Texas designed its own electric grid to avoid federal regulations. It’s cut off from the rest of the US power grid, so it can’t borrow power from other states as all other states can. It is run by an entity called ERCOT. Five of its directors don’t even live in Texas, and all five have now resigned.
The oil and gas industry runs this state and controls the GOP that holds most of the political power, including the Railroad Commission that nowadays has jurisdiction over the oil and natural gas pipelines. The energy market is unregulated. The Public Utility Commission allows for-profit energy providers to raise rates when demand goes up. Scott Willoughby, a 36-year-old Army veteran living on Social Security told the New York Times, “My savings is gone,” after receiving an electric bill for $16,752.
The water infrastructure problems were revealed in a report from 10 years ago in Austin. It exposed the lack of maintenance that causes numerous water main breaks throughout the year, wasting a tremendous amount of water in a state that regularly experiences drought. These problems were never corrected.
Into this situation came an unusual, but not totally unexpected, period of below freezing weather with ice and snow. Natural gas-powered plants ran out of fuel when the gas pipelines froze due to lack of maintenance because the industry didn’t want to spend the money, and they didn’t have to conform to the federal regulations.
Millions of people lost power for days. Many businesses, including grocery stores, shut down. The cold spell caused even more water mains to break around the state, leaving millions with no water. Some pipes in people’s homes burst, leading to a lot of expensive damage. The damage estimates from this crisis are expected to exceed those of Hurricane Harvey that devastated Houston.
We the people must seize this opportunity to organize and go on the offensive against the power structure, including the GOP-dominated state legislature. We must demand they respond to our needs and allocate the funds to do it. It will be a huge battle, but we can’t allow politics as usual to continue.
The above is excerpted from a longer article that can be found on the People’s Tribune Latest News website.
Karel Riley works with the People’s Tribune, and its bilingual sister publication, Tribuno del Pueblo, as a writer and contributor on human rights and women’s issues. “I’ve been a feminist since early adulthood. As a clerical worker, I joined a union drive with AFSCME seeking comparable wages to men for female-dominated jobs, and we were partially successful. In the mid-80’s our union participated in the historic Hormel strike in Minnesota. Later, I joined others in support of a local welfare rights organization,” she says.
