Thread by @soychicka

Listening to @RepMcCaul on @CNNSotu, I have to wonder why he's talking about paying people's electric bills off using federal funds, when those "exorbitant" rates are pretty clearly a violation of Texas §17.46(b)(27).

Any bills already issued should be comped, and each instance should be counted as a violation.

If doubling the price of water during an emergency is considered price gouging, increasing costs on something required for survival by an order of magnitude is certainly price gouging.

I don't care if the PUC authorized a rate hike.
An 18,000% increase is not a 'hike.'

A two-fold increase in the order of magnitude in something required for survival is NOT a hike. It's beyond gouging.

It's extortion.

And the TX PUC is complicit.

If all utilities were mandated to winterize in advance, the catastrophe that was thrust upon the people of Texas would not have impacted anywhere near as many households.

Instead, the PUC uses what should have been a predictable event to enrich those who DID winterize, metes no penalty for those who ignored the responsibility, and places all the burden on the consumer.

Not only does this not incentivize preparedness, it effectively limits the number of energy providers who will winterize going forward of their own free volition - TBH, with this degree of fuckery afoot,

this would incentivize some kind of kickback scheme where the few winterized facilities were encouraging others to NOT winterize, to ensure they would continue to enjoy benefit from future storms.

And that puts the people of Texas at even greater risk going forward.

Texas doesn't have an Energy Reliability Council and a Public Utilities Commission.

Texas has an energy racket.

And it just killed a bunch of people.

Scarcity-based pricing models for commodities required for survival would be acceptable if each customer had a base contract for delivery of the minimum electricity required to maintain a location with conditions required to sustain life, with overages subject to fluctuation.

In emergencies, throttle your customers - allocate a set number of KwH to customers based on the requirements for a) maintaining a livable environment (55-64F) &
b) minimizing the risk of damage to unoccupied property if excess avail.

Heat plus minimal lighting. Period.

Affordances for the elderly and those who have medical conditions.

You have smart meters. use 'em.

No fridges, no baking, no hot tubs, no pools. Use those, and it cuts into your heating budget.

And this goes for EVERYONE.
Even those in Ted Cruz's 'hood.

I've lived in pretty rural places, so I know how this goes.

I've gone w/o water for weeks when wells run dry in winter.

W/o heat (& water) in winter when the electricity goes out really sucks.

And in the 2 weeks after Katrina, I survived on a 12-volt deep cycle battery w/solar trickle charger to power one fan and one lamp, and went somewhere else during the day for computer and phone power.

It's survivable. Read a book.

But when the issue is lack of heat instead of excess, it's only going to be survivable for everybody if everybody is on the same playing field.

And, sorry, but that means utilities are gonna have to cut off the juice if Bunny wants to heat up her hot room to do Bikram in the middle of a Polar vortex...

Meeting everyone's basic threshold for survival comes first.

So, each household gets an allowance, where rates are stabilized to within 10%...

And any overages get billed out at a 10^6 increase, before getting cut off.

Or something like that.

It can be made to work.

But - back on the main subject:

If the PUC signed off on multiple orders of magnitude of a rate increase, due to failure to prepare for a foreseeable risk, they're in violation of §17.46(b)(27) themselves.

I don't see any exceptions for governmental officials.