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.
This is not even a taxes issue - it’s extremely short sighted regulation, or lack of. But, no sarcasm intended, if regulators don’t set any bar for reliability, I suppose it follows that companies aren’t liable for it.
“Short sighted” presumes that those who enacted it did not realize what effects it would have, but very likely they did, and this outcome is how they wanted things to go.
(1) Companies are free to make moar monay; and (2) the “only people who (should) matter” get electricity, when resources become scarce, whereas minorities do not. Bonus points if infants from the latter group die, thus keeping that population more “manageable”, in that “Pro-Life” state that is so against abortion that it would sooner allow the mother to die than to ensure that she receives lifesaving medical care, e.g. in cases of miscarriage or such where for anyone who knows anything at all about biology (or is willing to read through the definition of the word “miscarriage”) there is not even the remotest shadow of a doubt that there is no “child’s life” involved at all (anymore).
But it is complex a little bc those who write the laws are not those who vote on them. Even more foundationally though… well, this video explains it far better than I could: https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs?si=EX7LDD58Q5AOhHrY (if you need an intro to decide whether to watch the whole thing or not, use from 3 or 4 to 5:30 min from beginning)