Should the Federal government help Texans hit by extremely high energy bills?

Should the users with extremely high energy bills get bailed out by the Federal government?

  • Hell Yes!

    Votes: 3 7.9%
  • Yes

    Votes: 5 13.2%
  • No

    Votes: 11 28.9%
  • Hell No!

    Votes: 19 50.0%
  • What's gforce talking about, mate?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    38

mlm

Contrarian
To be clear, I don’t want a bailout to be the feds covering people bills but canceling them out or setting them at something reasonable.

The energy companies billing those rates shouldn’t get a penny of the overages.

What they should have done back during the Enron scandal. I’m just wondering what power the state would actually have to do so, and how long it would be tied up in court. I suspect the only way to give immediate relief to consumers will be some sort of Federal bailout, even if it is later recouped in court.
 

zelig

black 'tard heroine
The fundamental issue is that, regardless of the contract, I doubt anyone, the consumers or the producers, had any inkling this would happen.

Actually, the state senate talked about the need to improve reliability in 2011 (ten years to the day!) before this latest occurrence.

Clip 1: http://tlcsenate.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=1951
Clip 2: http://tlcsenate.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=1941

And 2011 was not the first, just the next-most-recent: Texas cold snap was not ‘unprecedented,’ and it was inexcusable to be unprepared
 

Climber

Well-known member
To be clear, I don’t want a bailout to be the feds covering people bills but canceling them out or setting them at something reasonable.

The energy companies billing those rates shouldn’t get a penny of the overages.
100% this.

All of the deregulation, including removing themselves from the possibility of getting electricity from out of state in an emergency has led to this with the suppliers being able to set whatever price they wanted. Deregulation has always been about unfettered greed and the ability to have no limits to it.

All of the lives that will be ruined by this are for the sole purpose of fattening a few bank accounts to a considerable degree.
 
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DrSwade

...for limited time...
Not sure if the Feds should bail out but definitely look at the price gouging. Look how they publicly vilified the Epi pen guy and then managed to convict him on something else.

And for the record, the entire country looks at Kalifornia with the same “they got themselves into it...” attitude every single time the state has an issue. Empathy needs to be reciprocal.
 

afm199

Well-known member
I remember the Feds bailing us Californians out during and after the Enron scandal, when we were paying and still paying some of the highest utility costs in the US!

O wait..
 

Climber

Well-known member
Not sure if the Feds should bail out but definitely look at the price gouging. Look how they publicly vilified the Epi pen guy and then managed to convict him on something else.

And for the record, the entire country looks at Kalifornia with the same “they got themselves into it...” attitude every single time the state has an issue. Empathy needs to be reciprocal.
I feel for the people getting gouged, but don't use federal dollars to pay off the greedy assholes that charged so much for the electricity. Greed should be punished, not rewarded, rewarding only leads to more greed.

Those people got taken advantage of, they are victims. The people who created then exploited the circumstances that allowed it should be made to suffer.
 

DrSwade

...for limited time...
Here, the government owns the power company, the oil company and the phone company. The prices might not be great but the prices do seem fairly consistent. Been paying around $4usd/gallon for the entire time I have lived here. Government apportions power during the summer UNLESS you go over their scale and then...beware and break out the check book.

My internet was around than $20usd/month for a whopping 8 mbps (on a good day). But things are looking up. We got fiber two weeks ago and now scream stream at 30mbps! (Again, on a good day). Hell, upload is almost 5mbps!
 
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Climber

Well-known member
I remember the Feds bailing us Californians out during and after the Enron scandal, when we were paying and still paying some of the highest utility costs in the US!

O wait..
IIRC, not only did the feds not bail us out, but they also ruled that CA signed that deal fair and square (despite the manipulation) and thus was liable for paying them out through their term.
 

Maddevill

KNGKAW
I thought Texas wanted to secede from the Union ? Well, they should put their Big Boy pants on and get used to paying for their own mistakes.
It really sucks for the citizens though. Maybe they should try voting differently

Mad
 

GAJ

Well-known member
I remember the Feds bailing us Californians out during and after the Enron scandal, when we were paying and still paying some of the highest utility costs in the US!

O wait..

No f'ing kidding.

As far as I'm able to find out, the government never helped at all and the "settlement" with a bankrupt Enron was never paid to California post 2005 even though Arnold hailed the settlement.

Bush administration officials repeated Enron’s claims that California’s problems were caused by the state’s “flawed” deregulation plan—which was not “free market” enough—and strict environmental standards, which limited the construction of new power plants. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney publicly opposed price controls, insisting that any such moves would be a disincentive for power companies to operate in the state.

Several weeks after the memos were written outlining the company’s strategy to manipulate California’s market, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay—the largest single contributor to Bush’s political career—successfully prompted the Bush administration to appoint free-market advocate Pat Wood as the head of the Federal Energy Regulation Commission. Once in place, Wood resisted the implementation of price controls for months while the crisis spun out of control.

After FERC was finally pushed to restrict price hikes in late April 2001 Cheney denounced the move, telling the Los Angeles Times, “Price caps are not a help. They take us in exactly the wrong direction.” After reiterating that only free market policies could resolve California’s problems, Cheney added, “I’ve never seen price regulations that I’ve felt very good about. If I had been at FERC, I would never have voted for short-term price caps.”
 

scootergmc

old and slow
I remember the Feds bailing us Californians out during and after the Enron scandal, when we were paying and still paying some of the highest utility costs in the US!

O wait..



Seen the state-caused bailouts in the latest stimulus bill? This isolated "Texas" problem pales in comparison. But I'll keep buying PCG!:laughing
 

afm199

Well-known member
IIRC, not only did the feds not bail us out, but they also ruled that CA signed that deal fair and square (despite the manipulation) and thus was liable for paying them out through their term.

Yeah, that was what I poorly and sarcastically was trying to say. :thumbup
 

mercurial

Well-known member
I’m inclined to be altruistic because people are legitimately suffering and the rates being charged are insane...but I don’t want my tax dollars going in the pocket of a private utility because they failed to prepare properly and deliberately avoided regulatory measures that would have prevented it.

Help people? Sure. Help the greedy utilities? Hell no. They wanted to bet...they came up snake eyes. Too bad.

Devil's advocate: people with variable rate, generally paying a lower rate than fixed rate people, collectively sponged off the system for years. I would surmise that a substantial percentage of utility producer cost is fixed opex like equipment depreciation, maintenance, financing costs, with variable opex like fuel being a small percent (25%? that's just a wild guess) of cost.

So when producer production reduces dramatically due to a natural disaster, the fixed opex continues to accrue even as total output plummets. In a very real sense, the variable rate customers pick up the slack in this scenario, they are a hedge against this outcome and that's why they receive discounts during normal times.

So, you could reasonably argue that sophisticated variable rate buyers deserve to lose their pants a bit.
 

CABilly

Splitter
Sounds like they basically Enron'ed themselves. If they rejected federal regulation, they should not receive federal aid. This seems like a Texas problem, to me.
 

GAJ

Well-known member
Sounds like they basically Enron'ed themselves. If they rejected federal regulation, they should not receive federal aid. This seems like a Texas problem, to me.

Exactly.

An Enronic situation for sure.
 

KooLaid

Hippocritapotamus
Sounds like they basically Enron'ed themselves. If they rejected federal regulation, they should not receive federal aid. This seems like a Texas problem, to me.

Exactly.

An Enronic situation for sure.

JUST for this situation or should that be the deciding factor on everything else where a state rejects federal regulation also?
 
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