Republicans eye federal funds to help pay Texans' exorbitant energy bills

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Texas Republicans will use federal funds to help pay exorbitant energy bills hitting ordinary Texans after a deep freeze crippled the state this week, a senior congressman said on Sunday.

Millions of Texans were subject to blackouts as the cold weather overwhelmed an unprepared state grid, by design independent of federal oversight. The outages contributed to dozens of deaths and a crisis over safe access to water that continued even as temperatures rose.

On Saturday, Joe Biden declared a major disaster, releasing funding to help. On Sunday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC’s This Week the president was “eager to go down to Texas and show his support” but would be careful not to disrupt relief efforts.

Reports have proliferated that some Texans whose power stayed on are now facing enormous bills, as private companies seek to capitalise. The New York Times reported one case in which a 63-year-old military veteran living on social security in the Dallas suburbs faced an electricity bill for nearly $17,000, 70 times what he would usually pay for all utilities combined.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/21/texas-republicans-federal-funds-energy-bills

If they pay it should be conditional. Straighten your shit out or you're on your own.

[live love laugh]

1. Bailouts for ERCOT stockholders is what they are "eyeing". nt

[NYC Liberal]

2. What would they do if they had seceded like they keep talking about?

[elleng]

3. No reason to pay the grifting companies, imo;

let them eat their own 'cake.'

[Trueblue1968]

24. why should I who live in another state have to help STUPID texas. It is the fault

of the GOP Gov!!!! Let ABBOTT pay everyone's bills. I SAY NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DAM, i only get 800 a month on social security. i am poor.

[ananda]

4. Reeps getting bailouts will NEVER learn from their mistakes.

They will never have to do the right thing.

[Lulu Latech]

5. Just say NO to this

We need to investigate how much profit these companies made over the last many years they refused to upgrade their equipment. The American taxpayers should not pay one penny for their willful negligence.

[LeftInTX]

21. How much did they make during this storm?

[WHITT]

6. Hey

that part is self-inflicted. Get it from the Texas state 'rainy-day' fund or raise taxes on the rich & corporate. They deregulated, now live with it.

[OAITW r.2.0]

12. Exactly. No free lunches....you live by your philosophy of deregulation

you pay for it when your energy deregulation utopia bites you in your backside.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

31. "No free lunches"

a phrase the righties love to use and yes, it should be thrown right back in their face.

[ornotna]

27. Yep

They have several billion in that fund.

https://comptroller.texas.gov/about/media-center/news/2020/201124-funds-transfer.php

[lindysalsagal]

7. Oh. Hell. No.

My taxmoney to privately owned companies who used their own laziness and greediness to fleece everyone else???


Oh. Hell. No.

[MineralMan]

8. But, that's "SOCIALISM!"

Blasphemy!

[Midnight Writer]

9. Did anyone NOT see this coming?

[Patterson]

10. Texas has a big "Rainy Day" fund.

[whistler162]

15. Can't use it since it is snow not rain!

Like DUH!!!!

[pandr32]

11. How about those energy grifters pay?

We should not pay a dime, but maybe 'forgive' the bills ordinary people are being confronted with by making it illegal to collect because of the collosal failure of service. Ideas?

[tishaLA]

13. We should make Jerry Jones the face of this

If they go through with this, he's going to be getting our tax dollars as a way of bailing out the Texans he price gouged during the crisis--and I don't think even Cowboys fans like Jerry.

[LeftInTX]

22. Didn't he make $300 million from this storm?

[tishaLA]

29. I just heard that he bragged about hitting the jackpot

with the amount of money he was making off it, the fucker.

[Ms. Toad]

14. They should not pay the exhorbitant fees for Griddy customers.

Those customers chose to take an extraordinary risk in exchange for extraordinay savings.

I don't mind a bailout of those using a traditional power company. I don't even mind a bailout of those using Griddy - as long as the bailout is limited to a fixed multiple of their ordinary bill.

In other words - those using a traditional electric service might have expeirienced bills 4 x as high as usual. If that is the case, cap the Griddy bills at 4x their ordinary bill.

If you gamble your life savins at a casino, the rest of us aren't obligated to bail you out. Why would we bail you out if you take a similar risk in your choice of electricity vendors.

[Ferryboat]

16. Hell no

If the federal government bails out this freedom loving privatized clusterfuck of independent energy companies there should be a high price extracted.

Only happens again if there isn't a large penalty.

[Takket]

17. ABSOLUTELY NOT

the rest of us that run a SANE power gird pay for that sanity. the texas government made that mess by shunning regulation and they can eat it and/or let the power companies take the loss.

this is no different than people that act like they are enslaved if told to buy health insurance but then they expect A+ medical care on the hospital's dime when they show up at the ER

[louis-t]

18. More 'top down' thinking from the GOP.

Take taxpayer money and put it directly in the pockets of a billionaire while he's laughing his ass off about his 'good fortune'. How about telling the fascist bastards they can't charge that much for electricity or you'll throw their asses in the clink.

[brush]

19. It's a failed state. They better vote out those republicans...

who have now failed to winterize their power installations after being warned in 1989 and 2011. One homeowner said today on CNN that his energy bill was for $16,800 because the state is on its own separate network not tied to the two main national networks.

If any of those republican leaders had any honor they'd resign.

[sarcasmo]

20. Jerry Jones and other billionaires hand out from Republicans.

[XanaDUer2]

23. this pisses me off nt

[Deuxcents]

30. Me, too

The R’s might hold the stimulus relief bill up over this idea.

[XanaDUer2]

33. Never even thought of that

I'm even more pissed

[dsc]

25. then they better bailout the blue state governments

I keep hearing how states such as New York and Illinois don't deserve funds, well Texas doesn't either if they don't. Texas made a huge mistake here, and make no mistake, if we pay those bills that state govt is being bailed out.

[2naSalit]

26. Nope, nope, nope...

The ERCOT BOD should be paying the people back for the damages and I hope this ends up in court.

[Baked Potato]

28. Grifty Grafty Shifty Shafty. Big Texas sized con.

[Rstrstx]

32. First make Griddy give back all the money they auto-debited out of peoples' accounts

..and freeze (no pun intended) their ability to collect on bills due immediately. They’ll go bankrupt, sure, but the last thing they need is a government bailout. According to Republican capitalism their wholesale model failed so they need to go bankrupt. If they don’t have enough assets to pay back the customers they shook down then the Feds can step in and pay back those consumers but not before it’s shaken out of every other tree first, the power companies are going to take a loss but DO NOT GIVE A DIME TO GRIDDY or any other companies that engaged in the scheme! They need to fail.

As I understand it Griddy recommended to their customers that they discontinue service with them when they knew the price of energy would spike, but many people probably had more pressing issues on their minds, presuming they had internet access at all. Whatever, the company is toast, nobody will ever sign up with them again (nor should they be allowed to).