Texan Lt. Governor Dan Patrick blames constituents for giant electric bills: "Read the fine print"

Source: https://www.puc.texas.gov/

They are investigating this and planning to discuss it in an open meeting on March 3, 2021.

 

I disagree. Gas and electricity are vital resources. Given the choice, the free market will choose profit over safety and even life. This is all too obvious here. The state's failure at deregulation is what needs to be front and center, but if you want to gamble your money, go to Vegas or hit up your stock broker.

It would be nice if we didn't need a nanny state, but we do. If we allow people to mortgage their child's future by gambling with the power bill, some inevitably will. People are already hurting in the pandemic economy. Most don't have a spare 9 grand to keep the power on. So, who pays?

My state, and I'm sure others, has a public utilities commission. The utility companies are privately owned and profitable. Rate increase requests are submitted by the companies and controlled by the commission. NVEnergy gets most of the increases they request, and they stay profitable and reliable. Minor outages, mostly weather related, last less than an hour and are few in between. Nobody has to worry about selling the truck to pay the power bill. You can call it nanny state or whatever you want, I'll stick with not needing space in my brain for rolling craps on my stinkin' power bill.

 

Because he is commenting on the private contracts these Texans signed.

They are private deregulated companies.

 

They are free people who made free choices.

 

I am a believer in regulations - so you aren't speaking to 'me'. But I commend you for calling out the folks who hold themselves as traditional conservatives/libertarians and are now criticizing the situation in Texas.

 

Freedom and liberty that makes all our lives a lot harder is stupid, particularly if the freedom is the freedom to starve for me and the freedom of someone else to make big bucks off my starving. The Constitution is not a suicide pact as the saying goes. I believe in GOOD government, small or large is irrelevant.

 

In Germany you can 'shop around' for your utility provider, which may be just about anywhere in Europe! The rates can vary quite a lot, and people make their choices accordingly. But I'm not aware of any EU provision that simply pays everybody's utility bills unless there's some hell of a big tax on nearly everybody that offsets it.

In Texas, it is legal for people to contract with a utility company for much lower rates on a 'variable' basis. Those contracts are entered into willingly and they are binding. There's no such thing as a 'free lunch'. People who sign contracts should understand what they're doing....

A 'weather event' like they had in Texas may occur only once every 20 or 30 years -- BUT -- they DO happen!

 

Contracts that are deceptive or misleading are illegal and unenforceable.

 

Nice slogan. Who pays? Wanna bet it ends up being you and me? What happens to the customers' accounts and service?

If you don't pay your power bill here, the service is shut off, and your account is frozen until the bill is paid. With an average middle-of-winter bill ~$150/mo. for a 3 bedroom house, most people have no issues with payment. For those that do, there is assistance both from the county and the companies. We do everything we can to achieve a goal of a smooth running economy, like the other sane states. Part of that is making sure people can pay their bills. Price regulation is essential at achieving this. And this is a choice we make, as residents of our state.

What happens to these TX customers who can't pay? A single guy can probably skip out on his bill and find a way around it, but what does a family do? Move in with other family members?

You can view this as individual choices, which they are, but the repercussions of these choices affect all of us.

 

Those are considerations for those who make the choices, not for anyone else. If you don't pay your bill you lose your power. How people cope with that loss is their responsibility.

 

I think they should be given aid, but should have to pay the money back eventually. It's unfair for federal dollars to be used drive the profits of these private companies who operate in a deregulated industry.

 

It doesn't appear you read my post. You keep treating this like a used car purchase. Oh well. Do you live in Texas?

You still haven't answered my question. Who pays? What do you think happens if the companies have to eat the losses?

 

I do not live in Texas. I did not reply to parts of your post because I don't think they're important. There are well-developed procedures to collect or write off bad debts. Beyond that, I don't care "who pays."

 

Alright. When you care to make a point, let me know.

 

I have made my point. People chose their power delivery terms. They owe the money for which those terms call. There is nothing more to discuss.

 

Price-gouging during a disaster emergency is illegal in Texas.

If you are a gas station owner in a hurricane disaster area, it's illegal to price-gouge by radically raising prices.

The recent winter weather disaster was no different... except the elite were price-gouging natural gas.

See related news articles:

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-u...e-gouging-as-state-faces-food-water-shortages

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/20/big-oil-gas-cashes-in-on-jackpot-as-millions-of-people-freeze/

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It is not price gouging if the terms were spelled out in an agreement freely signed by the customer.

 

is this run by the State?

"But when the Texas power crisis hit, the state’s Public Utilities Commission raised the cap on electricity prices to $9 per kilowatt-hour, leaving many people with completely insane bills to pay. "

 

Electric companies refused to take personal responsibility and caused this outage, they should be sued, make this cost them - the tax payers should not pay for their greed

 

Of course legally the consumer is responsible for his own agreements. Of course if you apply the 'reasonable man' test would anyone be expected to assume that prices for electricity could jump 1000 percent. I saw a story that some people had contracts that jumped the price every fee hours. I do not like have a Nanny State but it still appears to me that there should be more requirements telling people that the possibility exists that with these companies buy power on the spot that there is no limit on how high cost increases can go. That is not Nanny State-ism that is called full disclosure.

If states did that then yes a governor or a wannabe governor can then say "you should have read the disclosure statement even if it is only in #1 sized font".

 

I'm not sure the price gouging laws apply to energy contracts.

Like I said in my first reply, Texans need to rethink some things. If the people of Texas want their own unregulated grid, that is their right. After this, it's hard to believe they will. But we have to acknowledge that this isn't just millions of people making individual choices - we're not talking about breakfast - this is the system. Not only is everyone on the grid affected, but those other areas and states (El Paso, for example) who depend on commerce from those on the grid suffer as well.

Gas and electricity are vital resources, to our economy and national security. The power company isn't K-Mart. It can't fail. Texans need to have a long talk with themselves, and decide whether modernity can co-exist with a traditional sense of independence.

 

That's true. However, many people don't understand variable rates. I've worked in finance and it shocked me how many people (even some professionals) don't know how to not spend more than they earn. Many just skip over the details and ask "What is my monthly payment going to be?" I'm not saying that as an excuse but to point out that it's not entirely unreasonable that these people never expected Texas to freeze over and several days with no power and price gouging. Yes, they should have heeded the warnings but they didn't and here we are.

And, while I can sympathize with the Texans impacted by all this, I am hesitant to say that this is a bill that should fall on the rest of the country solely. Maybe the PUC (Public Utility Commission) in Texas can come up with something that doesn't leave people without power (for non-payment of services) and a fair and reasonable rate adjustment for the utility company(ies). I don't know how that would work but it has to be better than countless people having their credit destroyed, no way to obtain new electric service and potential homelessness.

 

The higher cost of natural gas/electricity will be affecting most everyone and not just Texas.

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I doubt that, but even so, so what?

 

Customers took the responsibility when they signed the agreements. The consequences are their own.
A reasonable inference in all this is that the point of the high rates was not to gouge customers, but to incentivize reduced power consumption.