I want to make clear that this push, as gross as it is, is ongoing.
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Originally Posted by Cuepee
I doubt you see any real change.
The way CEO pay and investor return is too often tied to short term gains means there is almost no incentive to fix this very broken system.
They in fact did maximize profits by choosing to NOT reduce profits over the years by making the type of big capital expenditures that nearby El Paso did after the last massively damaging cold spell. They ignored all the reports to do so. And in so doing made lots of profits in those intervening years. El Paso's utilities would have made substantially more too, almost certainly if they ignored the upgrade costs.
Now it might be possible that they would end up giving all those profits back and more, if this incident cost them more to repair and especially if people could sue them for damages and loss of life. But the way the system works and likely gov't enacted liability protections, , and knowing Federal money is now coming in to bail them out, I doubt that.
I would also bet some Federal Money is allocated to upgrade all the facilities meaning they get socialism to cut their losses and then socialism to build their improved infrastructure for tomorrow. And then they get to go back to maximizing their private profits.
People need to understand how this incentives 'worst practices' and not bets practices. True 'moral hazard'.
Neighbouring El Paso takes money that would otherwise go towards the bottom line to protect their assets. This reduces profits short term but has potential to pay back, over time due to less down time and repair costs.
The rest of Texas says 'nope' and instead without those costs enjoy greater short term profits, then they otherwise would, and many make record profits during the Storm and outage time.
When it comes to where the Short Term profit choice, by the utilities could really hurt their bottom line, as they have to repair and maybe finally upgrade, they instead use the Storm to advocate for the Federal Gov't and State to provide them bailout money, to cover their costs and rebuild their infrastructure for the future.
This is about as clear an example of the free market desire to keep all profits and socialize all losses and costs.
Texas formed its own power grid to escape federal regulation. Now Sen. John Cornyn thinks it should be bailed out anyway
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn announced Thursday that he is working on legislation to help weatherize the Texas electrical grid by creating a new federal grant program at the Department of Energy.
Texas has a grid of its own that enables it to avoid federal rules and regulations, a point that Cornyn acknowledged would bring criticism of the state seeking federal money. But the senior Republican senator of Texas argued the funding was necessary to make sure the widespread outages that let millions in the dark and freezing cold do not happen again.
“Our grid is part of critical infrastructure,” he said. “It has an impact on the entire economy and national security.” The plan he intends to introduce in Congress, he said, is “not Texas-specific.”...
...“My administration will be there every step of the way with you,” Biden said.
Cornyn does not have a dollar amount yet for the proposed grid weatherization program but said that it will be modeled on the Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program, which provides funding for low income households to weatherize their homes.