Texas Progressives talk winter storm aftermath

We've got CPAC detritus, plenty of winter storm aftermath detritus and other thoughts to occupy us for this week's Roundup, so let's dig in. Winter storm items are big enough that we're again splitting the non-COVID version of the Roundup into two at this site.

We've got updates on the likely Kabuki theater by the Lege versus ERCOT and PUC, rural and low-income hits and more. Let's dig in.

• Let's start with the ProPublica/Trib piece that dives deeper into just how fucked-up the Texas electric world is and just how deeply Texas power companies have made it that way. Plus, PP/T rightly blame not just ERCOT and the Public Utilities Commission but the Railroad Commission for not requiring natural-gas power plant suppliers, and the plants involved, to winterize. So, shut the fuck up Wayne Christian.

• Move next to Politico, which focuses on: "Where's Abbott?"

• All the talk about Winter Storm Sucks-ass's effects were centered on urban areas, and it is true that Texas is becoming ever more urban. But, as I can attest, rural Texas is indeed facing the short end of the stick on dealing with the storm's aftermath.

• Also hard hit? School districts that can't reopen due to storm damage. THAT, in turn, as yours truly wrote in an op-ed at his day job, is why UIL should have immediately decided to just shove back boys and girls basketball playoff brackets by a full week.

• SocraticGadfly offers his suggestions for people to fill those vacant "unaffiliated" board positions on ERCOT. 

• Off the Kuff advises you to be more mad at the Public Utility Commission.

• The Lege put both agencies in the hot seat at hearings, but will it ultimately be anything more than kabuki theater? Not if Strangeabbott is only welcoming ERCOT board resignations but not PUC ones. Not if either Abbott or the Lege lets stand ERCOT CEO Bill Magness telling the Lege he wouldn't have changed a thing.

• That's why, per D Magazine, there's four key questions involved.

• Rolling blackouts and other problems from the storm hit low-income residents harder; per the piece, it hit illegal immigrants harder yet. 

That piece is also, to riff on uninformed comments by an alleged "energy expert" Joshua Rhodes that I blogged about last week, also detailed on how public housing is really under-insulated and under-weatherized. But, it notes that it's not JUST public housing either; due to crappy construction, which ALSO affects AC bills, Southern states' residents generally lead the nation in electric costs.

• The Observer also has a roundup of how we got here.

• Chris Hooks has a further roundup at the Monthly, noting that we really got here because a then-bipartisan Lege started us on this road in the late 1990s. I've said this more than once in comments at Kuff's site, that Democraps as well as Rethuglicans brought us here.

• The "National magazine of neoliberal Texas exceptionalism" ignores how El Paso survived the storm so well PRECISELY because it was connected to the Western US grid in making a lying claim that ERCOT's disconnect was not part of the problem. That also was discussed by me in last week's winter storm portion of the Roundup.

• The now-notorious Griddy has been booted from the list of Texas electric providers.

• Texans for Public Justice documents Greg Abbott's reliance on funding from the energy industry. The

• Texas Living Waters Project urges the Legislature to use the current legislative session to address the long-running water infrastructure challenges laid bare by Winter Storm Uri. 

• Jeff Balke lists eight emergency preparedness items you might want to have on hand.