Workers repair a power line in Austin, Texas, USA, on Wednesday, February 18, 2021.
Thomas Ryan Allison | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Sunday called on the state of Texas to pay the huge electricity bills reported by dozens of jeans after the severe winter weather destroyed energy and raised energy prices .
Last week’s cold conditions caused major grid failures and increased demand that left millions of people without heat and electricity. Now, as energy picks up in most of Texas, some households are facing utility bills of up to $ 10,000.
“For people who receive these exorbitant electric bills and have to pay to repair their homes, they shouldn’t have to take responsibility,” Turner said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “These exorbitant costs should be borne by the state of Texas and not by private customers who did not cause this catastrophe this week.”
The high utility bills in Texas are due to the state’s unregulated power grid that is nearly cut off from the rest of the country. In the market-driven system, customers choose their own energy suppliers. In many cases, when demand increases, so do prices.
The Texas Electrical Reliability Council (ERCOT), which manages energy for about 90% of the state, was unprepared for cold conditions and increased energy demand when people tried to heat up. their houses.
“Everything that happened last week was predictable and preventable. Our system in Texas is designed for the summer heat and not necessarily for a winter event,” Turner said.
“Climate change is real and these big storms can happen at any time,” he added. “These systems need to be weathered … we need to open up the Texas network.”
The exorbitant laws prompted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to hold an emergency meeting with lawmakers to discuss how the state can reduce the burden on consumers.
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“We have a responsibility to protect jeans from rising energy bills that are the result of intense winter weather and power outages,” Abbott said in a statement after the meeting.
“We are making rapid progress to alleviate this problem and will continue to work collaboratively throughout this week on solutions to help Texas families and ensure they don’t get caught up with skyrocketing energy bills,” Abbott added.
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Sunday during an interview with CNN that the state will use federal government disaster relief funding to support customers with high utility payments.
After more than 3 million people in Texas lost power last week, ERCOT said it returned to normal conditions and restored power to millions of customers. More than 30,000 people in Texas still had no electricity at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, according to recent PowerOutage.us data.
According to the Texas Environmental Quality Commission, more than 1,300 public water systems were affected by the extreme weather and more than 15 million people were under orders on Saturday to boil water.
President Joe Biden on Saturday approved a major disaster statement for 77 Texas counties, which unblocked federal aid for jeans, temporary housing subsidies and low-cost home repairs and loans to cover property losses uninsured. The state’s goal is for the 254 counties to finally be under the declaration.