{"id":21109,"date":"2021-02-24T14:37:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T14:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=21109"},"modified":"2021-02-24T14:37:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T14:37:28","slug":"in-depth-look-at-how-corporations-trumped-regulators-in-tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=21109","title":{"rendered":"In Depth Look at How Corporations Trumped Regulators in TX"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.texasobserver.org\/power-companies-get-exactly-what-they-want-how-texas-repeatedly-failed-to-protect-its-power-grid-against-extreme-weather\/\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Observer<\/a>: &#8220;Experts hired by the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees the state\u2019s electric and water utilities,\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/lrl.texas.gov\/scanned\/SIRSI\/PUC_report_39646.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">concluded<\/a>\u00a0that power-generating companies like Luminant had failed to understand the \u201ccritical failure points\u201d that could cause equipment to stop working in cold weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In May 2014, the PUC sought changes that would require energy companies to identify and address all potential failure points, including any effects of \u201cweather design limits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luminant argued against&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.puc.texas.gov\/agency\/rulesnlaws\/subrules\/electric\/25.53\/39160pub.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In comments to the commission, the company said the requirement was unnecessary and \u201cmay or may not identify the \u2018weak links\u2019 in protections against extreme temperatures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEach weather event [is] dynamic,\u201d company representatives told regulators. \u201cAny engineering analysis that attempted to identify a specific weather design limit would be rendered meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the end of the process, the PUC agreed to soften the proposed changes. Instead of identifying all possible failure points in their equipment, power companies would need only to address any that were previously known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The change, which experts say has left Texas power plants more susceptible to the kind of extreme and deadly weather events that bore down on the state last week, is one in a series of cascading failures to shield the state\u2019s electric grid from winter storms, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Texas Observer: &#8220;Experts hired by the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees the state\u2019s electric and water utilities,\u00a0concluded\u00a0that power-generating companies like Luminant had failed to understand the \u201ccritical failure points\u201d that could cause equipment to stop working in cold weather. In May 2014, the PUC sought changes that would require energy companies to identify and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21110,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21109\/revisions\/21110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}