A panel of judges has said that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the 2021 blackout. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.

The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.

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This week, Chief Justice Terry Adams issued the unanimous opinion of that panel that “Texas does not currently recognize a legal duty owed by wholesale power generators to retail customers to provide continuous electricity to the electric grid, and ultimately to the retail customers.”

The opinion states that big power generators “are now statutorily precluded by the legislature from having any direct relationship with retail customers of electricity.”

  • Zorque@kbin.social
    72·
    11 months ago

    Someone has to own the actual delivery infrastructure,

    Do they, though? I hear there’s this neat thing called “public ownership” that works wonders for basic necessities like utilities. And that way you don’t have someone scheming to profit off the things you need to stay alive.

    • Uranium3006@kbin.social
      61·
      11 months ago

      During the Great privatization scam we are promised that the free market would somehow be magically more efficient but it turns out it was a just so they could show profit Hearing in the middle of stuff that had previously been free of it. Worst service and higher prices were universally the result because those profits have to come from somewhere and that’somewhere is you

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.comEnglish
      2·
      11 months ago

      There are lots of examples of private companies working well as regulated monopolies. The key word is “regulated”, though.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
      13·
      11 months ago

      I mean, that isn’t incompatible with this system at all. Government ownership of the delivery system, which I’d fully agree is a good thing and one of the places where state ownership naturally fits, is still ownership.

      The government generally isn’t in the energy production business, so either they lock you into a monopoly with an energy producer, or you get to choose one. Either way, it’s the same general system.