Biden’s Energy Dept. Rejected Houston’s Request to Improve Grid a Year Before Hurricane Beryl
CenterPoint’s project would have used the money “to fund high wind and flood mitigation projects.”
President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy rejected Houston’s request to strengthen its energy grid in 2023.
Houston entered day five of power outages after Hurricane Beryl.
Maybe, just maybe, stop concentrating on your fantasy green energy:
CenterPoint Energy sought the money from a new $10.5 billion Department of Energy program that is helping utilities, states and local agencies protect the electric grid from the growing threats of extreme weather and climate change.
“I don’t understand how the grant application could be rejected,” University of Houston energy economist Ed Hirs said. “This is the home of the petrochemical part of America. I mean, for God’s sakes, what’s DOE thinking?”
“A grant to CenterPoint to make the service in and around Houston more resilient is truly a matter of national security,” Hirs said.
CenterPoint has faced criticism for widespread power outages after Hurricane Beryl, a Category 1 storm, hit the area Monday morning, downing electric poles and wires across the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area. CenterPoint said Thursday it had restored power to more than 1.1 million homes and businesses.
But more than 1 million customers remained without electricity as the region sweltered under “extremely dangerous heat conditions,” according to the National Weather Service. A lack of air conditioning “will aggravate the risk for heat-related illnesses,” NWS said, noting that the heat index reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday.
CenterPoint’s project would have used the money “to fund high wind and flood mitigation projects.”
Houstonians have used the Whataburger app as their power outage map since the stores are open 24 hours.
If the location is gray, then power is still out in that area.
CenterPoint hopes to have 80% of its customers back with power by Sunday.
“We’re building significant momentum in our restoration efforts, which is a testament to our crews’ hard work and dedication to restoring power as safely and quickly as possible,” stated Lynnae Wilson, Senior Vice President of Electric Business. “Our first priority is getting the lights back on. At the same time, we have seen firsthand the devastation our neighbors are facing and our commitment to the community goes beyond restoration efforts.”
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Comments
they want texas to go blue AND THENNNN they will help
fjb
Except that Houston is already the bluest sinkhole in Texas.
Home of Soros DA Kim Ogg, mistress of the local revolving door.
This is still popcorn in just about every direction you look.
anything to make the gop ted cruz etc look bad
AEP in Central Ohio has gone to an intense tree trimming program which caused a big rate rise but all but eliminated power outages.
Governor Perry spent more than ten billion dollars on wind mills and solar, money that should have went to fortify the grid. This was way before Biden was elected
Yes, 30% of power from damn useless, bird killing windmills, that don’t work
Man’s do t forget Perry’s toll roads forever around Austin and every major city in Texas they are extremely expensive
I took one beltway, once, to skirt Houston, figuring how much could it cost, in comparison to having to transit through the center of a blue shithole? $32+. I’ve done scenic inter-island skyway bridges for way less.
Still doesn’t explain why the grant was rejected.
1. With the US government subsidizing local.projects, it seems to me that improving Houston’s power grid should have been granted.
2. The bigger question is, why does the US subsidize local projects. That should be a state and local issue, and in fact should be a rate-payer issue, but certainly not a federal issue.
I agree.
Upgrades to Federal Highways should be funded by the feds through the fuel taxes.
However, all local projects should be funded locally or regionally (whether a region of a state or intrastate to a specific area).
Bridges, roads, electric grids, and anything that benefits a state should be paid for through local taxes for those areas.
Hurricane destroys a beachfront property? The state should pay for it unless it’s private property.
Mudslide in California? Not an issue that Georgia taxpayers should pay for.
The best way to deal with this is to have what is currently federal taxes be reduced, and the state can tax for way at they need.
I shouldn’t have to pay for poor decisions of where people live, or for bike paths and greenways. If Seattle wants green projects, then Seattle can pay for it.
It ain’t just roads and local projects either. The states do a lot of things for the feds that aren’t constitutional.
This subject was “settled” back in the day, when Congress rejected federally funding the Erie Canal because it didn’t help “all states” as the constitution required.
But Democrats didn’t like that decision, so they ignored it, starting with tiny projects, then grawing. Today, the feds fund all sorts of unconstitutional stuff in the states, including — ironically — the damn Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal originally benefited five states. It greatly reduced the cost of transportation to Lake Erie. Pennsylvania and Ohio are on Lake Erie, and from Lake Erie a small sailing ship can easily reach Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and Illinois and Indiana, which became states before construction started in 1818. (Michigan and Wisconsin became states later.)
The federal government certainly should not be mucking around in states’ electrical grids, and most certainly not with the claim of “the growing threats of extreme weather and climate change”.
The federal government is not supposed to be running the electric grids around the nation – because we all know how the federal government destroys everything it touches – making it more expensive, less efficient, and taking far longer to do. The federal government has some responsibilities as regards the interstate nature of electric grids – and making that operation regular, but that’s about it.
Texas has already gotten itself and its electric grid into a huge mess from taking all sorts of retarded money “to combat global warming”, where the top petroleum state in the nation is chock full of useless wind and solar “generation”.
“The federal government is not supposed to be running the electric grids around the nation – because we all know how the federal government destroys everything it touches – making it more expensive, less efficient, and taking far longer to do.”
But… but… but… the Tennessee Valley Authority! Don’t you remember how wonderful a thing that was, from your high-school history books, the ones that luvved them some New Deal?
It was wonderful, because before the TVA, some poor people had no electricity, and aftr the TVA, them poor people had some electricity, and all thanks to FDR! How could a big, bad constitution be right to stand in the way of them people getting electricity on your tax money?
Isn’t Hoover Dam out in your neck of the woods? Constitutional issues aside at least the electrification projects were an actual example of govt ‘investment’ that worked v today’s boondoggles. Still though, it would have been nice if the Feds had participated indirectly with back up finance for State led projects, which is kind of a convoluted fig leaf itself.
Hopefully before too long we get a case ripe to gut Wickard and the far too expansive view of the commence clause and all the govt overreach downstream from it.
Your ignorance on display for all to see. TVA is not funded by taxpayers. Federal money was/is loaned to them as well as to electric cooperatives and repayed by customers. Wikipedia is not that hard to use. Type in the url, enter TVA in the search box, and learn a few things. Sheesh…
OOPs, that would be repaid, how embarrassing, I guess I depend on auto-correct too much, but no excuse, dictionary.com is not that hard to use.
Believe what was in my history book way back then, or believe Wikipedia today?
Needless to say, that’s a classic two-button meme right there.
The Federal government isn’t running TVA. They own it but they do NOT fund it. We live on a river downstream from one of their dams and we pay our electric bill to our local electric co-op. TVA is funded by those revenues and other self-generated project revenues.
This is mirrored in California. The government has pushed utilities to spend their money on “green energy”, and they did that by pulling money from maintenance and safety. Result: many wildfires caused by wind taking down powerlines.
I would think the far more likely case is wind taking down a tree which in turn takes down a power line.
Agree with prior posts re the Feds meddling in local/State issues. It always becomes a winners/losers game with the communities/States who are currently on the ‘out’ with the regime getting passed over. Disaster assistance nationwide to assist in the immediate aftermath of a wildfire, flood, hurricane, tornado? Sure. Handing out annual grants of Federal $ to favored localities, companies and industries? Heck no.
If a region contains a national interest (such as petrochemical refinement that occurs in Houston), then it makes sense for the federal government to support it.
This is purely about politics.
Nope. These regions benefit hugely from the economic productivity associated with whatever the ‘draw’ is; Houston petrochemical, State Capitals with govt salaries and renting buildings, NYC finance/tourism. Port cities with fees, payrolls on the dock/ transportation. They can upgrade on their own dime which flow in b/c they have the economic advantage of those industries and pay for the unique disadvantages created by them. We should NOT be in the habit of subsidizing risk via federal tax dollars. IMO what you are calling for is analogous to privatizing profits but moving risk to the wider public b/c the direct economic benefits stay in those areas.
exactly
privatizing profits ( oh look its the free market they will tell you…and lie of course)
but move the risk ( we do this for the good of the people..its our social contract blah blah bullcarp
Centerpoint is a private business. They’re also woke. They’re in the process of retiring several coal generation plants in favor of “renewables”. However, that doesn’t appear to have been the problem here. Depending on government grants to fund updated infrastructure is always a bad bet. In contrast, LCRA which is entirely self-sustaining, is in the process of replacing their old steel transmission towers between Hays County and Comfort with wind/water proof cement towers, paid entirely from internal resources.
Here is an excellent explanation for what has happened, and is continuing to happen, in Texas.
https://judithcurry.com/2021/02/18/assigning-blame-for-the-blackouts-in-texas/
the free market always provides
the fake free market aka gov run /interference will always fail b/c companies in a free market have been stifled by the regulatory commissions ( who they try and pretend are there to help..keep prices lower etc)
They’re mandating EVs and at the very same time, prohibiting utilities from upgrading transmission systems. The stupid burns.
its what lefty does
create chaos and then have the msm make them the heros when they write even more legislation to “help”
You presume that’s not part of the plan. Maybe they don’t want us to be able to travel independently.
I guess house reps from Houston Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green among others don’t have influence they think they have when it comes to getting funding for projects at home.
TBH the old style pork barrel where restless of political party that projects/industries within a CD or State were pushed to bring some ‘tax money back home for the folks’ have in many faded. Today only the favored industries of a particular party get that prior level of support from officeholders of that party. So green and EV is pushed by d/prog while fossil fuels pushed by GoP. Some exceptions still persist but even those seem to be fading away. Frankly this is probably a good thing b/c shutting down dumbass wastes of $ can be done with a political majority v the old days where support for things were bipartisan and votes had to be peeled away rep by rep, Sen by Sen.
GNRC up 3.7% on Friday, nearing its 52 week high.