It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, February 22, 2021
Ted Cruz buried under avalanche of scorn for 'sad' photo-op to prove he cares about storm-ravaged Texans
In what can only be described as a desperate attempt at damage control after being busted for flying off to sunny Cancun while his constituents were freezing in storm-ravaged Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) posted pictures of himself loading water into cars on Twitter Saturday night with the hashtag #TexasStrong.
Cruz has taken a beating from both sides of the aisle for accompanying his family for a quickie vacation as Texans statewide were trying to survive without water and heat in the freezing cold, and has since apologized. Cruz has also been shown up by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who raised millions for struggling Texans and then flew down to the state to help with relief efforts.
Needless to say, few on Twitter were buying what Cruz was selling and they let him know it -- as you can see below:
00:2202:03
Houston mayor says Texas should pay some consumers’ massive utility bills
Published: Feb. 21, 2021
By Mike Murphy Sen. Ted 'CANCUN' Cruz calls for regulation, governor forces halt to utility bills
Icicles hang off the a sign on State Highway 195 Killeen, Texas, on Thursday. GETTY IMAGES
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Sunday that the state of Texas should pay the massive utility bills some Texas consumers are facing following last week’s historic winter storm that knocked out power and sent energy prices skyrocketing.
“For people getting these exorbitant electricity bills and having to pay to repair their homes, they should not have to bear the responsibility,” Turner said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Those exorbitant costs should be borne by the state of Texas and not the individual customers who did not cause this catastrophe this week.”
Some customers in Texas’ deregulated energy market were shocked to see they had been charged thousands — even tens of thousands — of dollars for energy use over the past week. One man was charged $16,752 on his electricity bill, the New York Times reported, about 70 times the amount of his usual bill.
Utility companies were able to charge more because of massive demand during the cold weather as supplies were severely constrained due to closed roads and downed power lines, sending wholesale energy prices through the roof.
Last week, CFO Roland Burns of Texas natural-gas company Comstock Resources Inc. CRK, +3.50% drew ire during an earnings call, saying “This week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices.”
Houston’s mayor is not the only politician saying consumers should not be on the hook for the massive bills.
“This is WRONG,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, tweeted Sunday. “No power company should get a windfall because of a natural disaster, and Texans shouldn’t get hammered by ridiculous rate increases for last week’s energy debacle. State and local regulators should act swiftly to prevent this injustice.” Cruz had previously been an outspoken advocate of Texas’ energy system.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot on Sunday barred utility companies from billing customers or cutting off power for non-payment following an emergency meeting with state lawmakers, the Texas Tribune reported.
“Texans who have suffered through days of freezing cold without power should not be subjected to skyrocketing energy bills,” Abbott said Sunday in San Antonio, adding that the billing moratorium will give the state time to figure out a way to protect consumers.
While the cold snap has broken — Houston hit a high of 69 on Sunday — some areas of Texas were still without power, and water shortages persist across the state after ice ruptured water mains. At least 76 deaths across multiple states have been blamed on the winter storm.
Gas Traders Pleaded for Cash as Texas Cold Upended Their Market Naureen Malik, Gerson Freitas Jr, Michael Tobin and Rachel Morison Sun, February 21, 2021,
(Bloomberg) -- The urgent phone calls came over the holiday weekend: traders of natural gas needed more money, and fast.
Temperatures were starting to plummet across the central U.S. Prices for the heating fuel had skyrocketed 300-fold to levels nobody had thought possible. This would later prove to be the precursor of one of the worst energy crises the nation had seen, plunging millions into darkness for days amid a deadly deep freeze. But on Saturday, traders in the relatively small and obscure world that is the physical gas market were singularly focused on one very big problem: exchanges were demanding more collateral because of the volatility. The traders had until Tuesday to come up with the cash or else they’d be forced to exit their positions and, in some cases, face potentially catastrophic losses.
The dire situation triggered a frenzy of round-the-clock meetings. One group of traders convened their first Saturday morning conference call since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The public holiday on Monday meant U.S. banks were closed, so -- desperate for money -- some market players turned to European parent companies that could deliver so-called margin payments on their behalf to the exchanges sooner. The cash showed up in different currencies, but it did the trick.
“I’ve been through a lot: The ‘98 and ‘99 power spikes in the Midwest, the California crisis” of 2000-2001, said Cody Moore, head of gas and power trading at Mercuria Energy America. “Nothing was as broadly shocking as this week.” One gas trader said in a message over the weekend his head was “still spinning.” Brian Lavertu, a trader in Texas’ power market, predicted prices were about to go “wild.”
That turned out to be an understatement. In what will go down as one of the most remarkable weeks in power and gas market history, gas soared as high as $1,250 per million British thermal units in some locations, electricity in Texas surged to its $9,000-per-megawatt-hour price cap and the state’s grid operator ordered the country’s biggest-ever forced blackout as the cold pushed its system to the brink of total collapse. Winners will emerge -- like Jerry Jones, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, whose gas company sold some fuel for high premiums. There will most undoubtedly be losers. Atmos Energy Corp., one of the largest independent suppliers of gas in the U.S., revealed Friday it’s looking to raise cash after committing to spend as much as $3.5 billion to secure fuel during the freeze. The company said it’s “evaluating a number of financing alternatives including available cash, short-term debt, long-term debt, and equity.” The markets may never be the same.
The world of physical gas is dominated by industrial buyers and sellers, trading firms and the odd hedge fund. The action revolves around matching demand in one corner of the vast U.S. energy network with supply in another. Players obsess over the weather that drives demand -- air-conditioning in the summer, heating in the winter. Related: The Two Hours That Nearly Destroyed Texas’s Electric Grid
Gas trader Paul Phillips and his team at Denver-based Uplift Energy spent the week before last focused on the big freeze that had yet to reach Texas. Uplift advises gas producers, for a fee, on how to get the best price. It told clients to get ready.
Despite the mounting concern, benchmark Nymex futures -- the deepest, most liquid market for gas -- were relatively stable at just under $3 per million BTUs.
Futures, as their name implies, reflect expectations for future supply and demand -- in this particular case, out to March and beyond, but not the looming weekend. Instead it was in the spot market, where gas is bought and sold for immediate delivery, that the alarm started ringing.
Spot prices at the Oneok delivery hub in Oklahoma, for example, which had mostly been trading at a small but steady discount to Nymex, moved sharply higher on Wednesday, Feb. 10, to settle at $9. On Thursday they hit $60. By Friday, they briefly surpassed $500, a level previously undreamed of.
Physical gas sales contracts can require the buyer or seller to pledge collateral, such as a letter of credit, a kind of insurance in case bets go awry or if a company has a liquidity issue. Price gains typically mean more collateral, or margin, is needed.
But the spot gas price spikes now being seen were triggering truly outsized demands: According to one trader, a small market participant with a margin requirement of $100,000 saw that balloon to $1 million. Larger companies had to find tens of millions of dollars. Many spot gas trades are conducted via next-day contracts on Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which boosted its margin requirements.
After the market closed Friday, stunned traders scrambled to work out how much additional funds they would need to set aside for the following week. Some trading houses were extremely nervous. An executive at one said he was worried that some counterparties could go bust and leave his firm with positions to fill on the spot market.
There were also more practical considerations as the weather closed in. Mercuria made the decision to book hotel rooms for some of its Houston employees so they could avoid driving in icy conditions. “This is an exceptional time and our first priority was to do whatever we can to keep the grid moving, the gas flowing properly,” Mercuria’s Moore said.
Meanwhile key pieces of Texas’ energy infrastructure began to fail. Oil and gas wells stopped producing as liquids froze in pipes. By the night of Sunday, Feb. 14, it was apparent that Ercot, which oversees Texas’ power grid, might have to implement rolling blackouts.
Some traders looking to raise more collateral urgently tapped credit lines, while lenders sprang into action. One bank was able to extend credit facilities by $500 million and have them in place when the markets reopened, according to a person working there. Other lenders also took similar action, according to other people with knowledge of the situation. “Nobody wanted to trade a liquidity event, so they stepped up,” one banker said.
By the morning of Tuesday last week, Texas was plunged into an unprecedented energy crisis, with Ercot unable to restore most of the grid. As markets reopened, some traders liquidated their positions, unable to post the additional margin. “If you want to play, you’ve got to pay,” said John Kilduff, trader and founding partner at Again Capital. “It’s a mechanism to wring out excessive speculation.”
For those still in the game, the wild ride continued. By Wednesday, spot prices had surged at Henry Hub in Louisiana, the delivery benchmark for Nymex futures, while rates at Oneok touched $1,250.
Working from home, Phillips and his co-workers at Uplift saw orders filled in the Western Rockies at prices as high as $350. “I thought maybe the highest we could get was $20 this week, to be honest,” he said.
Some of Uplift’s clients were doing everything they could to keep the gas flowing at this point amid the frigid temperatures, using space blankets and portable heaters to stop pipes from freezing. “Some of our producer clients felt morally obligated that the gas was flowing,” Phillips said. In Oklahoma, Chris Bird’s company Exponent Energy, was using similarly improvised measures, including a propane gas torch, to keep its gas wells from freezing. In just five days, Exponent’s wells in Osage County raked in about $3 million of revenue, compared with around $800,000 for the whole of last year.
As awareness grew of the sky-high cost of gas, outrage grew, even within the gas market. Some observers questioned why fuel was still flowing to liquefied natural gas export terminals when power was still down for millions of Texans.
“What is happening is a disgusting price-gouging that we have not seen since the California energy crisis,” said John Woods, an independent trader, referring to the spot prices. “Texas should ban the export of fuel.”
By late afternoon Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced during a televised address that he had stopped the shipment of gas from the state.
That created a fresh wave of panic in the market. Traders frantically sought clarification on how the order would be enforced. One trader on the West Coast who had been working around the clock lost $1 million within minutes, having earlier bought a gas swap priced at $20 -- essentially betting on continued supply constraints in Texas -- only to see the price fall to $12 immediately after news of Abbott’s order broke.
At the peak of the power outages, close to 4 million Texans were cut off, but by Thursday Ercot was having more success in reconnecting homes and businesses, and temperatures were beginning to recover. Gas supplies rebounded, too, and spot prices plunged. Oneok rates fell back to settle on Friday at $3.56 and Ercot ended emergency conditions.
While gas prices are almost back to where they started, the full repercussions of the wild ride will likely take a while to emerge. The hasty curbs on Texan exports may jeopardize the perception of how reliable U.S. LNG supplies could be in the future, said Katie Bays, managing director at FiscalNote Markets. Some financial losses in the U.S. market may only emerge toward the end of March, when billing comes due for February. Serious financial damage may end up raising the barriers for entry to the market, which in turn could reduce the amount of competition, said Kilduff at Again Capital.
“We’ll have to see what kind of defaults come to the surface,” he said. “That will dictate who can stay in.”
(Updates with details of Atmos Energy’s gas spending commitments in seventh paragraph)
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Donald Trump’s former economic adviser has claimed that the Texas winter storm power outages are “the consequences” of Joe Biden being in the White House.
Millions of residents of the Lone Star state were left without power, heat and water after it was pummeled by the record-breaking freeze.
Mr Kudlow was happy to blame it on Mr Biden, who has been president for one month, but he did not try and explain how the president had caused the unprecedented grid failure.
“I think they’ve moved very rapidly toward the progressive left position on a lot of these issues,” Mr Kudlow said of the Biden administration on Fox News.
“He tried to temper it with talk about unity. There was some talk about moving to the center, that there would be more balance, there wouldn’t be a far-left progressive agenda.
“Unfortunately in the early weeks - what, we’ve got a month here - it has been a left, progressive agenda.
“He’s gone after the energy sector. You saw some of the consequences in Texas. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Anger over huge power bills for Texas residents after storm
Millions of Texans were still without safe water on Sunday as officials fielded angry complaints over shockingly large power bills spawned by a cold weather crisis that Houston's mayor said was ultimately preventable.
The frigid air mass that paralysed parts of the southern and central United States early in the week claimed more than 70 lives, left millions temporarily without power and froze water lines.
"All of what happened this week was foreseeable and preventable," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told CBS's "Face the Nation," saying it had long been clear that the independent electric grid in Texas was vulnerable to extreme weather.
Turner said Houston, the fourth-largest US city, still needed both plumbing supplies and plumbers, but was making progress in restoring service.
Both Houston and nearby Galveston on Sunday lifted orders for residents to boil drinking water.
But some 28,000 households remained without electricity on Sunday, the poweroutage.us website said, and many Texans were suffering an added insult: residential electric bills sometimes running into the thousands of dollars, with one as high as $16,000.
While most of the state's utility customers are on fixed-rate plans, some had signed up to variable-rate plans that can save money in fair weather but produce explosive increases in frigid temperatures.
Governor Greg Abbott met with legislators of both parties Saturday to discuss the billing problem and said, "We have a responsibility to protect Texans from spikes in their energy bills."
For his part, Turner said "those exorbitant costs (should be) borne by the state of Texas, and not the individual consumers who did not cause this catastrophe."
President Joe Biden on Saturday issued a major-disaster declaration for much of the state, providing badly needed financial and administrative aid.
His spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Sunday that Biden hoped to visit Texas "as early as this week" if he could do so without interfering with recovery efforts.
Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas, said the financial impact of the weather crisis could equal that of Hurricane Harvey, a devastating 2017 storm that caused an estimated $125 billion in damages.
He said Biden's emergency declaration could provide funds to help users pay their exorbitant electric bills.
State and local officials have demanded investigations of how the power crisis unfolded so disastrously.
A US senator, Tina Smith, a Democrat of Minnesota, has called for a federal investigation. She said spot prices of natural gas had spiked by up to 100 times normal rates, and utilities passed the higher rates on to customers.
(AFP)
Family of 11-Year-Old Boy Who Died Amid Texas Blackouts Suing Electrical Grid Operator That Has Sovereign Immunity
The private electric grid operator ERCOT has sovereign immunity, but this is not stopping some Texans from suing them amid the devastating winter blackouts. Case in point, there is the family of 11-year-old Conroe boy Christian Pavon. They said they found him dead on Tuesday after their mobile home was hit with freezing temperatures.
ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) has been slammed with criticism as planned rolling blackouts lasted way longer than expected, leaving millions of Texans exposed to frigid conditions without power for extended periods of time. Dozens died amid these temperatures.
Power company Entergy is a co-defendant in the Pavon complaint.
“And other suits will come,” family attorney Tony Buzbee told KTRK in a Saturday interview. “These decisions, which led to deaths, were made based on profit, not welfare of people. People died. ERCOT and the electrical providers like Entergy must account.”
In the complaint, Pavon’s family seeks more than $100 million plus court costs.
They have said that the home lost power on Sunday, according to KHOU. Video showed Christian played in snow for the first and last time ever on Monday. His stepfather said he checked in him early Tuesday.
“It was like 2 a.m. when my brother-in-law woke up to use the restroom and made sure he even put another blanket on them,” Christian’s aunt Jaliza Yera said.
She said her nephew had had a shirt, sweater, two pairs of pants, and socks when he had first gone to sleep.
The family made the tragic discovery that afternoon. It was not unusual for Christian to sleep in when he was off from school. They tried to wake him up.
Pavon’s autopsy is pending, but the family suggests that the child, who had no medical conditions, died of hypothermia. A GoFundMe to return his body to Honduras has raised $84,479 of a $5,000 goal as of Sunday.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community,” Entergy said in a statement obtained by KHOU. They otherwise declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
ERCOT voiced sympathy for Texans suffering in recent days, but otherwise referenced their stance that their response to the cold snap was appropriate.
“We haven’t yet reviewed the lawsuits and will respond accordingly once we do,” they said. “Our thoughts are with all Texans who have and are suffering due to this past week. However, because approximately 46% of privately-owned generation tripped offline this past Monday morning, we are confident that our grid operators made the right choice to avoid a statewide blackout.”
Their officials have said grid operators chose to cut power on Monday as plants tripped offline due to the cold. They maintained this decision saved the infrastructure from months of uncontrolled blackouts.
Texas’ power grid has been subject to intense nationwide scrutiny in recent days, with officials facing criticism that they failed to winterize the grid. Such an argument at the core of a complaint by Texas man Donald McCarley. Texas had seen similar weather in recent decades dating back to 1989, the complaint stated. ERCOT and power companies should have been prepared for that happened this month.
[Screengrab via the family of Christian Pavon, and KHOU]
Myanmar protests swell after junta warns demonstrators could die
Myanmar's security forces have been unable to stop more than two weeks of daily protests and a civil disobedience movement demanding the reversal of the military coup and the release of detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Protesters hold up three finger salute as they pray for Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing at a cemetery during her funeral service, following her death after being shot at a rally against the military coup, in Naypyidaw on February 21, 2021. (AFP)
Protesters have gathered in Myanmar’s biggest city despite the ruling junta’s thinly veiled threat to use lethal force if people answered a call for a general strike opposing the military takeover three weeks ago.
Much of Myanmar has been in uproar over the generals ousting and detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi three weeks ago.
Despite roadblocks around the US Embassy in Yangon, more than a thousand protesters gathered there on Monday, while 20 military trucks with riot police had arrived nearby.
The crowds were gathering after supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement, a loosely organised group leading the resistance, called for people to unite on Monday's date for a “Spring Revolution.”
The junta warned against the general strike in a public announcement carried last Sunday on state television broadcaster MRTV.
“It is found that the protesters have raised their incitement towards riot and anarchy mob on the day of 22 February. Protesters are now inciting the people, especially emotional teenagers and youths, to a confrontation path where they will suffer the loss of life,” the onscreen text said in English, replicating the spoken announcement in Burmese.
The junta's statement also blamed criminals for past protest violence, with the result that “the security force members had to fire back.” Three protesters have been shot dead so far.
The protest movement has embraced nonviolence and only occasionally gotten into shoving matches with police and thrown bottles at them when provoked.
The warning followed the deadliest weekend since the coup – two people were killed when security forces fired at protesters in the city of Mandalay, and a third man was shot dead in Yangon.
A young woman also died on Friday after being shot in the head at a protest and spending almost a fortnight on life support.
They, woman whose funeral was held on Sunday, was the first confirmed fatality of the protests, and she has emerged as a potent symbol of the anti-junta movement.
An injured man is carried by rescue workers after protests against the military coup, in Mandalay, Myanmar, February 20, 2021. (Reuters)
'Flagrant interference'
Myanmar's generals have responded to the uprising by ramping up gradually ratcheting up the use of force, and the number of political prisoners.
Troops and police have used rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon and even live rounds on occasion.
Authorities have detained 640 people since the coup, according to the monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Those targeted include railway workers, civil servants and bank staff who have walked off their jobs as part of the anti-coup campaign.
The junta has also severely curbed internet access overnight for eight straight days, according to the monitoring group NetBlocks.
Myanmar's foreign ministry on Sunday justified its use of force against protesters, and accused the United Nations and other governments of "flagrant interference" in the country's internal affairs.
"Despite facing the unlawful demonstrations, incitements of unrest and violence, the authorities concerned are exercising utmost restraint through minimum use of force to address the disturbances," it said in a statement.
The United States, Canada and Britain have imposed sanctions on the generals running Myanmar.
The United States warned again on Sunday of increased pressure.
"The United States will continue to take firm action against those who perpetrate violence against the people of Burma as they demand the restoration of their democratically elected government," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken tweeted Sunday.
European Union foreign ministers are expected to meet Monday to approve their own sanctions against Myanmar's generals.
Huge crowds in Myanmar undeterred by worst day of violence
(Reuters) - Huge crowds marched in Myanmar on Sunday to denounce a Feb. 1 military coup in a show of defiance after the bloodiest episode of the campaign for democracy the previous day, when security forces fired on protesters, killing two.
The military has been unable to quell the demonstrations and a civil disobedience campaign of strikes against the coup and the detention of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others, even with a promise of new elections and stern warnings against dissent.
Tens of thousands of people massed peacefully in the second city of Mandalay, where Saturday’s killings took place, witnesses said.
“They aimed at the heads of unarmed civilians. They aimed at our future,” a young protester told the crowd.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that despite “unlawful demonstrations, incitements of unrest and violence, the authorities concerned are exercising utmost restraint through minimum use of force to address the disturbances”, adding they were maintaining public safety in line with domestic laws and international practices.
In the main city of Yangon, thousands of mostly young people gathered at different sites to chant slogans and sing.
“Us young people have our dreams but this military coup has created so many obstacles,” said Ko Pay in Yangon. “That’s why we come out to the front of the protests.”
In Myitkyina in the north, people laid flowers for the dead protesters. Big crowds marched in the central towns of Monywa and Bagan, in Dawei and Myeik in the south, Myawaddy in the east and Lashio in the northeast, posted pictures showed.
At the tourist spot of Inle Lake, people including Buddhist monks took to a flotilla of boats holding aloft portraits of Suu Kyi and signs saying “military coup - end”.
The more than two weeks of protests had been largely peaceful until Saturday, unlike previous episodes of opposition during nearly half a century of direct military rule to 2011.
The violence looked unlikely to end the agitation.
“The number of people will increase ... We won’t stop,” protester Yin Nyein Hmway said in Yangon.
Several Western countries that have condemned the coup decried the violence against protesters.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the United States was “deeply concerned”. France, Singapore, Britain and Germany also condemned the violence and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said lethal force was unacceptable.
Sunday’s Foreign Ministry statement reiterated the junta’s stance that the takeover was constitutional and said remarks by some embassies and foreign countries “are tantamount to flagrant interference in internal affairs of Myanmar”.
Military spokesman Zaw Min Tun has not responded to attempts by Reuters to contact him by telephone for comment.
‘AGGRESSIVE PROTESTERS’
The trouble in Mandalay began with confrontations between the security forces and striking shipyard workers.
Video clips on social media showed members of the security forces firing at protesters and witnesses said they found the spent cartridges of live rounds.
U.N. Special Rapporteur for Myanmar Tom Andrews said he was horrified by the deaths of the two, one of them a teenaged boy.
“From water cannons to rubber bullets to tear gas and now hardened troops firing point blank at peaceful protesters. This madness must end, now,” he said on Twitter.
The state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the strikers sabotaged boats at the city’s river port and attacked police with sticks, knives and catapults. Eight policemen and several soldiers were injured, it said.
“Some of the aggressive protesters were also injured due to the security measures conducted by the security force in accordance with the law,” the newspaper said without mentioning the deaths.
Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) called the violence by security forces in Mandalay a crime against humanity.
In an announcement on state-owned media MRTV late on Sunday, authorities said that by planning a big demonstration on Monday, protesters were inciting anarchy and pushing young people towards a path of confrontation “where they will suffer the loss of life”. FUNERAL FOR PROTESTER
A young woman protester, Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, became the first death among the demonstrators on Friday. She was shot in the head on Feb. 9 in the capital Naypyitaw.
Hundreds of people attended her funeral on Sunday.
Military media said the bullet that killed her did not come from any gun used by police and so must have been fired by an “external weapon”.
The army says one policeman has died of injuries sustained in a protest.
The army seized power after alleging fraud in Nov. 8 elections that the NLD swept, detaining Suu Kyi and others. The electoral commission dismissed the fraud complaints.
Facebook deleted the military’s main page for repeated violations of its standards “prohibiting incitement of violence and coordinating harm”.
A rights group said 569 people have been detained in connection with the coup.
Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Robert Birsel and Frances Kerry; Editing by William Mallard, Lincoln Feast and Edmund Blair
