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)
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Rep. Al Green scolds GOP over Equality Act: ‘You used God to enslave my foreparents’
Biba Adams Fri, February 26, 2021
Green pushed back against Republican arguments invoking religion as a reason to kill the bill that protects LGBTQ rights.
Congressman Al Green, who represents Texas’ Ninth District, delivered an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday, where he spoke out in support of the Equality Act, which would establish federal LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections.
In his speech, Green pushed back against Republican arguments that invoked God and religion as a reason to kill the bill.
Democratic Texas Rep. Al Green gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday, where he spoke out in support of the Equality Act. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“And still I rise, Mr. Speaker,” Green began, quoting late, great poetess Maya Angelou.
“You used God to enslave my foreparents. You used God to segregate me in schools,” Green intoned. “You used God to put me in the back of the bus. Have you no shame? God created every person in this room. Are you saying that God made a mistake?”
He referenced his fellow Democratic congressman, gay Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, who, last week, helped introduce the Equality Act.
“This is not about God, it’s about men who choose to discriminate against other people because they have the power to do so,” Green continued. “My record will not show that I voted against Mr. Cicilline having his rights. My record will show that when I had the opportunity to deliver liberty and justice for all, I voted for rights for all.”
Green’s speech was in response to Republican Florida Rep. Greg Steube, who, in his debate argument, said transgender people are an “offense” to God.
“A woman must not wear men’s clothing nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this,” Steube read from Deuteronomy 22:5 in the Bible.
“When men or women claim to be able to choose their own sexual identity,” he said, “they’re making a statement that God did not know what he was doing when he created them.”
Green’s remarks garnered applause from his fellow Democrats. Additionally, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler said, “what any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”
The first clause in the U.S. Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The establishment clause is often described in metaphor as “separation of church and state,” which, according to Dictionary.com, is “the principle that the government must maintain an attitude of neutrality toward religion. The First Amendment not only allows citizens the freedom to practice any religion of their choice but also prevents the government from officially recognizing or favoring any religion.”
The Equality Act, which amended the Civil Rights Act from 1964 to additionally provide protections for LGBTQ Americans, passed Thursday, winning unanimous support from House Democrats and votes from three Republicans.
Historic LGBTQ rights bill passes — after exposing GOP divisions
Olivia Beavers and Melanie Zanona Thu, February 25, 2021
The House passed sweeping legislation on Thursday to ban discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, delivering a major victory to the LGBTQ community — while exposing an ugly rift in the GOP.
The Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to provide protections for LGBTQ individuals, garnered unanimous support from House Democrats on its way to approval on a 224-206 vote. Three Republicans crossed party lines to join Democrats to endorse the bill, less than half of the number of GOP votes the measure got the last time it came to the floor.
But some Republicans worry that this week's controversial antics from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who harassed Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) over her transgender daughter, have stomped on their attempts to sensitively communicate why they are opposed to the LGBTQ rights bill. Most Republicans say they oppose the measure due to its perceived infringement on religious freedom, not out of discriminatory sentiment toward LGBTQ people — a fine line that Greene has effectively erased.
The Greene-Newman incident has revived a thorny issue for the GOP, which has wrestled over its stance on gay marriage and battled accusations that it's not inclusive or protective of LGBTQ rights. Just last year, former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) was censured by his state party for officiating a same-sex marriage; he wound up losing his primary race.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), who is hosting a transgender person on his podcast next week to discuss military issues, said it’s “pretty damn important” for the GOP to clearly articulate why they oppose this particular bill.
“There’s definitely a wrong way to message everything,” he added.
For Democrats, Greene’s comments about Newman’s daughter only underscore the importance of passing the LGBTQ rights bill, which is unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form. Advocates for the LGBTQ community argue that the sort of federal protections the bill would enshrine are long overdue, especially because more than half of states in the U.S. lack explicit legal protections for those discriminated against on the basis of sexuality or gender identity.
“When you tell people that in a majority of states in this country, you can either be kicked out of your apartment, fired from your job, or denied service in a restaurant because you're gay or in the LGBTQ community, people think that can't be true,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the lead House co-sponsor of the bill, told POLITICO in an interview.
The LGBTQ rights bill would ban discrimination in various areas, including the workplace, housing and education, in addition to federally funded programs. The legislation also would expand the 1964 bill to cover public accommodations to include places like shopping malls, sports arenas, and even websites.
The measure’s House passage comes on the heels of President Joe Biden ending Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops serving in the military. The bill passed the House in 2019, but LGBTQ activists are elated that it now has a shot at becoming law with Biden in the White House.
"It is time to move together to ensure LGBTQ people have the chance to belong, to participate and to succeed in all areas of American life," Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the LGBTQ rights group GLAAD, said in a statement after the House vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised that the legislation will get a floor vote “at exactly the right time.” But it will need 10 Senate Republican votes in order to beat back a GOP filibuster. That won't be easy: Most Republicans, as well as some religious groups, warn that the LGBTQ rights bill would chip at religious liberty protections, leading to lengthy and pricey court battles.
House GOP leadership did not formally whip against the bill, but Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said leaders have been recommending a “no” vote. Republicans also discussed their gripes with the measure during their weekly conference meeting, and ultimately two went from supporting it in 2019 to opposing it on Thursday: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
The three Republicans who supported the LGBTQ rights bill were Reps. John Katko of New York, Tom Reed of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
On top of the Republicans and religious leaders who fear the broad language in the bill fails to clarify that “places of accommodation” does not include places of worship, like churches and synagogues, other conservatives object to the LGBTQ rights expansion outright. They argue it would alter the country’s social fabric by blurring gender lines in women’s sports and other cultural practices.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy explained his opposition to the bill in terms of both its effects on religious liberty and women's sports.
“If you look at Biden’s appointments [of] Cabinet members, suing nuns and others, this really seems like an onslaught against freedom of religion. For girls' sports as well," McCarthy said in a press conference. "Now the Democrats have even taken it further."
Utah GOP Rep. Chris Stewart, who has previously introduced his own compromise legislation aimed at protecting LGBTQ rights as well as religious freedom, said he plans to reintroduce his approach on Friday. It has won support from key religious groups but drawn quick, vocal pushback from civil rights and LGBTQ groups as failing to live up to its middle-ground billing.
“It isn’t an either-or,” Stewart said, referring to protecting LGBTQ rights and religious freedom. "We believe it can be both."
But that message has been complicated by Greene, who has insisted “there are TWO genders: MALE & FEMALE” and hung an anti-transgender sign outside her office after Newman — whose office neighbors Greene's — hung a pink and blue transgender pride flag.
On the House floor, Greene argued the Equality Act “will put trans rights above women’s rights,” calling the bill “too much." She's already caused plenty of headaches for her colleagues with incendiary remarks, including support for conspiracy theories such as the false claim that mass shootings were staged.
One GOP lawmaker privately dismissed Greene's behavior as nothing more than attention-seeking, especially after she was stripped from her committee assignments over her behavior before offering an apology widely perceived as half-hearted at best.
But other Republicans went further, expressing worry that Greene’s shenanigans could be a drag on the GOP and turn off the young, moderate and independent voters who will be crucial in the 2022 midterms and beyond.
"This is sad and I'm sorry this happened. Rep. Newman's daughter is transgender," tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who noted that "this garbage must end" in order to restore the GOP. Greene's decision to antagonize Newman "represents the hate and fame driven politics of self-promotion at all evil costs," he wrote.
Stewart, meanwhile, declined to directly comment on Greene. But, he added, “the less controversial we make this, the better it is. I will say that.”
The GOP’s potential political problems on the issue of LGBTQ rights are hardly limited to the raucous House. Across the Capitol, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) went after Dr. Rachel Levine, Biden’s pick for assistant secretary of health, who's poised to become the first ever openly transgender official confirmed by the Senate.
Paul, an ophthalmologist, pushed Levine on her views on medical care for transgender teens, claiming hormone therapy leads to “women with beards” and alleging that young transgender people are “confused."
Levine, a pediatrician by training, responded calmly that transgender health care is “complex and nuanced” and offered to meet with Paul privately to walk through the issue. He responded that she did not answer the question and said he’s “alarmed” by her support for medical care for transgender minors.
Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) rebuked Paul a few minutes later for making “ideological and harmful misrepresentations” and told the whole panel to stick to questions about the nominee’s professional qualifications.
“It is critical to me that our nominees be treated with respect,” she said.
Alice Miranda Ollstein contributed.
Rival protesters clash as anger flares about Mexican candidate accused of rape Lizbeth Diaz Wed, 24 February 2021
Injured protester is seen near an event attended by
Mexico's President Obrador and Argentina's President Fernandez in Iguala
Felix Salgado, a gubernatorial candidate for the southern state of Guerrero and a member of Lopez Obrador's ruling MORENA party.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Scuffles broke out between rival protesters in the southern Mexican city of Iguala on Wednesday amid growing anger over President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's backing of a gubernatorial candidate accused of rape.
Video shared on social media showed one woman hitting another woman with a megaphone, bloodying her face, following a joint event between Lopez Obrador and Argentina's president, Alberto Fernandez.
The injured protester, Yolitzin Jaimes, was demonstrating against Felix Salgado, a gubernatorial candidate for the southern state of Guerrero and a member of Lopez Obrador's ruling MORENA party.
"We came here to protest peacefully, to ask the president to break the patriarchal pact," Jaimes told Reuters by telephone.
Calls have been growing in recent weeks for the president to drop his support for Salgado over the rape allegation. Earlier this month, a group of female MORENA lawmakers, party members and supporters published a letter urging the party leadership to reconsider Salgado's candidacy.
Lopez Obrador says the calls are politically motivated.
HE ALWAYS SAYS THIS ABOUT WOMEN CALLING OUT FEMICIDE AND MISOGYNY
The Guerrero vote is part of a raft of elections taking place in June that will determine whether MORENA and its allies can retain control of the lower house of Congress.
(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Leslie Adler)
GREEN CAPITALI$M
Green hydrogen export hub planned for northeast Brazil February 23, 2021
Image: Ceará state govt.
Australian renewable energy company Enegix Energy is partnering with Ceará state government on the development of Brazil’s first major green hydrogen project.
The $5.4 billion project named Base One is aimed to develop a green hydrogen chain in the state of Ceará with a production plant in the Pecém Port Complex on the northeast coast.
The three-year project, a first in Brazil and potentially in Latin America – depending on the pace of similar developments in Chile – is seeking to tap into the considerable interest and economic potential in growing hydrogen into the energy mix across the world.
The Ceará government envisions the state becoming a global supplier of green hydrogen and claims that its export through the Pecém Complex will be the shortest route between South America and Europe and thus the lowest cost.
The Complex is a growing industrial and port facility with an export processing zone and established port infrastructure and partnerships, e.g. with the Port of Rotterdam, which can facilitate the export opportunities.
“The green hydrogen produced in the Pecém Complex will be supplied to the whole world, serving the most diverse companies in their respective segments,” promised Danilo Serpa, CEO, at the launch.
“This type of fuel will certainly be the energy of the next generations, in addition it will be important for companies located in the Complex.”
Few details of the hydrogen facility have been released but Enegix says the potential production output is up to 615 million kg annually. An initial 3.4GW of renewable baseload power has been contracted for the production, with the potential to scale to over 100GW in the future.
“Brazil provides a strategic location for our renewable hydrogen production with direct access to all major international markets via ocean freight and a deep sea port,” the company says on its website.
“Our location includes unparalleled opportunity for future green renewable power capacity increases as part of our commitment to secure and transform power into exportable hydrogen.”
Other partners in the project are the Federation of Industries of Ceará (Fiec) and the Federal University of Ceará.
A working group has been formed with representatives from the various partner organisations, which will take forward the project. New investments, new business opportunities and jobs in the region are among the expected outcomes.
GREEN CAPITALI$M
Carbon capture innovator completes
£8m funding round February 26, 2021
Tom White, C-Capture CEO
Carbon capture technology company C-Capture has announced that it has completed an £8 million ($11.13 million) funding round supported by existing shareholders IP Group, Drax, and bp Ventures, with additional funding from the British Business Bank’s Future Fund.
The investment reflects the confidence of the C-Capture board in C-Capture’s carbon capture technology and the Government’s support for companies who have the potential to help solve the climate crisis.
C-Capture has patented a unique, solvent-based technology that offers a safe, low-cost way to remove carbon dioxide from emissions using a post-combustion capture approach. It provides a means to make the removal of carbon dioxide significantly more economic from a range of large-scale processes, such as power generation from coal, gas and biomass, and the production of cement, steel, and aluminium.
C-Capture is one of the technologies being evaluated as part of a pilot programme at Drax, to demonstrate carbon-negative power production. C-Capture was recently recognised by bp’s advancing low carbon programme and was highlighted in a recent UK government report as an important emerging carbon capture technology.
C-Capture was founded in 2009 as a spin-out from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Leeds with backing from IP Group.
Tom White, C-Capture CEO, said: “Additional investment from our shareholders supports C-Capture in further optimising its carbon capture technology, improving performance whilst driving down costs. The benefits our technology can offer over current state-of-the-art carbon capture technologies may help deployment across a range of sectors to be accelerated. Securing this round of investment allows our technical team to really focus on developing a product that will change the way the world thinks about carbon capture.”
Ben Murphy, investment director at IP Group and C-Capture Director, said: “C-Capture is a testament to the potential for new science to shape the world for the better. C-Capture has the potential to be one of the most impactful startups in the world’s future energy system. At IP Group we are proud to have been there from the beginning, helping to build the company up from its foundations.”
Jason Shipstone, chief innovation officer at Drax Group and C-Capture Director, said: “Carbon removal technologies are essential in addressing the climate crisis. Drax and C-Capture will continue to work together to develop the vital negative emissions technology, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, expected to make a significant contribution towards the UK reaching its legally binding net zero by 2050 target.”
Martin Sellers, low carbon digital technology principal at bp and C-Capture Director, said: “Carbon capture is an essential technology for the energy transition, as according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) Sustainable Development Scenario, it will account for 7% of the cumulative emissions reductions needed globally by 2040. bp ventures recognises C-Capture’s progress in developing the technology, and in helping to meet that important target.”
THAT YOU WERE WARNED ABOUT
Unforeseen circumstances to blame
for Texas electricity fiasco
During an emergency board meeting of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Bill Magness, ERCOT CEO, outlined the events that took place between February 14 and 18 that ultimately led to the humanitarian crisis that many Texas residents are still in the midst of now.
An oversimplified view of the Texas electricity market
First of all, it’s necessary to understand how the electricity market works in Texas. It’s a free market. The players in the market are the electricity generators and the utilities who control the poles and wires and serve the customers. Then there is the system operator that works between the two. That system operator is ERCOT. (The customers buy their electricity from retail electricity providers who buy it from the generators themselves but that’s beside the point for this article.)
Think of ERCOT as an orchestra conductor, directing instruments to turn up or turn down as needed to keep the grid in balance. (Remember that with electricity, you have to keep supply and demand perfectly balanced at all times.)
Because it’s a free market with little regulation, the conductor (ERCOT) does not have the authority to impose fees or set rules for the generators. For example, ERCOT is not allowed to tell a particular generator that they won’t be able to play in the orchestra if they don’t do XYZ. Instead, ERCOT relies on market prices to serve as motivation to keep those generator plants humming along as much as they can. That way, if and when some generators can’t provide energy (there is less supply), the price for electricity goes up so those that CAN provide, do and reap the rewards of being online at the right time. In fact, it is these “scarcity events” that help drive the development of new generation, so in general, they are not a bad thing.
Overall, the market works very well in normal conditions. Most Texans will tell you they have very low electricity prices as a result of being deregulated.
At certain times, however, there just isn’t enough supply, no matter how high the price goes, and that’s when ERCOT’s only tool is to shed demand. To do that, it orders the utilities to turn off power to certain customers based on the number of megawatts their customers use (see chart). Utilities have plans for this and understand how they will do that fairly and in the most equitable way possible. For example, they don’t want to shut down hospitals or other critical care facilities. In a normal emergency, this load shed can be distributed across a service territory, so a certain subset of customers only lose power for a couple of hours, then they are turned back on and another neighborhood goes dark for a couple of hours.
But what happened in Texas on February 14-18, 2021 was an event that was not foreseen and could not have been predicted mostly because of the sheer numbers involved. Because the temps were so cold and so many generators couldn’t generate electricity (another article for another time) ERCOT turned to rolling blackouts. But, the rolling blackouts that should normally only last a couple of hours turned into multiple days and that led to all kinds of disastrous consequences.
February 2011 compared to February 2021
While many stakeholders are crying foul because the event was precedented by a similar cold snap in February 2011 that led to rolling blackouts — and there are some similarities to the events of February 1-5, 2011 — the numbers are staggeringly different. Let’s look:
2011
2021
Maximum generation capacity forced out at any given time (MW)
14,702
52,277
Generation forced out one hour before the start of EEA3 (MW)
1,182
2,489
Cumulative generation capacity forced out through the event
29,729
46,249
Cumulative number of generators unable to perform throughout the event
193
356
Cumulative gas generation de-rated due to supply issues
1,282
9,323
Lowest frequency
59.58
59.30
Maximum load shed requested (MW)
4,000
20,000
Duration of load shed requested (hours)
7.5
70.5
Estimated peak load without load shed
59,000
76,818
The numbers that are most striking are load shed and duration. This time around, ERCOT requested 5X the amount of load be shed and for almost 10X longer. And that doesn’t correlate with the temperature. It was not 10X colder. It wasn’t even 5X colder. And the cold didn’t last 10X as long, it didn’t even last 5X as long.
Look at the numbers:
Number of Consecutive Hours Below Freezing 2011 VS 2021
Location
2011
2021
DFW
101
140
Austin
69
162
Houston
34
44
Finally, in his report, Magness outlined what recommendations were implemented after the 2011 event. He said the entity made the following modifications:
Implemented the Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy report that includes an analysis for extreme winter weather.
Began a resource weatherization process that includes an annual workshop, review of resource weatherization plans and spot checks of facilities.
Added additional staff (Shift Engineer and Resource Reliability Desk) in the control room.
Modified the Ancillary Services procurement to allow additional procurement in anticipation of severe weather.
Established the Gas Electric Working Group and created a notification procedure for QSEs to notify ERCOT if there are anticipated fuel restrictions.
Modified the survey sent to natural gas generators that collects fuel switching capability for some resources in preparation for each winter season.
Changed the rules and processes for withdrawing approval of resource outages in anticipation of severe weather.
It’s also important to understand what would happen if they didn’t shed that load and the grid completely failed. In this case, all power to all facilities would be off – no cell phones, no hospitals, no banks, nothing. And to get the grid back up and running after an event like that would take weeks.
No doubt, experts will be studying the events that took place February 14-18, 2021 for a very long time. ERCOT is still awaiting generator reports that will help it begin to dissect why so many electricity generators were unable to perform. They know that lack of weatherization played a role, but they would like a full report. And, there’s the market aspect to contend with. When those electricity prices shot up to $9000 per MWh (the market cap), those who still were receiving electricity were hit with massive bills, which could ultimately affect every single customer in Texas.
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Texas’s grid operator on Friday shut Griddy Energy LLC’s access to the state’s power network for unpaid bills and shifted its 10,000 customers to other utilities, as new signs of a financial crisis rose after a state-wide blackout.
Griddy was the power marketer that sold consumers electricity at wholesale rates, which rose to $9,000 per megawatt hour as cold weather struck the state last week. Unable to cope with demand, utilities cut power to 4.3 million residents as temperatures fell below freezing.
Grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) “effectively shut down Griddy,” the electricity marketer said in a statement on its website. Requests for further comment were not returned.
ERCOT separately said $2.1 billion of its service bills went unpaid from utility and other grid users on Friday, another sign of the devastation from high electricity rates during the cold snap.
Griddy’s statement said it accounted for “a tiny fraction” of ERCOT’s unpaid bills.
ERCOT was transferring about 10,100 Griddy customers to others on Friday. Retail power providers that do not pay invoices within 72 hours can have all their customers reassigned.
The grid operator’s handling of the severe weather fueled a firestorm of criticism from residents and state officials who blamed ERCOT for lack of preparation for the severe cold. ERCOT called on utilities to cut power to protect the grid, which left 4.3 million people without heat or light and led to billions of dollars in damages.
ERCOT will likely face more shortfalls in coming days, said Patrick Woodson, chief executive of power marketer Green Energy Exchange. His firm is among nine companies protesting multimillion dollar blackout fees levied by ERCOT.
“The price of surviving the first wave of these high bills is you get hit with additional costs in the second wave,” said Woodson. ERCOT spreads unpaid fees among remaining grid users.
The grid operator said it will cover $800 million of the shortfall by borrowing from internal accounts, and will draw an undisclosed amount from grid users with credit balances. An ERCOT spokeswoman did not reply to requests for comment.
Vistra Corp., the largest retail electric provider in the United States, said its TXU unit in Texas “volunteered to take on significantly more customers” expecting a wave of transfers after the outages.
“There often are opportunities to acquire retailers after events of volatility. As always, we will continue to be opportunistic when looking to purchase smaller customer books,” spokeswoman Meranda Cohn said in an email.
Seven of ERCOT’s 15 directors resigned this week and a nominee withdrew. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has said public anger was justified and blamed ERCOT for not acting faster to keep generators from going offline.
Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien, Grant McCool, Daniel Wallis and William Mallard
CLASS ACTION SEEKS $1 BILLION — Texas woman sues Griddy after being charged $9,546 for 19 days of power
Griddy blames state agency as variable-rate plans produce outrageous power bills.
Enlarge / The US and Texas flags fly in front of high-voltage transmission towers on February 21, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Getty Images | Justin Sullivan
A Texas woman who was charged $9,546 for power this month has filed a class-action lawsuit against Griddy, alleging that the variable-rate electricity provider violated a state law against price gouging during disasters.
Lisa Khoury, a retiree in Mont Belvieu, signed up with Griddy in June 2019 and typically received monthly bills of $200 to $250 until this month's power disaster sent rates soaring. Griddy charged Khoury and her husband $9,546 from February 1 to 19, 2021, the lawsuit said, noting that "some customers received bills as high as $17,000."
Khoury's lawsuit, filed Monday in Harris County District Court, seeks certification of a class of thousands of Texas residents who bought power from Griddy, claiming they're entitled to damages of over $1 billion.
"Griddy's charging of excessive prices for electricity with their variable-rate plan is unconscionable," the lawsuit said. "An unconscionable act [as defined by Texas law] 'takes advantage of the lack of knowledge, ability, experience, or capacity of the consumer to a grossly unfair degree.' Khoury and Class Members are unsophisticated consumers. They chose Griddy, a wholesale electricity provider, to pay less. Variable-rate plans, however, are a gamble and unpredictable. Consumers rarely understand the risks. Griddy took advantage of this lack of knowledge to a grossly unfair degree when selling these plans."
The lawsuit further says that Griddy should have "had a system in place to prevent its customers from being charged excessive prices and taken aggressive steps to prevent it." The lawsuit alleged that Griddy violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which outlaws "taking advantage of a disaster" by charging excessive prices for necessities, and that it is guilty of negligence and unjust enrichment.
Griddy: It’s not our fault
In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, Griddy said it is not at fault because "Griddy passes through the wholesale electricity price to customers without mark-up. The prices charged are the direct result of the non-market prices ordered by the PUCT [Public Utility Commission of Texas] last week. The lawsuit is meritless and we plan to vigorously defend it."
Under ERCOT's market rules, such a pricing scenario is only enforced when available generation is about to run out (they usually leave a cushion of around 1,000 MW). This is the energy market that Griddy was designed for—one that allows consumers the ability to plan their usage based on the highs and lows of wholesale energy and shift their usage to the cheapest time periods.
However, the PUCT changed the rules on Monday.
As of today (Thursday, February 18), 99 percent of homes have their power restored and available generation was well above the 1,000 MW cushion. Yet, the PUCT left the directive in place and continued to force prices to $9/kWh, approximately 300x higher than the normal wholesale price. For a home that uses 2,000 kWh per month, prices at $9/kWh work out to over $640 per day in energy charges. By comparison, that same household would typically pay $2 per day.
A subsequent statement from Griddy said the company is "engaging with ERCOT and the PUCT seeking customer relief... and is committed to crediting customers for any relief received, dollar-for-dollar." Customers who contact Griddy are getting an auto-reply email that says, "We will fight for, and alongside, our customers for accountability into why prices were allowed to remain so high for so long." Griddy is also directing customers toward an application for its deferred payment plan.
We asked Griddy if it has any further response to the lawsuit and will update this article if we get an answer.
Griddy withdrew $1,200 from bank account
Khoury's lawsuit noted that Griddy customers pay a $10 monthly fee plus "the cost of spot power trades on Texas's power grid based on the time of day they use power." Khoury generally kept a $150 balance in her Griddy account to pay bills. After the storm hit, "Griddy automatically withdrew from Khoury's bank account each time her electricity bill hit the recharge amount of $150. From February 13 to 18, 2021, Griddy withdrew eight times from Khoury's bank account, $150 each time. By Friday, February 19, 2021, Griddy withdrew a total of $1,200 from Khoury's bank account."A
Khoury placed a stop payment on her bank account to prevent further withdrawals but "still owed Griddy an additional $8,235," the lawsuit said.
"Griddy charged Khoury in the middle of a disaster," the complaint said. "She and her husband mostly were without power in their home from Wednesday, February 17, 2021 to Thursday, February 18, 2021. At the same time, Khoury hosted her parents and in-laws, who are in their 80s, during the storm. Even then, she continued to minimize any power usage because of the high prices."
The lawsuit said that Griddy can be "held accountable and liable for price gouging" during a disaster under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, even though "Griddy attempted to justify the price increases as being a result of the wholesale power market and places the burden on customers to track market prices."
Griddy failed to take steps that could have prevented the large bills, the lawsuit said: "Griddy had the ability, capacity, and contractual right to prevent charging customers excessive prices during the disaster. Griddy controlled its services and platform and oversaw pricing and contracting."
Griddy emailed 29,000 customers on February 14, suggesting they switch to a different power company with a fixed rate, the lawsuit said. However, the lawsuit said, "Customers could not switch providers because other providers were not accepting new customers due to the storm. Khoury attempted to change providers on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 and was initially told service could only start in a week. Persistent under pressure, Khoury was able to change providers on Friday, February 19, 2021."
Lt. Gov: “Read the fine print”
Khoury's lawsuit quoted government officials who spoke out against the high power bills, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who said, "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."
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News that "people who are getting those big bills are people who gambled on a very, very low rate, and it would go up with the power [costs]."
Patrick said the government will take some kind of action, potentially including ending variable-rate plans. "Going forward, people need to read the fine print in those kinds of bills, and we may even end that type of variable plan because people were surprised," he said.
JON BRODKINis Ars Technica's senior IT reporter, covering the FCC and broadband, telecommunications, tech policy, and more.
Bots hyped up GameStop on major social media platforms, analysis finds
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bots on major social media platforms have been hyping up GameStop Corp and other “meme” stocks, according to an analysis by Massachusetts-based cyber security company PiiQ Media, suggesting organized economic or foreign actors may have played a role in the Reddit-driven trading frenzy.
Shares of GameStop soared last month after Reddit users banded together to squeeze hedge funds that had bet against the video game retailer and other companies. Reddit Chief Executive Steve Huffman told Congress this month that bots, artificial or fake accounts with automated content, had not played a “significant role” in GameStop Reddit message traffic.
PiiQ Media’s analysis of Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Instagram and YouTube posts, however, found that bots used the platforms to push GameStop and other “meme” stocks, although it is unclear how influential they were in the overall saga.
A startup that focuses on social media risks, PiiQ said it examined patterns of keywords such as “Hold the Line” and GameStop’s stock symbol, “GME,” across conversations and profiles prior to the Jan. 28 frenzy, through Feb. 18. For comparison, it also assessed posts on an unrelated set of stocks.
PiiQ said it identified very similar daily “start and stop patterns” in the GameStop-related posts, with activity starting at the beginning of the trading day, followed by a large spike at the end of the trading day. Such patterns are indicative of bots, said Aaron Barr, co-founder and chief technology officer of PiiQ.
“We saw clear patterns of artificial behavior across the other four social media platforms. When you think of organic content, it’s variable in the day, variable day-to-day. It doesn’t have the exact same pattern every day for a month,” he said.
Based on its authenticity scoring system, PiiQ estimates there are tens of thousands of bot accounts hyping GameStop, the meme stocks, and Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency swept up in the frenzy. Thousands of fake accounts can be purchased for as little as $200, it said.
The company did not analyze Reddit data, but Barr said he would expect to see a similar pattern of activity on Reddit, indicating bot-like or coordinated management of conversations.
A representative for Reddit did not comment beyond Huffman’s testimony. Representatives for YouTube, Facebook and its Instagram subsidiary did not respond to requests for comment. The social media platforms generally try to weed out harmful bots, said Barr.
A representative of Twitter said “bots” had become a catch-all term that can often mischaracterize the nature of the account. The company notes bots can be used on its platform for creative or innovative purposes.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is probing the GameStop saga and on Friday suspended trading in 15 companies due to unusual trading activity and apparent attempts on social media to artificially inflate their stock prices. That is in addition to six stocks it recently suspended due to suspicious social media activity.
“We proactively monitor for suspicious trading activity tied to stock promotions on social media, and act quickly to stop that trading,” the SEC’s acting enforcement director, Melissa Hodgman, said in a statement on Friday.
In addition to traders, organized criminals may use social media to stoke asset prices, and undermining the integrity of U.S. markets is a known goal of hostile state actors, said Barr. But it is unclear how successful, if at all, these types of influence efforts are, he said.
“Measuring the effect of those campaigns is often illusive.”
Reporting by Michelle Price in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler and Matthew Lewis
MAKE THE SAUDI'S PAY
Yemen's children starve as U.N. seeks billions to avoid vast 'man-made' famine
SANAA/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ahmadiya Juaidi’s eyes are wide as she drinks a nutrition shake from a large orange mug, her thin fingers grasping the handle. Her hair is pulled back and around her neck hangs a silver necklace with a heart and the letter A.
Three weeks ago the 13-year-old weighed just nine kilograms (20 pounds) when she was admitted to al-Sabeen hospital in Yemen’s capital Sanaa with malnutrition that sickened her for at least the past four years. Now she weighs 15 kilograms.
“I am afraid when we go back to the countryside her condition will deteriorate again due to lack of nutritional food. We have no income,” her older brother, Muhammad Abdo Taher Shami, told Reuters.
They are among some 16 million Yemenis - more than half the population of the Arabian Peninsula country - that the United Nations says are going hungry. Of those, five million are on the brink of famine, U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock warns.
On Monday the United Nations hopes to raise some $3.85 billion at a virtual pledging event to avert what Lowcock says would be a large-scale “man-made” famine, the worst the world will have seen for decades.
More than six years of war in Yemen - widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran - have sent the impoverished country spiraling into what the United Nations describes as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
Some 80% of Yemenis need help, with 400,000 children under the age of five severely malnourished, according to U.N. data. For much of its food, the country relies on imports that have been badly disrupted over the years by all warring parties.
“Before the war Yemen was a poor country with a malnutrition problem, but it was one which had a functioning economy, a government that provided services to quite a lot of its people, a national infrastructure and an export base,” Lowcock told reporters. “The war has largely destroyed all of that.”
“In the modern world famines are basically about people having no income and then other people blocking efforts to help them. That’s basically what we’ve got in Yemen,” he added.
HUNGER VS PANDEMIC
A Saudi Arabia-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-allied Houthi group ousted the country’s government from Sanaa. The Houthis say they are fighting a corrupt system. The people’s suffering has been worsened by an economic and currency collapse, and by the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.N. officials are trying to revive peace talks, and new U.S. President Joe Biden has said Yemen is a priority, declaring a halt to U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign and demanding the war “has to end.”
Twelve aid groups, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Care International, have warned that 2.3 million children under the age of five in Yemen will go hungry this year if governments do not step up their funding on Monday.
Muhsin Siddiquey, Oxfam’s country director in Yemen, recounted a conversation with an 18-year-old woman, displaced by the conflict and living in a camp in northern Yemen.
“She said that the coronavirus pandemic gives us two cruel choices: either we stay home and we die from hunger, or we go out and then die from the disease,” Siddiquey told Reuters.
Official figures vastly underestimate the spread of COVID-19 in Yemen, according to the United Nations and aid agencies.
In 2018 and 2019, the United Nations prevented famine due to a well-funded aid appeal, which included large donations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. In 2020 the United Nations only received just over half the $3.4 billion it needed, which Lowcock said was largely due to smaller contributions from Gulf countries. He urged them to pledge generously for 2021 and pay quickly.
The United Arab Emirates said on Friday it would pledge $230 million for 2021.
Additional reporting by Lisa Barrington in Dubai; Writing by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Mary Milliken and Daniel Wallis