There appears to be a great deal of confusion regarding the role of the electricity consumer among state energy regulators and the politicians enabling them.
This confusion is spread over both red and blue States.
Let's clear the air (and the smoky air wherever it exists) — now.
Our job as consumers is to pay our electricity bill promptly --- and in full --- each month.
That’s it.
We don’t have a responsibility to plan for power failures, brownouts, winter, summer, heat or cold. And we certainly didn’t volunteer to participate in mandatory load-management schemes or compulsory saunas after the "experts'"mismanagement creates power shortfalls.
Flip the switch.
Pay the bill.
Their responsibility is to supply all the power we want, exactly when we want it.
But that's not how the system is working today and part of it is our fault.
The first time the power company told you to set your thermostat to 78 degrees in the summer or 62 degrees in the winter, consumers should have inundated politician’s offices with outraged phone calls, criticized them at town halls and created a media sensation.
Only we didn’t. Instead, we were good little sheep and did as we were told.
We didn’t have electricity unreliability or involuntary power servitude until recently.
A confederacy of carbon fanatics in government, big green donors and greedy politicians who want green money has conspired to turn a formerly reliable power grid into a grid that is too fragile to respond to increased demand.
The Washington Times explains,"Motionless windmills, solar plant glitches, shuttered coal plants and low water levels create a recipe for widespread power outages this summer, the country’s leading watchdog on power grid reliability warns.
"An assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. found that electrical grids powering two-thirds of the U.S. are 'at risk of energy shortfalls' during summer heat waves.
"NERC officials warned Congress that the threat will likely worsen unless the U.S. 'recalibrates' its effort to transform the nation’s power grid to renewable energy by focusing on reliability."
Again, this is not a blue state phenomenon.
Red tsates are busy betraying their consumers, too. "During two consecutive summers, Texas and California have asked consumers to cut power usage and, in some cases, have implemented rolling blackouts.
"Both states have significantly increased renewable energy sources in their power grids. In Texas, where wind generates nearly a quarter of the state’s electricity, consumers last summer were asked to reduce power usage to avert blackouts during a blistering heat wave.
"With little wind power, households were asked to pause electric vehicle charging, turn up thermostats and take other steps to cut usage."
Texas sits on enough natural gas to power the state for centuries, but ignorant, greedy, donor-compliant politicians have presided over a power grid that gives so much subsidy money to wind and solar that natural gas can’t compete.
What this means is craven politicians are using your tax dollars to undermine the power grid. They take the ‘green power’ donations to the bank while you take the lack of power in the behind.
NERC stated, "no areas of the U.S. at risk of energy shortages during normal summer peak demand, but it determined that temperatures beyond the normal range would increase the number of states at elevated risk."
That is not reassuring.
It is regulator’s job to plan for unforeseen contingencies and to build flexibility and added capacity into the system. It is the politician’s job to make sure the regulators do it.
The job is not to limp along hoping Texas summer doesn’t get hot or the West Texas winter doesn’t get cold, which happened with disastrous results in 2021.
This "we’re ready for anything as long as it’s normal" is like city hall telling citizens the police department has enough cops for parking enforcement and radar traps, but if someone robs a bank, you’re on your own.
If you’re living in a red State like Texas and the power company has the gall to order you to raise your thermostat in August because the power grid didn’t plan for a hot summer, it’s time to declare war on incompetence.
Contact your local and state elected officials and demand they do their jobs. That includes council members, mayors, state legislators, state senators, statewide officials who say grace over power and the power company itself.
Organize your neighbors to do the same:
Don’t accept excuses.
Demand they fix the power grid so it works like it did 30 years ago.
Quietly. Reliably. Efficiently.
Let them feel twice the heat you felt when their collective incompetence turned your home into a summer sauna.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.