Last week, Austin’s self-proclaimed socialist Congressman Greg Casar signed a letter calling for Texas to give up control of its grid.
The letter to the Department of Energy is linked to Casar’s efforts to deliver Texas’ grid to the federal government, subjugating the Electric Reliability Council of Texas—which manages the state grid—to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversight.
The signatories include members of the Squad like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Pramila Jayapal, along with up-and-coming leftists like Dallas’ Jasmine Crockett.
Casar’s plan is to connect Texas to the Western Grid, which services several states to the West of Texas, including New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
That last state might raise the cackles of long-term and transplanted Texans. California, a state that has long pushed green energy adoption at the expense of reliability, has historically suffered regular outages under everyday demands.
Not to mention, linking up with the leftists will onboard policy that Texas should avoid if it is to maintain and grow its own production and transmission needs. Plans to link up states note that California would have “veto power over decisions in the West.”
The plan is to shove Texas more comprehensively into the Orwellian “National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor Designation Process,” a 2023 initiative launched by the Biden Department of Energy. This is part of a decarbonization effort.
This new effort has already been identified as a Tiananmen Tank-esque fight. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with an NIETC designation, can issue permits for transmission erection even if state authorities have denied an application.
Several progressive groups, including environmental and labor unions, support Casar’s plan. Part of Casar’s pitch is “combating the climate crisis.” Austerity through restrictions and blackouts is viewed as a feature to worshipers kneeling at the altar of climate change.
Texas currently maintains its power supply and transmission network, which has received increasing attention since a multi-day hard freeze in 2021. Casar and his cosigners are still relying on the novel, once in a multi-generation ice storm, to urge action on what looks more like a takeover than a crisis and clearly falls into the “never letting a crisis go to waste” model of progressive activism, no matter how stale.
While there have been periods since the storm when demand spiked, the grid has never since been in a position where it was likely to fail.
Texas energy needs are growing, and action to increase production, commonly called capacity, is needed. These demands can be met within the state without the added exposure to national intrusion. Legislation to this end is expected during the 2025 legislative session.
The plan also calls for exploring the “potential benefits of interconnection with Mexico.”
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