ERCOT is chartered by government, directed by government regulation, and governed by government entities. Its funding is from a tax on electric consumers on each monthly bill. The fact that its board is ‘independent’ is a fig leaf, as is its status as a 501c4 organization.
There has been discussion a free-market circles about whether the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is a government agency.
The answer is provided by simple facts provided by ERCOT itself. That ERCOT is chartered as “a membership 501c(4) nonprofit corporation” should not put form over substance, certainly to political economists, not to mention analysts, media, and the general public. [1]
ERCOT is chartered by government, directed by government regulation, and governed by government entities. Its funding is from a surcharge (tax) on electric consumers’ monthly bill.…
“To think you are smart enough to control nature and you must force people … to obey? That is the same kind of despotic behavior we have seen out of the worst tyrants.”
– Joe Bastardi (quoted below)
A recent E&E News article, “Fringe weatherman advised Abbott before deadly Texas storm” (February 25, 2021), is the latest marginalization job on a “climate science critic.” Author Scott Walderman begins his piece as follows:
Days before a historic snowstorm crippled his home state, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sought advice from an unusual source: Joe Bastardi, the go-to weather forecaster of Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The hit piece (against Bastardi, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Abbott) goes downhill from there with ad hominem.
Here are the Bastardi quotations in Walderman’s piece:
…By Bastardi’s telling, the conversation with Abbott wasn’t groundbreaking or controversial.
“Even though it was once embraced by some environmentalists, ethanol has turned out to be much better at providing common ground for wildly disparate presidents than cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”
“From a greenhouse gas emissions perspective, the renewable fuel standard has been a bust.”
“In 2022, the current renewable fuel standard will lapse, and Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency will have to decide whether to maintain federal support for this hangover of the oil-soaked Bush era.”
– Tom Philpott, “Why Won’t Joe Biden Let Ethanol Die Already?” Mother Jones, February 16, 2021.
Progressives and D.C. environmentalists are very confused about energy. They don’t like nuclear, the only scalable alternative to fossil fuels. They dislike hydro power too, choosing some other priorities for dams other than CO2 reduction.
And on the transportation side, they don’t like the “renewable” alternative to gasoline and diesel, farm crop ethanol.…