Unfair Park

At a PUC meeting late last month, Commissioners Donna Nelson and Brandy Marty each signaled their intention to set a mandatory level of surplus power generation to avert blackouts. How the state enforces the so-called "mandatory reserve margin" in an ostensibly free market wasn't explained. But a Barclays financial analyst predicted it will lead inexorably to what's known as a capacity market. That means ratepayers would end up paying generators to build new power plants on top of the checks we write each month for the electric bill. If that doesn't sound like a free market, that's because it isn't.

As the logic goes, this is vital to electric reliability and a competitive Texas future. It only makes sense, however, if you buy the narrative that places Texas inside a flickering future in which blackouts are commonplace. Commissioner Ken Anderson, now the odd man out on the PUC, has warned repeatedly that the apocalyptic assumptions the industry and his colleagues are operating under may be completely 0. Far from guaranteeing electric reliability, Anderson has referred to a capacity market as "corporate welfare."

Surely ALL these Corporate Welfare lovers must be Democrats, right? Because NO Republican would be secretly pushing bailouts while spouting off about free enterprise. Right?