I am absolutely appalled by the failure of governance in the state of Texas that resulted in a severe weather event turning into an absolute calamity for millions of people. This is the definition of a man-made problem similar to the levee failures in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in that failure of government to exercise proper oversight resulted in infrastructure failure.

So I wanted to share my thoughts on this failure in better detail that I can on Twitter.

Lack of Regulation

The issue stems from a historic lack of regulation in Texas in which the electric industry had not had any (I mean, zero) regulation until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in 1970. (Two things of note, the irony of its name and the fact that its website isn’t secure – not providing an encrypted connection – so be careful entering information).

Even still, to this day, ERCOT, which is structured as a non-profit organization, is made up largely of energy industry insiders with little oversight from the State. Apparently, one third of ERCOT’s board doesn’t even live in Texas, for what its worth.

Because of a deregulated industry in which a ton of companies were competing on price alone, costs are low for customers. But look what played out. Turns out costs are low because no investments were made into the physical plant. The utilities had no reserve capacity, nor the ability to import electricity, because the Texas power grid is separate from the national grid.

Lack of Investment

So Texas finds itself in a situation where there is no incentives for investing in the physical plant. Just incentives to quickly and cheaply bring power on-line. Thus, when faced with weather this severe, the system is unable to handle the load. It is because of the failure to invest in making the physical plant stronger and more adaptable. And while this cold weather has brought historic low temperatures to Texas, the state has seen low temperatures before and has faced blackouts before (ten years ago to be exact). But Texas refuses to learn its lessons.

So now we see the finger pointing. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is, predictably, shifting blame away from him and towards ERCOT. ERCOT is blaming a lack of regulation (shockingly)! Blame is shared all around. But at some point, Texas needs to assume responsibility for the regulation and oversight of a public utility so important to modern society that it cannot function without it.

Government Competence

We – as citizens – should expect competent governance. Competence necessarily means regulation of utilities for the benefit of all citizens. It means strong oversight roles for the state and strong roles for the private sector. Protecting the public safety. Investing in government to manage its role as necessary to serve the above. Without competence governance you get a failure of governance. A failure that, often times, has catastrophic results.