Ratepayers are the losers

Re: “UBS is dropped from $3.4 billion muni deal,” Business, Oct. 10.

Gross incompetence has met extreme right-wing ideology, with the losers being Texas electricity ratepayers, and the winners being natural gas production companies, pipelines and electric utilities.

Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 saw ERCOT let natural gas prices soar, leading the utilities who bought natural gas to incur gigantic costs.

The emergency declaration that allowed prices to skyrocket is designed to expire automatically unless extended. Such an extension did happen, leading to further billions in extra costs and huge windfall profits for natural gas producers and pipelines.

Now the bill is being dropped on ratepayers. One of the so-called fixes devised by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled Legislature was to obscure just how costly the fiasco was. That was done by agreeing to have Texas borrow billions to hand over to utilities, thus avoiding budgetbusting electricity bills sent to ratepayers while also bailing out utilities, and, best of all, allowing their allies and campaign contributors in the natural gas world to retain the windfall profits.

The catch: Ratepayers will be on the hook for years to come, with monthly bill increases to pay off the bonds.

To add insult to injury, the Legislature imposed a litmus test on financial institutions wanting to do business with the state by shutting out firms it deemed insufficiently committed to the oil and gas industry. By eliminating such investors, the total costs will likely be greater than they would otherwise be.

This is all brought to Texans by a political party that trumpeted its competence at governing for many years. It is time to retire that false narrative.

John Watson, Johnson City