Morning Wire - Widespread Blackouts & ‘Un-Woke’ Companies | 6.4.22

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

Officials warn that widespread blackouts are coming, food processing plants hit with a series of accidents, and some big companies appear to be going “un-woke.” Get the facts first on Morning Wire.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new report warns that blackouts are likely for more than two-thirds of the United States this summer. I think the drive towards renewable energy just gives us a less reliant power grid overall. How is the push for green energy impacting the power grid and what's being done to avoid another crisis like the Texas freeze? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's June 4th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. A series of unusual incidents at close to a dozen of... of the nation's food processing facilities has raised questions about food security.

We'll separate facts from fiction. And some corporations are starting to take a hands-off approach when it comes to politically charged issues. Could this be the end of mainstream wokeism? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Do you have a will? You might be shocked to learn how many people don't.

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Here to tell us more is Daily Wire Charlotte Pence Bond. So Charlotte, it seems potential blackouts are threatening large sections of the U.S. What's the latest on this? Right. So it's not great news. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation or the NERC just put out its most recent reliability assessment for this summer. Turns out more states are at risk of rolling blackouts than we previously thought. The NERC report found that the Midwest and South is at a high risk for blackouts this summer.

summer, and areas of the West, including Texas, are at an elevated risk. So just to step back a bit, a rolling blackout is a blackout done intentionally so that the grid isn't harmed in the long run. This happens when there's not enough power being created to meet the high demand. I've experienced this myself living in California. Consumers usually get a warning and the blackout can last from a few minutes to a few hours. Yeah, we've seen those rolling blackouts in California for a few years now. Let's look at Texas. There was the historic freeze in 2020. where lots of people were without power. What caused that?

So in Texas, Urquot, or the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, handles the state's entire power grid, which includes electricity generators. It's an independent nonprofit regulated by the Public Utility Commission, whose board members were appointed by Governor Greg Abbott. The generators sell power to electric providers who sell it to the customer. Got it. So the grid is managed by an independent nonprofit, but it's regulated by a government-appointed board. Yes.

Now, what are energy leaders in Texas saying about all the concerns about the grid? Well, Urquhart, for one, recently said that the grid is stable and that it should be able to supply enough energy under normal system conditions and during most times of high demand during the summer and worst to extreme weather conditions. But at the same time, they did ask people to conserve power and told some of their energy generators to hold off on maintenance, which would require plants to go offline. So those moves do signal some concern. All right, so some reason for Texans to prepare for blackouts. What about the rest of the country? What can they expect the summer?

Above average temperatures are expected for much of the U.S. this summer, which puts stress on the grid. Plus, a 22-year drought in the West will cause hydro generators to release lower than average energy production. And to really pile on wildfire season is expected in the late summer months and will also contribute more to power issues. But a lot of our problems have to do with environmental policies and priorities that don't always line up with the reality of the situation. Morningwire recently spoke to Brand Deppish, the Energy and Environment Reporter of the Washington Examiner, who said these widespread potential blackouts are worsened by the push for renewable energy. Overall, the biggest thing is the loss of nuclear and coal plants. Those provide the U.S. with baseload power, which means that when

the sun isn't shining or there's a drought, we still have a supply of power in the U.S. This could ostensibly be replaced by natural gas. We just don't have enough of that in the U.S. right now. Summer calling for funding from the huge infrastructure package to go towards fixing the grid because remember, energy isn't just an issue in the summer. As we all recall when the Texas grid failed in the middle of a freeze, this isn't a problem that's going away anytime soon. Yeah, it certainly doesn't sound like it. Charlotte, thanks for the reporting. Thanks for having me, John. That was Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence Bond. Coming up, yet another accident at a food processing plant has the internet buzzing. You can get this

show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all of your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you. Since the beginning of the year, a spate of accidents seem to plague the nation's food processing plants. That stirred up concern about the security of America's food supply. Morning Wire producer and contributor Colton Haas examined the issue, and he's here to tell us more. Colton, welcome. Hey, Georgia. Now, enough fires and other incidents have taken place over the last few months to stir up some questions. What exactly is happening

at the nation's food distribution plants? Yeah, so at least 17 incidents have taken place at food distribution centers nationwide since the beginning of the year. These range anywhere from small fires to massive explosions that destroyed entire plants. With the most recent incident happening this past Saturday at a commercial egg farm in Minnesota. Now, thankfully, the incident claim no human lives, but it is estimated that tens of thousands of chicken lives were lost. Now, have these incidents been confined to any specific region of the country? No. Geographically, they're pretty widespread. The damage has affected both coasts, the south, the Midwest, the Mid-South, pretty much every portion of the country has been hit. For example,

a boiler explosion destroyed an Oregon potato chip plant owned by shares foods on February 22nd. Senator Ron Wyden actually flew a flag of the capital in honor of its former employees, who managed to evacuate the facility within six minutes. A month later, a deep-frying machine known as a fri-lator touched off a fire that consumed a potato factory in Belfast, Maine. Then, in a bewildering series of events, small airplanes crashed into two separate food processing facilities within a week of one another.

On April 21st, a propeller-driven plane crashed into a General Mills cereal plant in Covington, Georgia, killing both of the plane's passengers. On April 13th, a plane crashed into a potato processing plant in Idaho, again, killing someone in the plane, but not injuring anyone on the ground. Have officials suspected any foul play in any of these events? By and large, no. Most of the incidents have been labeled as accidents by officials with a few remaining under investigation. So far, there's been no evidence tying these incidents together or suggesting a larger trend. But that hasn't stopped people online from speculating about

other kinds of motives. Oh, of course not. There's never a shortage of online speculation. Now, It is true that last Wednesday the FBI issued a warning about the potential for increased ransomware attacks against agricultural facilities. And President Joe Biden did warn about food shortages at the G7 meeting in Brussels on March 24th. With regard to food shortages, yes, we did. We talked about food shortages. And it's going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia. But as you heard, he was warning about the war with Ukraine, not attacks on plans.

There's been an element of exaggeration in some online reports about these incidents. For example, several of those online accounts mentioned the fire that destroyed the Bonanza Meat Company in El Paso. But the local CBS affiliate says the building has been, quote, abandoned for several years. And it notes that local residents have complained about homeless people using it as temporary housing and residents discarding mattresses, sofas, and other flammable items on the premises. Now, to take another example, the plane crash in Covington, Georgia that I mentioned earlier, essentially hit nothing. Covington police captain, Ken Malcolm, explain that.

The plane went down in an isolated area here on the lot behind us in an area where they store tractor trailers. The plane came down into four what appears to be empty trailers. So there could be some exaggeration happening and there isn't widespread evidence tying these incidents together. That aside, has there been an increase in the number of incidents involving food processing centers? The short answer is we don't really. know, numbers specifically about food processing facilities are hard to come by. The USDA reported back in 2017 that there were a total of 34,000 food and beverage plants in the U.S. And according to the National Fire Prevention Association, there are an average of 1,210 warehouse fires every year,

although it's not clear how many of those affected food processing directly. And how is this going to affect the country's food supply? Officially, the FDA says, quote, there are currently no nationwide shortages of food, but it admits, again quoting, in some cases, the inventory of certain foods at your grocery store might be low before stores can restock. It's also worth mentioning that there is a bird flu sweeping through the country that's led to the culling of 23 million chickens and turkeys since February. But right now, it looks like the broader global threat to the food supply is the Russia-Ukraine war, not so much these incidents. Well, let's hope there's indeed not something more to worry about there.

Colton, thanks for reporting. Yeah, of course. That's Daily Wire producer and contributor, Colton Haas. In recent weeks, several major companies, including Netflix and HBO, have reversed some progressive programs and policies in the face of consumer and political backlash. Columnist David Marcus is here to discuss this culture war about face. David, thanks for joining. Now, first off, what major developments have we seen lately that suggest corporations may be taking a new approach to controversial social issues? Morning.

A few things stand out. A couple weeks ago, Netflix sent a memo to employees, basically saying that they run a wide range of programming, and if people were offended by it to the point of making a fuss, maybe they should work elsewhere. Then last week, they slashed a number of diversity initiatives and released a controversial Ricky Gervais comedy special, which Megan Basham talked about on the show over the weekend. At the same time, HBO's new boss announced that the streaming giant was welcoming back, canceled Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for future projects, state farm insurance also confirmed that it was suspending an effort to get LGBT books into classrooms and libraries. So how much of a sea change is

this for companies like Netflix and HBO? In both cases, it's very significant. The Netflix memo seems to be preparing employees for the diversity cuts and Jervaz's jokes about trans women. and both things that were potentially lightning rods for protest. And the HBO reversal is striking because just recently Rowling was not allowed to appear on the network special celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Harry Potter movie franchise, which without her obviously would not exist. So these are big changes. Now, for years, these companies specifically HBO and Netflix have been pretty outspoken

with their progressive politics. Why do you believe we're seeing this shift in their messaging right now? I think the fight between Disney and Florida governor Ron DeSantis probably plays a role here. Disney's position that sex and gender education for K through third grade shouldn't be regulated, blew up in their face. Not only did their stock prices nosedive, but more importantly, their approval in polling plummeted. For example, one poll had DeSantis at plus two in popularity and Disney at only plus three. Plus two is okay for a politician, but plus three, having half the country dislike you, that's a disaster for an entertainment brand.

Now, do we think these companies are getting pressure from conservative consumers to back off these politics, or maybe they're getting feedback from focus groups? What do we think is happening? It could be all of the above. And certainly journalists outlets, even Twitter accounts that put a spotlight on the excessive behavior of teachers and educators, for example, exposed things that many Americans weren't aware. of. But also, Republican politicians have shown more willingness to leverage the legislature to combat excesses in corporate America, whether it's DeSantis and Disney or Senator Josh Howley and social media. Corporate America really can no longer count on the party of limited government just staying out of it all. Now, do you expect to see more companies shift their messaging on this ahead of the midterms? It's hard to say how many dramatic reversals like HBO's or state

farms will see. But even in response to the leaked draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, we aren't seeing the kind of corporate reaction that we saw, for example, to Georgia's voting law last year, which made Major League Baseball move the All-Star game and other companies threatened boycotts. Georgia, by the way, just had record voter turnout in its primary. It seems likely that more CEOs and board of directors are going to be cautious about entering this fray and may go back to focusing. on products, not politics. All right. Well, David, thank you so much

for joining us today. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire contributor and columnist David Marcus. Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you want to join us in our mission and help us climb in the charts,

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