The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - March 5, 2021

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the reporters discuss Governor Abbott’s rescinding of statewide coronavirus restrictions, the latest ERCOT firing and PUC resignation news, energy industry fallout since the blackouts, a bill that would rename an Austin overpass to spite the mayor, the Texas Pandemic Response Act, the Alamo Cenotaph, and President Biden’s comments about Texas’ reopening.

Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here, Senior Editor at The Texan, on another edition of our weekly Roundup podcast. This week, the team covers Governor Abbott's rescinding of statewide coronavirus restrictions that will be in effect starting next week, as well as legislator reactions to his announcement and a legislative proposal that would have prevented the mask mandate in the first place. We talk through the latest ERCOT firing and PUC resignation news and corresponding fallout in the energy industry since the blackouts. Daniel Friend details the Texas Pandemic Response Act. Brad Johnson introduces a bill that would rename an Austin overpass despite the mayor. Isaiah Mitchell covers the Alamo. And Hayden Sparks tells us what President Biden had to say about Texas's reopening. Speaking of the Lone Star State, here at the Texan, we love our state and take any opportunity to honor our glorious history.

Join us in celebrating March as Texas History Month. Check out our collection of Texas history t-shirts at store.thetexan.news and grab one for you or a loved one today. Thank you all so much for listening each and every week. We hope you enjoy this episode. Howdy, folks. Mackenzie Taylor here with Daniel Friend, Isaiah Mitchell, Hayden Sparks, and Brad Johnson. Y'all, there was a lot of news this week, particularly as session ramps up and in light of big statewide announcements from the governor. Are y'all ready to talk through this?

Hayden, you ready? I am ready. Yes. Let's get going. I like it. Well, we're just going to jump right into it, Daniel. We're coming straight to you. Walk us through the big news this week, an announcement from the governor in Lubbock. Yeah. So he floated this idea last week. I think it was like Thursday or Friday. He said, I might be making some changes to the mask mandate. So everybody had their eyes out for his press conference on Tuesday, which was held in Lubbock at a Mexican restaurant on Texas Independence Day, which is an interesting combination. That aside, he made some significant changes, which is actually the biggest changes to his coronavirus policies since last October,

when he kind of set some new guidelines in place. This is his first executive order that he's signed since then on the pandemic. And what he's going to do is on Wednesday next week, he's going to be lifting the statewide mask mandate and allowing all businesses in the state to reopen at 100% capacity. Wow. Pretty big stuff here. And yeah, so he basically made the announcement with an eight-day notice. That's basically how this works, right? Yes. So in terms of continued restrictions, whether from localities or just other places in the state, are there any footnotes in his order about what could happen going forward? Yeah. So there are some ways that restrictions

could come back into place, but if they do come into place, they'll be much more limited than they have been in the past. So like his previous executive order that he signed in October, that had a trigger mechanism where businesses could reopen at 75% and bars could reopen at 50% if approved by county judges, presuming that the trauma service area, which are these hospital regions across the state, have a hospital capacity of no more than 15% of patients being COVID-19 patients. So if there were more than 15% of COVID-19 patients taking up the hospital capacity in that hospital region, then those restrictions would be more limited. So bars couldn't be open and businesses, most businesses would be restricted to like 50% capacity.

Got it. So in his new order, he keeps that 15% threshold. And if a hospital region is above that 15% mark for seven consecutive days, then county judges can implement new restrictions that can lower capacity to a, the most they could lower capacity for businesses would be to 50%. And they can also reinstitute a mask mandate. But with those restrictions, for all of them, no one can be put into jail and also for the mask mandate specifically you cannot be fined and interestingly enough he also included a little

addendum to that that specified you can't cannot even find businesses which is going back. There was a lot of drama back last summer. I like it. How much of the state will be able to reopen? So likely it looks like all the state is going to be reopened. At the day of his announcement, there were still two regions, El Paso and Laredo, that were above that 15% threshold. However, they are trending downwards.

And according to the latest statistics from DSHS, the Department of State Health Services, it looks like those regions are going to be below that 15% mark as well. And even if they weren't, it would still require a county judges in those regions to issue executive orders. Now in El Paso and Laredo, I would guess that those judges would, but yeah, it would still be able to be open. Based on historical precedent. Yes. That's basically what we're basing this on, right? Well, good stuff. Thank you for covering that for us. Certainly something that we suspected would be coming soon, but I think that the

circumstances upon which it did were surprising to some people. Yes. And I think this was a much broader, you know, when the governor has made, you know, his reopening plans in the past, you know, we went into a lockdown last March, a year ago, and he issued some really tight lockdown policies in March and April. You know, if you remember, you couldn't go to a restaurant in April. You could go and get some takeout or go through a drive-thru, but you couldn you couldn't go to a restaurant um in april you could go and get some takeout or go through a drive-thru but you couldn't actually go sit into a to a restaurant lots of retail stores were closed and then when he did reopen it was a very limited very slow reopening process and it's been kind of that way since last may um so this is by far his widest reopening policy yet there's still some caveats, but for

the most part, it is looking like things are getting back to normal. Wow. A new normal that might actually be a little bit more normal than new. The words just leave a really bad taste in my mouth. I understand. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering that. Hayden, we're going to come to you, you know, speaking directly about this. What have Democrat reactions been in Texas? I think that was a big thing we were watching. You know, Republicans, by and large, for the most part, were supportive of the governor's action. There'd been calls for reopening for a long time from a lot of Republicans, a lot of Texas Republicans. What did Democrats have to say after the governor's announcement? Well, Mackenzie, I've got to assume that when some of these elected leaders issue a statement, or statements that they want to be taken seriously when they issue these statements, and at face value, these allegations that Democrats have leveled against the governor are as serious as they get. They are. They could not have reacted more strongly, alleging that this announcement is tantamount to a death warrant, saying that it's targeting

racial minorities, saying that people will die who would not have otherwise died if Abbott did not make this decision. These are as serious allegations as these allegations are as serious as they get in terms of the political fallout from Abbott's decision. But if you if you go back to his announcement, which he made at a press conference the other day, The timing of it is also significant because we just came through this event where our power grid failed. And I know that there's debate about whether or not where the blame lies and to the extent that it failed versus the extent it could have failed. But as the legislature tries to unpack what happened a couple of weeks ago and get to the bottom of that, some Democrats also viewed Abbott's decision or the timing of the announcement

as a way to distract from that process and to get people to discuss and think about something other than that. Yeah, certainly. So, you know, walk us through in your piece, you went through and detailed some of these, you know, some of these quotes from Democrats, the reactions specifically quoted in your article. You know, I know that former Senate candidate, former congressman, Beto O'Rourke came out with a very spicy statement. There were plenty of different statements from Democrats that, you know, garnered attention. Walk us through a few of the most notable. Well, I know there was a statement from State Senator Boris Miles that had racial elements to

it. And that allegation comes from the spread of the virus through racial minority communities, as opposed to society as a whole. But Senator Miles also called it a death warrant, saying there's a lack of vaccine in communities of color. And now the governor has lifted the mask mandate. He has signed the death warrants of communities of color. Today, he made it clear black lives don't matter, end quote. And of course, the governor has been very clear that in the past, especially since the incident in Minneapolis in May, that he is supportive of the black community. But this decision has been perceived as having racial consequences as well. Congressman O'Rourke, former Congressman O'Rourke, said add them to the 44,000 plus killed

as he failed to confront the pandemic and botched the vaccine rollout and those who froze to death because he cares more about energy companies' profits than keeping Texans alive. Abbott is killing the people of Texas, end quote. Hard to get more direct than that. Right.

I mean, I can't think of a way other than accusing Abbott of absolutely walking up to someone and killing them. Like, I can't think of a more serious accusation than what is being leveled by O'Rourke. And, you know, Representative Joaquin Castro also made a similar comment. So these reactions are absolutely as heated as they could possibly be. Absolutely. So in terms of the criticisms, you know, specifically in rescinding the mandate, you know, what are kind of the arguments surrounding, you know, specifically in rescinding the mandate, you know, what are kind of the arguments surrounding, you know, mask wearing, mask mandates, how that all boils down?

Well, what gets lost in this discussion is there's a difference between a debate about whether or not masks work and a debate about whether or not mask mandates work. And if you support mask mandates, you could probably find some research to support your position. If you don't support mask mandates, and you think they don't work, you could probably find some research to support your position. This is an area of where they're the jury is still out, so to speak. And the jury is still out on whether or not masks are effective in various different contexts. But, and I know there was one study in Los Angeles, or I'm sorry, I don't know if it was in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times reported a study in Denmark. And the gist of this study was

that it didn't work when they when they tested these mask mandates, it didn't work. But the conclusion of their study was that the mask mandates didn't work, but they would work if they did, essentially, was the conclusion of the study. They would work if everyone complied with them. Right. So it's kind of begging the question in some cases. Which is the argument Democrats are leveling and saying, hey, well, we need a mandate so that everyone would wear their mask. Right. But that's where it gets lost is because the governor is not telling anyone they shouldn't or they're not allowed to wear a mask.

People are still, and I want to be clear to anyone listening to this, this is not an edict that people are not allowed to wear masks. So the argument can be that a mask mandate should be in place or it shouldn't. But the fact is this simply leaves it to individual discretion. This is not a ruling on whether masks work. This is a ruling on whether we're going to have a mask mandate. I say ruling, it's an executive order. It's an executive order on rescinding a mask mandate. And that's all this is. Certainly. So then what did Republicans have to say? You know, I briefly touched on just an overarching theme of what they had to say. But what are the Republicans, you know, level in terms of their reactions to the to the

executive order? Well, as you mentioned, Republicans view this as an important step in returning to normalcy. And that's something that people have varying opinions about. And certainly, because what may be normal to some people, what someone might think of as normal, may be a threat to them, because they may view that as spreading the virus unnecessarily. But I think what a lot of people are seeing and understanding is a lot of people are seeing the evidence that these regulations are having unintended consequences. But Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, quote, the Texas economy is coming back stronger than ever. And Governor Greg Abbott's announcement today will help us restore the livelihoods of millions of Texans even faster.

Texas has proved what I have said throughout this long year of the pandemic. We can do two things at once, maintain our for domestic violence and child abuse, and revitalize our business climate. So the response from Republicans is considerably more differential to other factors, not exclusively the coronavirus and the deaths caused by coronavirus. It also takes into consideration the mental health effects, the economic effects, in view of the fact that all of those things do affect human life. So while people are continuing to be affected by this virus, the debate is to what degree these mandates actually impact that and whether or not it is advisable for people to just be allowed to make their own choices, be allowed to make their own choices, use their own judgment, their own common sense. Yeah, absolutely. Now, the president did not hold back either. He jumped in and, you know,

had a reaction to the entire reopening debate here. What did President Biden have to say? He was asked about two states because Mississippi also on the same day decided they were going to lift their restrictions. The governor of Mississippi announced he was going to roll back their mask mandate and some of their lockdown measures. Biden said that's Neanderthal thinking. I don't know if I pronounced that right, but we're going to go with it. Neanderthal thinking. And I forgot what that expression exactly entailed. And basically, he's saying that we're being primitive. I say we, he's saying that the state of Texas is being primitive with its policies, that having this policy where people are allowed to make their own choices and where we're balancing different factors is primitive and, and inappropriate because people have not been vaccinated yet. That is the primary argument is because we're not at a level of vaccinations that is conducive to herd immunity or people having widespread resistance to this virus that

because we aren't there yet, that people shouldn't be allowed to make their own decisions yet that the government still needs to step in and require people under penalty of imprisonment or fine to comply with these mandates. So in the president's view, that's barbaric, essentially, for the state to step out and let people make their own choices. Yeah, certainly something that yields incredibly emotional responses from folks. A lot of folks also cite data on both sides. You know, I think both political parties are finding data that can back up their positions. And it will continue to be a debate going forward, particularly in that some states are lifting their mandates and others aren't. Right. And so these, you know, apples and oranges comparisons will start to really ramp up over the next few weeks.

And we'll have to see what happens, too. I mean, we'll have to see after after next week whether hospitalizations stay the same or if they go back up. Right. That, once again, we'll have to wait and see. Certainly. Well, thank you for covering that for us, Hayden. Isaiah, we're going to come to you. Yep.

Staying on the subject of masks. One lawmaker has a bill that is garnering a lot of attention from folks specifically relating to, you know, prohibiting these kinds of orders in the future. Walk us through what the proposals are. Yeah. So, um, representative Matt Schaefer, Republican has introduced a couple of bills kind of in a pair that as you pointed out would not quite outlaw mask mandates, but ensure that only the legislature has the power to pass them. So Abbott's orders regarding masks, as others around this table could tell you who follow them closely, have sometimes been pretty complicated. There are triggers and loopholes built into place to kind of decentralize the state's response to the pandemic.

Schaefer's bill is a little bit more comprehensive. It would have outlawed the governor's orders and all local orders as well. So let me just read to you from the bill text itself, from the first one, HP 2097. The two underlying clauses, meaning the two ones that he proposes to add into the law, are one, the governor may not issue an executive order, proclamation, or regulation that requires a person to wear a mask or personal protective equipment unless expressly provided by statute. And then two, the second one applies the same rule to local officials. There you go. So now that's the first bill. The second bill, you know, he has another bill that basically just repeals a section of code. Walk us through that proposal. Sure. So colloquially people refer to chapter 418. That is a part of the law that includes a subsection by which the

governor has been empowered to enforce his executive orders with fines and even potentially jail time and penalties like that, hard legal penalties. So Schaefer proposes a second bill to pair with this first that would simply repeal this subsection of code and would effectively disarm disaster orders by, you orders by pulling the teeth out of them. Certainly. So what is the argument being made by this lawmaker, particularly about why this is needed? Schaefer has argued that the governor's executive orders, well, with the governor's enforcement from his own office, paired together violate the separation of powers principle. His argument is that the governor alone should not have the power to create a law and then enforce it.

So in his words, he says, there are strong opinions about masks. If a member of the legislature believes that a mask mandate with a criminal offense is necessary, then they, not the executive, i.e. the governor, will file a bill, have a public hearing, and listen to testimony. The lawmaking process will determine the outcome and the public gets a voice. So his bill is mostly procedural. His release and his bill, or bills I should say, neither of them talk about the efficacy of masks, but pursue instead the ability for the legislature alone to have the monopoly on passing these kinds of laws

and avoid having the executive branch or the governor create and then enforce both. Certainly. Well, thank you for explaining that for us. And it will certainly be interesting to see how this proposal moves forward. Representative Schaefer has certainly not been shy in criticizing executive overreach and executive power in his mind during this pandemic and particularly during the legislative session.

He hasn't stopped since he's come back to Austin. So I'm not shy about it whatsoever. Bradley, we're coming to you. Let's switch to another hot topic of the last month well last few weeks rather it seems like it's been a month but alas it has seems like it's been many months many moons ago puc and urquhart you know folks on the boards of these uh two different entities have been you know dropping like flies yeah This week is particularly big in that the heads of both organizations in some way or another have found themselves without a job. Walk us through what happened. So as you mentioned last week, there were some resignations. There were multiple ERCOT board members that resigned due to their citing their out-of-state residency.

And more specifically, I realize I did not frame this, we're talking about organizations or councils, agencies that deal directly with the power grid, right? Particularly in light of the fallout from the blackouts of two weeks ago. Correct, yep. And so also last week towards the end, the hearings began.

And after that, there were a number of, by my last count, it was 12, 15 or so, that the legislators that all called for the resignations of either PUC Chair Deanne Walker or ERCOT CEO Bill Magnus. Franklin, I'm surprised it's not more. Right, or both. Yeah. And so that's how the week ended now it started off real quick uh on Monday with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick calling for both of their resignations and that is pretty much what got the ball rolling um you know shortly

after that in a matter of hours uh Deanne Walker had resigned. She had turned in her resignation letter to the governor's office. And, um, she, she kind of, she pointed some blame back at, uh, the legislature. Um, you know, she, she criticized them for the way she was questioned. Um, and she said, I know that I acted with the best of intentions and used my best judgment on how to respond once the crisis, being the blackouts, was upon us, as well as to the days that led to the crisis. So she, you know, in the questioning, she was very defiant. And she didn't do, she acknowledged some blame for the PUC, but then kind of pushed it off on others. And so that made many legislators rub them the wrong way. So, you know, that's how Monday ended. And, you know, shortly after that,

or two days after that, her replacement had been appointed. Now, the governor appointed Arthur D'Andrea. He's already a commissioner on the PUC. And so he's just basically moving from his commissioner position to the chair position. And so that wasn't vacant for very long. Yeah, certainly. And it was basically just moving somebody else from Abbott World into a new position in the same way. Yep. He was a general counsel, assistant general counsel for Governor Abbott explicitly. So, you know, the governor knows him. Yeah, absolutely. So then, you know, another big termination happened this week, a little bit different context, a little bit different circumstance. Walk us through that. The ERCOT board of directors held an emergency meeting, and in it they talked about various things related to the blackouts.

But at one point they went into executive session and discussed whether to terminate the contract of CEO Bill Magnus. Now, that is obviously something that had been talked about since everything went down a few weeks ago and uh magnus i would say based on my my watching of the the hearings he did not come off as defiant as walker but um he he did not provide the contrition that a lot of legislators hoped he would provide certainly so um you know this was pretty much going to happen it's just a question of when and it happened wednesday night um they uh since it was an executive session we don't know who voted which way now i'm hearing that it was six to one but because it's an executive session that's not public knowledge at least at the moment of you know who voted which way or even if that is the correct vote tally. ERCOT put out a statement that said, the ERCOT board of directors met this evening

and directed the corporate secretary to exercise the 60 days termination notice to Magnus pursuant to the employment agreement with ERCOT. And so he is going to stay on and help with the transition, obviously from him being the president and CEO to the next person, but also with working on reforms that the legislature is absolutely going to consider to ERCOT. And so while he has been officially terminated, it's not effective for a couple months. I like it. Well, thank you for covering that for us.

Certainly something that you have been on the forefront of for a while now, and all of a sudden it becomes one of the biggest stories in the state. Yep. Isaiah, speaking of energy. Yes. Talk us through a big lawsuit that made headlines this week, particularly the attorney general here in Texas going after an energy company called Gritty.

Give us specifics. What is Gritty and why is Paxton suing them? Sure. And at any time, Brad, feel free to interrupt me. Gritty is a wholesale energy provider company, a retail energy provider. So they do not own generators. What they do is for a flat fee paid by customers every month, they will just pass on the market cost of electricity to their customers or consumers. And that's how it works. They don't set the pass on the market cost of electricity to their customers or consumers. And that's how it works. They don't set the prices of the market, which is important here. Paxton is not faulting them for high prices, but claims that they have engaged in deceptive

business practices by promising big savings to their customers when naturally that didn't happen for those who did have electricity during the blackouts. Got it. So, you know, let's drill down more onto that because I think that there is some, you know, difference in opinion between folks here in Texas of whether those practices were deceptive, what kind of notice Gritty provided their customers with. Give us a little bit more insight into that. Sure. So Paxton is throwing a lot of stuff at the wall here to see what sticks. And so there are a lot of allegations of deceptive practices. One is usage of the term wholesale, which earned them a warning from the Better Business Bureau on the BBB website saying that

usage of that term is a little shaky when the company billing itself as wholesale does not actually have direct access to the factory product. So since Greedy doesn't actually generate power using the term wholesale, Paxton argues is one misleading aspect of their advertising. Another is that they claim to be, in some spots, 20% cheaper than the Texas average. Government numbers that Paxton picked, which are accurate, show that they're actually pretty close. And Gritty is actually a little bit higher than the Texas average by like a few pennies, I think, or fractions of a penny. Did it specify if the Texas average was just residential?

Yes. That separation of data is available between commercial and residential. And another big claim is that Gritty has advertised popularly that these kind of price spikes, like what happened in the freeze, are rare. But they've happened twice in the past two years. The last one was in the August freeze of 20... Excuse me the opposite august heat wave of 2019 very different um and that was where um ercot we did not go into blackouts but we very nearly uh went into a blackout oh really yes you know they came within you know a few thousand megawatts of which is basically the reserve capacity of uh of you know

blackout and that caused excuse me that caused ercot and the pc to adjust their reserve capacity they increased threshold a bit so um that is one runoff of it well on top of that according to the lawsuit at least that was also the last time that electricity costs hit that $9 per kilowatt hour ceiling, which happened during the freeze. And so for Gritty to claim that hitting that ceiling is an extremely rare occurrence when this is the second time that it's happened in as many years, that's another one of Paxton's allegations. And there are a few more all boiling down to the fact that they're advertising bills and bills the company as a cheaper option than other alternatives when that didn't quite shake out during during the freeze whether or not that's their fault will be hashed out in court certainly so gritty side of the story are you know they've already come out with some you know some arguments ahead of all

of this but walk us through just a little bit of that bullet point for us. For one, I asked them if they had hedged and prepared for this kind of spike, and they didn't give me much. They sent me back a statement that was pretty boilerplate. To their credit, they sent out alerts to customers warning them of the impending price spikes before they happened, and actually advised their customers to change to another retail electric provider. And again, they own no generators, so they don't set the price of the market. They just pass that on to the customer. And when it goes up, it goes up. And so customers are expected to be buyer-aware and accept their responsibility.

On the flip side of that, there are one or two customers named in the lawsuit who claim that they didn't get these alerts to change providers until it was too late. It was on the Sunday that it started snowing or even afterward where these other providers weren't accepting new business since everything was already haywire. So, again, that's something else that's timeline sensitive that's probably going to have to get hashed out in court. Another thing that's different between the 2019 event, the heat event, and this one is how long it lasted. I've talked about this before, about how 2011 we had a similar winter event that caused blackouts, and that only lasted for a few hours. In 2019, with the heat wave, the stress on the system only lasted a few hours. And so people are seeing these exorbitant price utility bills in large part not just because of the price going up, but because of how long the price was up. And it was multiple days.

So, you know, that's something that both sides are going to argue about. And it's just one minor discrepancy between the two. Yeah. Paxton took issue with the automatic payments that a lot of customers he claims were locked into. There was one elderly woman living on social security who emailed Gritty saying that her account was overdrawn by hundreds of dollars and she couldn't make it to the bank until Friday because of the snow. But because of auto pay, then all of her, you know,

essentially only social security funds were just siphoned out of her account. Again, how much of the responsibility lies with the customer is going to be a big part of this lawsuit. Absolutely. Well, thank you for breaking that down for us. Certainly something that's, you know, not uncomplicated and will be a big talking point going forward. This was, you know, a primary cause for panic among Texans when they thought when at the time, a lot of folks thought their, uh, their bills would just be raised across the board to exorbitant amounts. And come to find out it was less than 1% of the population in Texas. Oh, that's the figure that I heard.

Yeah. Something along those lines. Most people are locked into rate-based plans. Certainly. So, Isaiah, thank you for making sure our readers are informed. Bradley, let's keep talking about energy. A bankruptcy of a large energy provider made headlines this week. Walk us through that so we just talked about the uh the financial impact on the average person but that's not the

only um you know problem that's coming from this there are a lot of a lot of companies um you know public entity types that are uh you know feeling the the stress on their their purse strings because of those exorbitantly high electricity prices. And one of those is the Brazos Electric Power Cooperative. It's the largest cooperative in the state that provides electric power. There's like 660,000 some odd people that pull their power from them. And it's a partial partial generator it also serves as kind of a retailer it's kind of a catch-all it's it's an odd oddly structured entity but whereas most of the other ones are you know really siphoned off into one category or the other this

is not quite as much that but they they filed for bankruptcy after getting a 1.8 billion dollar bill from ercot and uh um you know that come came from the wholesale electricity prices um you know they're they're not a private company they um they they rely on much lower amounts of profits on average because they're not in it for profit. They're not a regular business. But this massive bill has caused them to file for bankruptcy. I like it. Now, with all the ERCOT drama and all the criticism being flown there, all the fallout from the entire circumstance. How does this tie into that? Well, there's a direct corollary of it.

We mentioned the PUC price increase that jumped prices to the $9 per kilowatt hour cap and stayed there for multiple days. That's a direct result of an agency's decision. Before that, they were trading much lower. The figure at PUC stated was $1,200. So still in the thousands, which is a lot of money compared to what it normally trades at, but much lower than what it ended up being for multiple days. It also pertains to the resignation situation.

The Brazos executive director was on the ERCOT board. And he resigned after the group of five, the first group of five did. It was the Friday after. So the second day of the hearings. And he did so I heard this before this became public but he did so not because of any residency problems but because of

problems with his own company and sure enough those problems with his own company were this bankruptcy so that's part of it too another big factor in this is the people that typically pull that use Brazos. And because the company is insolvent, they cannot trade on the on the ERCOT marketplace. Now, there may be I'm sure there are back ways to, you know, kind of has a know, as a stopgap measure, continue to provide power to people. But, you know, eventually, especially if this whole thing goes under and they don't fully

succeed in restructuring, which is what normally happens with bankruptcies, you know, the customers will have to find a new provider, whether it's companies around the area that come in or an entirely new entity taking up, you know up the vacuum the Brasos may leave, that would cause some increase in prices somewhere down the line. Maybe they don't last for long, but who knows? It would cause a lot of issues in trying to facilitate that transition. Certainly. Now, looking to your crystal ball. Tell us what you think. Will there be more bankruptcies like this post, you know, blackouts? Definitely. Um, may not be as high profile because being the, not only the largest, but the oldest cooperative in tech,

electric cooperative in Texas, uh, you know, that carries a lot of weight with it. But these, a lot of these companies, these private companies are taking the hit on the price increases. And so in the hearings last week, the CEO of Vista Energy and NRG Energy both said that they're absorbing the financial hit to it. They're not passing it on to their customers. But that is going to cause some sort of ripple effect throughout the system. I would definitely expect more of these quasi-public entities like Brazos to really bear the brunt of this because they're not structured to make profits like these other companies are. So in short, yes, there will be more financial fallout.

I would expect a couple more bankruptcies too, at least. My gosh, what a crazy year already. Thank you for covering that for us, Daniel. Let's move off of energy and talk more about executive power and COVID-19. There is a bill that has been filed that immediately caught the eyes of the press and citizens alike that has a lot of criticism surrounding it, a lot of just discussion just about the response and whether or not this is the appropriate, you know, action to take post COVID-19, post 2020 rather. HB3, there's a lot going on here. You have a lot to cover. Give

us, you know, the, the rundown. What's the main purpose of this bill? What is it aiming to do? So this bill HB three was filed by representative Dustin Burrows out of Lubbock. Um, last week, uh, it's kind of dubbed the Texas pandemic response act, very similar to the Texas disaster act. And the similarity there is because it would create a new chapter specific to pandemics right next to Chapter 418.

Now, it doesn't do a lot to Chapter 418 like the other bills that Isaiah was talking about earlier in the podcast. But rather, the only thing that it really changes in 418 is says pandemics don't apply to this. Go see the next chapter. Right. And so the main effect of this bill, it just largely codifies Abbott's response to the pandemic. Now, I know I'm getting a lot of eyes from the people in this room.

I did say codify. I did not say codify. You are wrong, but that's okay. I mean mean this is one like you don't say notify you say notify lord in heaven you are both factually and morally incorrect no i'm going to die on this hill i i've always been saying that codify i didn't realize that was the the actual british way of saying it but i think that's something that they this is the rare exception that they do it correctly so i'm gonna stick with codify oh my gosh i will write a thesis defending it someday anyways it the bill largely just says that what abbott did how he responded to the pandemic that is is how it's going to, that's how the state

should respond. You know, this is related to things like the second amendment and religious liberty. Those are things that Abbott kind of hammered down, like we're not going to shut down gun stores. We're not going to close churches. Mask mandate doesn't apply to churches. But, and other things too, like the preemption of the governor's authority over local governments, various aspects of the bill largely just says this is the way it's going to be for pandemics. I like it. So as I alluded to, this is both, you know, garnering criticism and praise from different members of the legislature. But walk us through a little bit of the debate surrounding this bill and why it's controversial. Yes.

So you've got a lot of criticism coming from the conservative grassroots people. The people who are really frustrated with Abbott's response to the pandemic are the people who are criticizing this bill. Now, they have a few different criticisms that they have. Largely, I would say the their big criticism with this bill is because it is so similar to the chapter 418 and it affirms everything in chapter 418 which 418 has come under fire big time yes from this same group of people and so these people and democrats and republicans i mean chapter 418 has been a big topic of of conversation and debate

and so i think that's underlying the whole debate on this. I think that's why people do not like this bill is because people already don't like Chapter 418. They want the legislature to do something to change Chapter 418 to curb the executive authority. And they look at this bill and two things that they're pointing out or that they're arguing is that this bill they say would actually expand executive authority. Now, Representative Dustin Burroughs is adamant

that it does not. And he kind of has his defense for that. And then the other thing that they're criticizing him for is the liability protections. This bill would create liability protections for businesses that operate during a pandemic and also for businesses that are volunteers during the pandemic. So a business that started creating personal protective equipment, you can't sue them for that. But in that liability protections, one of the requirements for businesses to be protected from lawsuits is that they essentially comply with the relevant federal state local laws. And so the people are pointing to that and they're saying, okay, you're making Fauci and the CDC king and saying that businesses would have to comply with their, their policies. And on that you have a representative Burroughs who says like,

no, this is, I, I do not, um, think CDC should be involved at all. You know, we're, this is the language that business people brought to me is what he said. And that, uh, he wants to tighten up the language to make it clear that, uh, liability protections apply to everyone. I even asked him, in this grassroots corner, you have Shelley Luther who opened her hair salon before she was allowed to under Governor Abbott's executive order. And I asked him, would these liability protections apply to her business since she was violating his order or businesses like that? And he said that it should apply.

So we'll see if the language on there gets cleaned up a little bit. So those are really the broad criticism of the bill. Now the people who are criticizing it, like I said, these are more grassroots people. In the Republican Party, you have the State Republican Executive Committee and the chairwoman of the legislative priorities committee, Jill Glover, um, sent out a kind of an update email newsletter opposing the bill and saying, this is very bad. We have other bills, uh, like representative Matt Schaefer's bill that Isaiah talked about earlier, um, and was encouraging people to support that. And also, uh, on that representative Matt Schaefer himself is, is very wary of this bill, um, and, and has spoken out in opposition to it. Uh, so we'll see going forward, you know, how it is handled by other lawmakers, uh, both in the house and the Senate.

Yeah. How it all shakes out. So, you know, give us a brief overview of what topics are covered in the bill. Yeah. So I've brought, uh, mentioned a lot of them. Um, you know, you have some doubling down on those second amendment and, uh, religious liberty protections, uh, which some people are saying that's unnecessary because you have the second amendment and first amendment anyways. You have, um, also one of another one of Abbott's policies that he kind of developed. It wasn't originally what he had. He was going off of Chapter 418, which allows for confinement in jail of up to 180 days as punishment or a fine of up to $1,000. And he ultimately kind of changed that retroactively and said, no one can be put in jail for this. And so one of the things that this bill does is it leaves in the fine for violations of executive orders issued under the chapter.

But there are no jail penalties for this. Some other things that it does, I mentioned the local preemption, that the governor's orders will supersede any local conflicting orders. So it makes it very clear that the governor is the one in charge. And then on that note, there's a few different aspects. You have the question about elections. If you think back to October, November, before the general election, the Harris County clerk tried sending out mail ballot applications to a very wide range of voters. I think I've heard that it was all the voters in the district. I'd have to go back and look. But that came under some heat. And so this would basically force any local jurisdictions that want to kind of change the election laws or election procedures, force them to go and get written consent from the

Secretary of State before they can do that. And then another uh, you have some, some education subject on there, uh, which, you know, this is, I would say one of the two issues that really, uh, didn't come up with governor Abbott quite as directly as the other things in the bill. And so what this would do is basically, uh, you know, people are, uh, people who are very pro public school and do not like school choice are calling this kind of a school voucher provision. And essentially what it would do is if schools are refusing to open in-person instruction again, the commissioner of education can basically go and find other programs, in-person programs, outside of the school district and approve students to go there for attendance. And the school district would then be required to compensate that program in some way or have their funds deducted so that the commission of education can deduct their funds and give it to the other program. And Burroughs says if people want to avoid that, they can just open the schools.

Certainly. And Burroughs says if people want to avoid that, they can just open the schools. And then the last thing is more of a Brad subject that he tackled because I know nothing about property taxes, but that was something in there. Yeah, yeah. Well, within the bill, it establishes a prohibition on counties and cities raising property taxes if in the same tax year they had closed businesses for operation. That's pretty obvious right there. One indirect thing that it does, it could address the disaster loophole that was a big thing last year that I covered quite a bit. This loophole in SB2 that was passed last year in 2019

that allows when a disaster declaration has been issued for a city or county to raise taxes, not only just raise taxes, but raise taxes above the limits established in SB2. So this would tie all of that, any county or city that has closed businesses, it would tie them to the no new revenue rate. So literally not a tax increase at all.

So, yeah, that's what that does. I like it. Well, Daniel, thank you for covering this for us and breaking it down. Certainly not an uncomplicated topic either and something that is difficult to cover with all of the different opinions. And I think you just were able to cut through all of that and provide information to our readers. So thank you for doing that. And Brad, thanks for the assist as well. We're going to come to you next. Just call me John Stockton. I don't know what that reference is. That joke went right over my head. But thanks, John. He's a famous point guard from the 90s. Wow.

Who was famous for assists. Utah Jazz. Okay, got it. That's my dad's favorite player. Good to know. That's like my favorite player too. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's the latest one that you've heard of. Yeah. You know, I did jazz dance as like a seven-year-old, so I like him too. Oh, cool.

I played the saxophone. Does that count? Yeah, that works. Very jazzy. Bradley, let's talk about the city of Austin. A lawmaker made waves this week by introducing a bill that would be a little spicy. Walk us through that. Yeah, yeah.

Representative Brian Slayton proposed a bill this week to rename the stretch of I-35 in downtown Austin that goes from 4th Street to 11th Street, the Steve Adler Public Restroom Highway. Okay. Unreal. Yeah.room Highway. Okay. Unreal. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. It's a new approach, I'd say.

I'd say that as well. Yes. And so he stated about it, liberal legacies deserve to be recognized since the legislature has made it clear it intends to rename some highways and bridges this session. I think it is imperative we start with a highway that truly recognizes the contributions of mayor adler obviously there's a lot of um uh disdain for the sitting austin mayor and a large part of that is the is because of the homeless policy uh the camping policy that has been in place since july 2019 and yeah well when he refers to them naming roads and bridges is that some kind of veiled allusion to the the amendment rules process do you remember

that yes you're absolutely correct okay yes yeah yes the uh yeah and the rules fight yes beginning of session yes it is um because he if i recall, he tried to, before the legislature could name any roads or bridges ceremonially, they had to first vote on abolition of abortion. Yes, abolition of abortion. So he tried to tie it to that. And that is definitely an ode to that. But the reason he picked this section of the highway is it's often called tent city uh pejoratively um it's pretty accurate prescriptively though because or descriptively though because uh you know if you under the overpasses just you know tents all over the place um it's it's part of it is the portion

uh we're right by the austin police department headquarters downtown. I drove by there today and there were more tents. It's just amazing. They keep popping up? Yep. And so that's why they selected that. And I doubt this is going to get passed. But it will make for an interesting vote. That's for sure.

Absolutely. If it makes it to the floor, it will make for an yeah interesting vote isaiah we're going to come directly to you uh pivot to san antonio and some drama going on down there we're also going to talk about another bill from representative slayton he's he's doing all sorts of stuff this week um but talk talk to us a little bit about the newest developments in san antonio specifically with the Alamo? Sure. So for some background first, the Alamo has, well, city leaders and state leaders have been eyeing the Alamo for renovation for years now. And they're restarting an effort that has been suggested over literally decades. So a lot of people have been wanting to renovate the Alamo for a long time. And the project has been stopped in its progress by what city leaders and project leaders, even up to George P. Bush, Land Commissioner, General Land Commissioner, called the keystone of the project, which is moving the Alamo Cenotaph.

For those of you who don't know, that's that big statue in front of the church part that commemorates the defenders. And so as I mentioned before, George P. Bush, general land office commissioner, and city council member Roberto Trevino of San Antonio, and really the city of San Antonio and all its official apparatus, all were staunch advocates of moving the Cenotaph and calling it a necessary first step to the plan. And the Texas Historical Commission denied the city the permit to move it. And so leaders of the plan, like Trevino, especially most vocally, blamed the THC for stopping the plan in its tracks. I like it. So in terms of what has happened this week, what made this newsworthy once again? Well, what happened was that George P. Bush, kind of out of the blue, has made an about face on the Senate TAF. He is now calling it a minimal part of the plan and said very flatly and confidently to the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week, Senate TAF ain't moving. Very simply put. Very simply put.

And he referenced meetings with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. He didn't come right out and say, Dan Patrick convinced me that we don't have to move the Cenotaph. But he seemed to credit Patrick indirectly and meetings with Patrick for his change of heart. And now I say change of heart, one would think that after the THC denied the city the permit, that'd be a done deal and they'd move around it.

But that was in September of last year. In November following, leaders of the project presented another plan to the city that was unchanged. It was essentially the same plan as before. And it was one big argument, once again, that the Senate just had to be moved, even after the THC had rendered that impossible. So other council members wondered why there was not a plan B. John Courage was one, and there were a couple of others. We linked to that November article in this most recent piece about Bush's change of heart. But Bush has now come on board and accepted the reality

that the cenotaph is firmly fixed in place. And that's at the state level. At the city level, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg has removed Trevino from leadership positions on the two committees that held sway over the Alamo project. So once again, both men heretofore

have been staunch advocates of moving the monument. But Nirenberg has acknowledged that in his words, that position is untenable. So in his words again, he said, based on my discussions with GLO Commissioner George P. Bush and our discussions as a council, we are ready to begin working with our ALMA partners on a modified plan. There you go. So real fast, give us a quick overview of this bill we've referenced or alluded to right so uh state rep brian slayton has introduced a bill to protect historical monuments and he included the senate pretty conspicuously in the text for some background on this one state senator brandon creighton and state rep kyle biederman have had promised to file bills of similar goals this session. I haven't seen those yet. I'm sure they'll come. And Brian Slayton's is interesting because the way that Biedermann

and Creighton promised or foretold their bill and the way they summarized it was that it would ensure the orderly removal of monuments. And that's part of what Slayton's does here too. But after a certain age, yeah, I'm looking at the text right here. If a monument has stood for at least 40 years on state property, it just may not be removed, relocated, or altered. So the bill would ensure its total safety. For those that have stood for at least 20 years but less than 40 years, the legislature, by a two-thirds vote of each house, can decide to change it or relocate it or remove it. And if it's for less than 20 years, once again, the legislature can alter it, remove it, and so forth. So we've got the text link there in the piece.

But it's interesting that it would grant such total sweeping safety to monuments that are just 40 years old on state property. And I mentioned the Cenotaph as conspicuous because in the written part of the bill text, he includes in a few, he expands the definition of what a monument is in the law to include names of like parks and bridges and roads, but he also slips in the word Cenotaph. So it's a very overt nod, you know, down south to San Antonio to the Alamo cenotaph that actually most recently has been pretty well established as safe in the position that it's in. Certainly. Well, thank you for that, Isaiah. Daniel, we're going to come.

And as our last piece of news to talk about this week, we've talked at length about the Texas 6th Congressional District and the circumstances surrounding that special election. The filing deadline was Wednesday of this week and the field is finalized. Walk us through any changes that may have been made. Yes, so there were 23 people who filed for this race which will be held on May 1st to fill the Congressional District where Congressman Ron Wright passed away in February. There are 11 Republicans running for the race, 10 Democrats, and two other candidates, one libertarian, one independent. Notable Republicans include Susan Wright, which we've mentioned before, Ron Wright's husband or wife, not husband. You have state representative Jake

Elsey, and then you have three people with kind of some Trump ties. You have two that worked in his, under his administration, Sari Kim and also Brian Harrison. And then you also had Dan Rodimer join at the last minute. He was a former Nevada congressional district candidate who lost, but he did receive Trump's endorsement and is hoping to get that endorsement again. Time will tell if Trump actually wades into the district or not. There was one other Republican, Katrina Pearson, who is rumored to be running, even published in The Hill, that they were very certain that she would be, and then it turns out that she wasn't. So that makes the field a little bit less competitive for Republicans. On the Democratic side, you have 10 Democrats.

The noble ones in there, I think, really include Janeline Sanchez, who previously ran for the district in 2018 when it was an open seat. And she ran against Representative Ron Wright and lost. And then you also have Lydia Bean, who most recently ran for the State House District in Fort Worth against Representative Matt Krause. And she lost that. I don't remember the margin, but those are the big candidates. There's a long list of other candidates. If you want more on that, just go to thedexan.news. I like it. Well, Daniel, thanks for covering that for us. us gentlemen let's talk about something fun um i think you know in light of this is something we're going off script a little bit here but in light of daniel's difference although you know i think is there anybody else who thinks it should be codify

how you pronounce no i don't think there is i don't have strong opinions on it you don't have strong opinions is there a word in the english language that you just can't remember how to say or spell? Like, my sister can't say silver. She just can't pronounce. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Worcestershire.

I can't say that one. I can't spell it. Is it Worcestershire? Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. Worcestershire. I have no idea.

I will never know how to pronounce that word. It's a German word anyways, right? I thought it was one of those English words that they've like cockneyed up for decades and centuries to where it's something different now. I thought it was always German. That was my understanding. But what do I know? I never studied that in school. Daniel, is there a word you just can't say or spell?

I can't remember which double letters in the word vacuum. I have a hard time with that, which feels silly. But if I'm like writing it physically down on paper, like a to-do list, I have the hardest time remembering which words double up or which letters double up. It's the V. It's the V and the A, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's the v it's the it's the v and the a right yeah yeah i always have to um kind of second guess myself when i'm uh writing out pneumon ultra microscopic silicovolcano coniosis oh yeah you know me too yeah i'm with you there's some letters in there that i get mixed up yeah

that's a rough one it didn't seem like you had to second guess yourself just now. Well, I'm not saying it. I'm spelling it. Oh. How often do you spell that word? Just when I'm trying to fill up characters on Twitter, which is never. Is never. Has it ever happened? Have I ever had to spell it? Yeah.

I think I've written it down a few times. This is fake news. No, this was when I was really interested in the spelling bee when I was in second grade. And I was like, I wonder what the lungs where it is. Second grade. Daniel would be interested in the spelling.

And it's longer than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. 23 year old Daniel is interested in the spelling bee. I think you're right. No, no. I, I lost interest after the sixth grade. What happened?

I lost. I went to the state spelling bee but it was in oklahoma what does that what what's the point of that that's a that's a dig at oklahoma okay got it i wasn't sure because you grew up there went to the state spelling bee yeah in oklahoma yeah yeah bradley uh i constantly misspell received. I before E? All the time. Except after C. And I know the rule.

But when I'm typing it and I'm not thinking about it, I always misspell it. I always flip the E in the I. So that one for me. I spelled synetaph with two C's in the original draft of my article today. I was alerted. And I also just screwed up saying that sentence. So I guess that's my word. Cenotaph.

It's a classic. You know, there was another one that I always got mixed up. It's the guy who didn't kill himself. Epstein. Oh, okay. Oh my gosh. Daniel, what was the word that knocked you out of the Oklahoma State spelling bee? Oh, I think it was, um, it, uh, I think it started with a W. I'm trying to remember.

Was it Worcestershire sauce? No, it was like three letters long. What? Oh boy. But it was a synonym. I think I'll have to go back to remember. Worcestershire sauce? No, it was like three letters long. What? Oh, boy. But it was a synonym, I think. I'll have to go back and remember. Oh, that stinks. You should find out.

You should tweet it out tomorrow. If I can remember. Unless it's too scarring for you to remember such time. I do not remember. One of my favorite episodes of television ever was this old ESPN classic show called Cheap Seats that my dad and I would watch. And it's these two comedians and they'd sit there and watch sporting events, kind of like Mystery Science Theater 3000. Oh, okay. And there was one they did of the Spelling Bee.

And there's this girl that after every letter would put her hands up to her face and breathe like Darth Vader. And then say the next letter oh my word and over she won the thing i think and so there was a lot of content to use for that was that just like a psychological warfare thing or was it giving her time to think probably that yeah maybe she was just really dirt i don't know really nerdy yes nervous is what i was gonna say probably really nerdy she's in the Spelling Bee. Yeah. Yeah.

But I recommend it if you're ever needing something to watch on YouTube. Wow. Cheap Seats Spelling Bee episode. Fantastic. That sounds pretty awesome. You guys know that you're reminding me of the Darth Vader breathing thing, the Stefan skit from SNL? Oh, yes. That's what that reminded me of.

It's entirely different, but entirely similar. Wonderful. Okay. That's a great summary. of. It's entirely different, but entirely similar. Wonderful. Okay, that's a great summary. Thank you. I know exactly. I didn't know it before, but now I do. At root, entirely different and entirely similar. Wow.

This just turned into Joe Rogan's podcast. I'm going to be noodling on this for a hot minute here. Well, gentlemen, thanks for joining me. Folks, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week. Thank you all so much for listening. If you've been enjoying our podcast, it would be awesome if you would review us on iTunes. And if there's a guest you'd love to hear on our show, give us a shout on Twitter.

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