Sunshine Week
The TPPF take: It’s Sunshine Week, when we celebrate open government and accountability.
The TPPF take: Two new threats to open government in Texas have emerged in the last year: the pandemic and the deep freeze we suffered in February.
“Last year was a bad one for the Texas Public Information Act and other government accountability (‘sunshine’) laws,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “And 2021 isn’t starting off so well, either. Numerous government agencies cited the pandemic as an excuse to delay public information requests.”
For more on Sunshine Week, click here.
And tune in to our Thursday livestream event here.
R for Reliability?
What to know: ERCOT is naïve about how much power Texas can generate when we need it, one expert says.
The TPPF take: The way ERCOT calculates its reserve capacity from renewable source is flawed.
“ERCOT’s reserve forecasts are calculated based on the average contribution of each energy source during peak demand periods,” says TPPF’s Jason Isaac. “Wind and solar energy are intermittent, meaning their contributions to the grid plummet dramatically when the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining. And although ERCOT clearly has no control over the weather, this challenging situation is made worse when forecasts are based on assumptions that create a false sense of security about the reliability of the grid.”
For more on those phantom margins, click here.
A Crisis of Cruelty
What to know: Even CNN now admits that what’s happening at the southern U.S. border is a crisis.
The TPPF take: People are being victimized and even killed because of President Biden’s border policies.
“The bottom line is that throwing open our borders — as President Biden has effectively done — only serves to empower transnational criminal enterprises,” says TPPF’s Josh Jones. “His immigration policies aren’t humanitarian; they’re creating more victims.”
For more on the border crisis, click here.