Beryl’s damage — and finger-pointing — spread in Texas

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Jul 11, 2024 View in browser   By Francisco "A.J." Camacho Workers clear debris from city streets in Houston on Wednesday after Hurricane Beryl slammed into Texas, knocking out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses. | Maria Lysaker/AP Hurricane Beryl was bound to do some damage in Texas, but it shouldn’t have been able to cripple Houston’s electric grid. At least that’s what some politicians and energy experts are saying after the storm — barely strong enough to be classified as a hurricane — initially left nearly 3 million people without power. As of this afternoon, more than 1 million homes and businesses in the Houston area were still in the dark, three days after Beryl made landfall. That has created a compound disaster as a heat index exceeding 100 degrees puts Houston under a severe weather alert, write Thomas Frank and Ariel Wittenberg. The hurricane’s aftermath is a reminder that American infrastructure needs to be prepared for climate-driven disasters, people who study the power sector say. “It’s important these systems are designed to handle not just one climate-amplified extreme event but a couple because it’s life or death,” said Costa Samaras, a former Biden administration official who now leads the Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. CenterPoint Energy, the Houston area’s largest electric utility, may not have called in help soon enough from repair crews to fix downed power lines and poles, Rice University environmental engineering professor Dan Cohan told Thomas and Ariel. But the utility said it is restoring power faster than ever before. Senior Vice President of Operations Darin Carroll told FOX 26 Houston that CenterPoint turned power back on for 1 million customers in less than 48 hours “because of the investments and the preparation that happened ahead of this storm,” including reinforcing electrical poles. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called for an investigation into the power outages. “They should not be losing power,” Abbott said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “I want to find out: Was there a structural flaw with regard to the electrical delivery system? … Or was this a personnel issue of not having enough power personnel in all the right locations to get power back and going again?” Abbot was traveling in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan when Beryl hit. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that the federal government had to track down Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is serving as acting governor in Abbott’s absence, to get his formal request for emergency supplies like power generators, according to the Houston Chronicle. But Patrick said in a news conference on Tuesday afternoon that there was “no delay.” “The truth is, before you can ask for a declaration you have to go meet with people in the impacted areas to see what’s needed and the level of need,” he said.   It's Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Francisco "A.J." Camacho. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to jkirkland@eenews.net.   Understand 2024’s big impacts with Pro’s extensive Campaign Races Dashboard, exclusive insights, and key coverage of federal- and state-level debates. Focus on policy. Learn more.     Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Josh Siegel breaks down what the new bipartisan carbon bill does and doesn’t do, how former President Donald Trump is influencing this fight, and why the issue could gain traction in Congress next year. Power Centers Unsold 2024 electric Lyriq utility vehicles sit in a row outside a Chevrolet dealership last month in Lone Tree, Colorado. | David Zalubowski/AP Biden auto grants put pedal to the metal The Biden administration will give nearly a dozen U.S. auto factories a combined $1.7 billion to adapt their production lines for electric vehicles, writes David Ferris. The money will go to manufacturers like General Motors, Volvo, and Harley Davidson, which will retrofit older plants that produce gas-powered vehicles with capabilities for EV-specific manufacturing. The funds, from the Inflation Reduction Act, aim to bolster a flagging part of the auto sector — and much of the money will go to political battleground states such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Georgia. The faces behind Project 2025 Former President Donald Trump claims he has "no idea who is behind" Project 2025, but it was drafted with help from major officials who served in his administration, writes Robin Bravender. Drafters of the policy proposal include former Trump appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The plan, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, calls for loosening many environmental rules, cutting EPA funding, and directing the Interior Department to prioritize increasing production of fossil fuels on public lands and waters. Trump supports these goals, but has said he knows "nothing about" the blueprint. An (expected) EPA inquisition Republican lawmakers grilled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan at an oversight hearing Wednesday, with some accusing the agency of “unconstitutional regulations,” writes Kevin Bogardus. The House hearing came less than two weeks after the Supreme Court overturned the four-decade-old “Chevron doctrine,” which defers to federal agencies for their reasonable interpretation of ambiguous laws. Regan said its repeal “hits EPA extremely hard” and argued “America needs a strong EPA.” Democrats used the hearing to bring attention to Project 2025, which calls for dramatically downsizing the EPA and other agencies.   SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW.     In Other News Cup of Joe: Lavazza, one of the largest coffee roasters in the world, is warning that it will need to raise the price of its coffee as climate change takes its toll on coffee plants. Cup of Joe (Biden): Robinson Meyer of Heatmap News writes that Biden's climate legacy will go to waste if Trump wins in November. Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Solar panels supply energy to a community center and school in Puerto Rico. | Lester Jimenez/AFP via Getty Images Puerto Rico is in the midst of a feud between the legislature and the territory’s financial oversight board over rooftop solar panel incentives. The Montana Supreme Court appeared divided in oral arguments about a climate lawsuit brought by local youth, with some justices seeming skeptical about a right to a clean environment and others unsure if there was enough proof of damage yet. A Maryland state judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by the city of Baltimore seeking compensation from oil companies for climate-related damages, ruling that the lawsuit was “beyond the limits of Maryland state law.” That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.   Follow us on Twitter Arianna Skibell @ariannaskibell   Follow us

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