Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, explained why some Texans received a massive electricity bill after the winter storm crisis, and he put the blame squarely on them for “gambling” with their power bill.
Patrick made the comments as a guest this week on Fox News’ “Outnumbered.”
“I saw the story about the high bills. Let me explain that,” Patrick said, referring to reports that some customers had bills as high as $17,000.
“We have in Texas, you can choose your energy plan and most people have a fixed rate. If they had a fixed rate per kilowatt hour, their rates aren’t going up. Now their bill might be up because they used more energy because they had the heat up when they got the power back,” he continued.
“But the people who are getting those big bills are people who gambled on a very, very low rate, and it would go up with the power,” Patrick added.
“But I’ve told those folks, do not panic. We are going to figure that out,” he continued. “But going forward, people need to read the fine print in those kinds of bills and we may even end that type of variable plan because people were surprised.”
As president of the Senate in Texas, Patrick went on to say that he would do everything in his power to fix the problem.
“We’re gonna get to the bottom of this and find out what the hell happened, and we’re gonna fix it once and for all,” he added.
He said that they would consider using subpoena power to compel witnesses to testify over the energy grid failures.
At least 80 Texans reportedly died from the historic snowstorm that hit the state and knocked out the electric grid for many days, but experts say the true death toll won’t be known for weeks.
Here’s the video of Patrick’s comments:
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texans who ‘gambled’ deserve $17,000 power bills
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