02/22/21 02/22/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> need to rally support for texans and make sure that we make sure this kind of devastation, preventable devastation, never happens again. amy: millions of texans are still suffering after a severe

winter storm caused widespread blackouts, water shortages, and dozens of deaths. we will speak to naomi klein about the state's deadly decision to radically deregulate it's electricity sector and why texas republicans fear the green new deal. then we look at why some texans are now receiving astronomically high energy bills. >> 've been stuck with an $11,000 bill from griddynergy. it is ridiculous that they spent this amount of money on us, working class, theiddle clas all in the name of getting a profit. it makes no sense. the whole infrastructure ercot needs to be regulated. its not fair. amy: then tohe growing crisis inside prisons and jails in texas. >>exas prisons were already in

bad shape an then this happened. thgs are getting dire. toets are overflowing with feces. the prisoners are not getting enough to eat. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. president biden has signed a major disaster declaration for parts of texas after devastating winter storms last week cut power to millions, created water shortages, and left an estimated 70 people dead around the united states. in conroe, texas, cristian pavón pineda, an 11-year-old honduran boy, died in his family's mobile home after it lost heating, like many other homes in the houston area. his family has filed a long -- wrongful death lawsuit against texas's power companies which they say put profits over customers' lives.

another young victim, an eight-year-old boy from honduras, drowned last week while attempting to cross the freezing rio grande from mexico with his family. his family was reportedly returned to mexico by u.s. border agents. meanwhile come outrage is mounting after texas residents were hit with skyrocketing energy bills during a massive price surge triggered by the winter weather. one man was hit with an electric bill for over $16,000. the white house said friday the deadly winter storms delayed shipments of some 6 million coronavirus vaccines. this comes as the u.s. is poised to pass half a million confirmed covid-19 deaths, by far the highest death toll in the world. the number of new cases and daily deaths continue to decline, though experts warn against the relaxing of mitigation efforts -- including mask wearing and physical distancing -- as the threat of highly transmissible coronavirus variants remains high.

in news from washington, d.c., the house of representatives is expected to vote on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill later this week. the package includes direct payments of $1400 for people making up to $75,000 a year, an extension of unemployment benefits, assistance for small businesses, and money for schools, vaccine distribution, and state and local governments. it also includes a $15-an-hour minimum wage increase, though politico is reporting president biden told a group of mayors and governors the minimum wage hike was unlikely to make it into the final bill. british prime minister boris johnson is announcing an easing of coronavirus lockdown measures starting next month as the u.k. reports one-in-three adults has received a vaccine, with ear data showing a slowdown in community spread. iran has said early, small-scale trials for its coronavirus

vaccine coviran barekat showed 90% effectiveness. in israel, reports emerged this weekend that officials promised to pay for a supply of russia's sputnik v vaccine for syria, in order to secure the release of an israeli woman detained in syria. in bolivia, health workers have launched a national strike over the new health emergency law, which bansedical staff from calling strikes during the pandemic emergency period -- which workers say is unconstitutional. this is a doctor from la paz, fernando romero. >> it is in human to treat this sector was such harshness, such violence. amy: a warning to our viewers, this headline contains graphic images of violence. in burma, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets today as part of a general

strike against the february 1 military coup despite threats of more deadly violence from the military junta. the massive demonstrations are taking place after two protesters were killed saturday, including a 16 year old, as police fired on peaceful crowds in the city of mandalay. on friday, a 20-year-old became the first known fatality of the protests after succumbing to her gunshot injuries from earlier this month. this is a protester speaking from rangoon sunday. >> people died yesterday step we protester peacefully but people had to die. the junta what's to stop a so they strongly respond to us. we will not accept this unfair and we will continue to fight. amy: in thailand, anti-government protests continued this weekend after lawmakers rejected a bid to remove the prime minister from power in a no-confidence vote. youth-led protests have been ongoing against the government and the monarchy, demanding

democratic reforms. in ecuador, conservative banker guillermo lasso will advance to the second round of the presidential election against leftist economist andrés arauz. indigenous candidate yaku pérez, who came in less than half a percentage point behind lasso, is disputing the result and has been organizing his supporters to protest and demand a recount. the next round is scheduled for april 11. to see our recent interview with andrés arauz, go to democracynow.org. britain's top court ruled a group of uber drivers should be classified from self-employed to company employees, entitled to minimum wage, holiday pay, and other benefits. right now it only affects 25% -- 25 uber workers who sued the company in 2016. but labor rights advocates hailed the verdict as setting a precedent for other gig economy workers. the biden administration has reaffirmed a strategic defense

partnership between the u.s. and saudi arabia, despitthe kidom'dismal hum right rerd. in a pho call fray, penton chief lld austinold saud crn princeohammed n salman the u.s.emainsommittedo protecting saudi arabia's borders against attacks from yemen's houthi rebels. on sunday, saudi arabia's state-owned arms manufacturer signed a deal with lockheed mart to form aoint ventu. the deal follows biden's decision last month to freeze u.s. weapons sales to saudi arabia over its devastating war on yemen, which has spawned the world's worst humanitarian crisis. merrick garland, president biden's nominee for attorney general, is appearing before the senate judiciary committee today -- nearly five years after senate republicans refused to hold hearings for garland to become a justice on the supreme court. garland is expected to tell lawmakers he will oversee the prosecution of white supremacists responsible for the january 6 insurrection on the u.s. capitol. the first congressional hearings

on the insurrection begin this week. meanwhile, the confirmation of neera tanden to head the office of management and budget is facing a challenge after moderate west virginia democrat joe manchin said last week he -- on friday he would not vote for her. at least one republican would have to join democrats in order to confirm tanden. the progressive group roots action is also urging senators to reject tanden due to her ties with corporate america and her support for welfare cuts. in immigration news, at the san diego-tijuana border, the first 25 asylum seekers who were subjected to trump's remain in mexico program were allowed to enter the u.s. friday where their cases are being processed. sister dianna ortiz, a catholic nun and outspoken opponent of torture, has died of cancer at the age of 62. in 1989, sister ortiz was abducted by members of guatemala's u.s.-backed military from the compound where she

worked with the poor. 24 hours later, she escaped, but within that brief period, her body had been burned with cigarettes, she'd been raped, beaten, and forced to torture a woman who was already near death. in her memoir "the blindfold's eyes: my journey from torture to truth," sister ortiz wrote about u.s. complicity in guatemala's repressive political system and the torture and murder of more than 150,000 guatemalans. in 2002, she spoke with democracy now! in our firehouse studio. >> i really call on the american people, please, do whatever you can to prevent torture from destroying and shattering more lives. talks about ending the war on terrorism. torture is a form of terrorism, so that is mike lee. amy: and the family of civil rights icon malcolm x is demanding authorities reopen the investigation of his

assassination after new evidence was unveiled in a letter by a former police officer. raymond wood -- who did not want the letter to be made public until after his death -- wrote he was manipulated by w york police and the fbi, who covered up key details of a plot to kill malcolm x. woods said he was tasked with arrestg members of malcolm x's security team. this is raymond wood's nephew reggie wood, reading his uncle's letter at a press conference saturday, the anniversary of malcolm x's assassination in 1965. >> it was my assignment to draw the two men into a felonious federal crime so that they could be arrested by the fbi and kept away from energy malcolm x's audubon ballroom door security on february 21, 1965. on february 16, 1965, the statue of liberty plot was carried out

and the two men were arrested just days before the assassination of malcolm. and because that is read you would reading the words of his uncle raymond would. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman in new york joined by my co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. happy 25 anniversary of democracy now! juan: my how time flies. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. amy: and so much more to do. today we will start in texas where millions are still suffering after severe winter weather devastated the state's energy and water systems. about 8 million texans remain under orders to boil water. about 30,000 homes still have no power. president biden has declared a major disaster in 77 counties.

around 70 deaths have now been linked to the winter storms -- mostly in texas,ncluding a least 12 people who died inside their homes after losing heat. including an 11-year-old boy named cristian opavon died who in his bed in a mobile home after his family lost power. in sugar land, three children and their grandmother died in a fire while trying to stay warm during the blackout. republican lawmakers in texas are facing increasing criticism for their handling of the crisis, as well as their decades-long push to deregulate the state's energy system. last week, texas senator ted cruz faced outcry for flying to cancun, mexico, to stay in the ritz carlton while millions of texans were suffering. cruz initially blamed the trip on his 10 and 12 year-old daughters. on sunday, protesters brought a mariachi band to play outside his home in houston. ♪

amy: texas governor greg abbott has used the crisis as a way to attack the green new deal by falsely claiming the state's partial reliance on renewable energy was to blame for the blackouts. close this shows how the green new deal would be a deadly deal for the united states of america. texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. but you saw from what -- are wind and or solar got shut down and were collectively more than 10% of our power grid stop that thrust texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis. amy: meanwhile, new york congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez responded to

governor abbott's claim by writing -- he real 'deadly deal' is his failed leadership." over the week ocasio-cortez traveled to texas to help relief efforts. on saturday, she volunteered at a food bank in houston. so far she has raised over $5 million to help texans impacted by the storms. to talk more about the crisis in texas, we are joined by naomi klein. senior correspondent at "the intercept" and a professor at rutgers university, along with juan and zealous. she has just written a piece in "the new york times" headlined "why texas republicans fear the green new deal." she is the author of several books. her most recent is coming out tomorrow, "how to change everything: the young human's guide to protecting the planet and each other." her previous books include "the shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism." welcome back to democracy now!

talk about the republican leadership of texas blaming its catastrophe on what hasn't even happened yet, and that is the green new deal. naomi, i think we are having trouble right now hearing you. we are going to go to a break and then we will come back to you. we're just having trouble making the connection to you. naomi klein, senior correspondent at "the intercept" writing an op-ed in "the new york times." back in a moment. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "texas sun" kruangbin and leon bridges. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we turn now to naomi klein on the castro feet -- it has to be that is taken place in texas. about 70 deaths it is believed, able suffering major devastation. 30,000 homes still have no power. there are still 8 million texans under orders to boil water. naomi wrote a piece in " the new york times," "why texas

republicans fear the green new deal." >> it has been a symphony of voices from the republican party pointing the finger at something that doesn't exist anywhere but on paper, certainly does not exist in texas. texas is about as far away from the green new deal as you can possibly get saying the green new deal is a plan to bring together the need to get off fossil fuels in the next decade, radically decarbonize our energy system. fossil fuels are still king in texas. it is a plan to marry that huge infrastructure investment in the next green economy with the plaintive battle poverty, to create huge numbers of good union green jobs, to take care of people is a plane have universal public health care and childcare and job guarantee. so it is all the things that are

not happening in texas because there is not just this extreme weather, which scientists believe is linked to our warming planet -- you can't link one storm with climate change, with the patterns are very clear and this should be a wake-up call. texas is also suffering a pandemic of poverty, of exclusion, of racial injustice. it certainly does not have a green new deal. we heard this messaging i think because a panic, frankly, because a gree new deal is a plan that could solve so many of texas' problems and problems across the country. and republicans have nothing to offer except for more deregulation, more privatization, more austerity. they are frantically seeking to deflect from the real causes of this crisis, which is an intersection of extreme weather of the kind we are seeing more of because of climate change

intersecting with a deregulated fossil fuel-based energy system. and that is the truly catastrophic intersection. layered on that, have all of the injustices and inequality that means this does not impact everybody equally by any means. extremely racially unjust catastrophe, as every catastrophe in the united states is. juan: could you talk a little bit about -- it is basically a right wing extremism when it comes to energy policy that has been practicedn texas. the origins of the deregulation movement that texas pioneered and also the other wrinkle in this is the notorious independent streak that texas not only once the united states to be energy-independent, the state of texas wants to be independent of the rest of the u.s. electrical grid so that other straight -- states could

not come to its support in this time of crisis. >> sure. in the headlines i heard you playing a clip, alexandria ocasio-cortez's trip to texas and the fact she helped raise i believe $5 million to this point , and she's been very clear she does not believe that charity is the solution to these systemic failures. of course, she is probably the person who is most closely associated with the calls for a green new deal in government. but i think what she is trying to show with this action is a government should be there to take care of people. that we should have each other's backs, particularly in a crisis. the ideology that is governing texas now for at least four decades is any ideology i think

best encapsulated by ronald reagan's famous phrase "the nine most dangerous words in the english which are 'i am from government and i'm here to help'." i think is worth pausing over that. that sort of glib slogan that people should be afraid of a government that is there to help. when you have a catastrophe like the one unfolding in texas, more broadly, the pandemic everywhere, it is quite chilling because people need a government that is there to help. in texas, they took this to the extreme. it goes back further than the 1990's, but a sers of fateful decisions were made in the late 1990's when enron come a blast from the past, now-defunct but this scandal plagued energy company headed by the late can lay, lead successful push under then governor george w. bush to

radically delay girly -- deregulate the electricity sector. as a bottom-line line, decisions about the generation and distribution of power were stripped from regulators in texas and handed over to private energy on the basis of this logic what is good for industry will be good for everyone else, prices will be lower, axum competition. so you have all of these private players competing with each other and they are independent from the rest of the grid. i see some really interesting parallels with what has happened with covid. handover essential functions of the state to private companies, whether health-care companies were energy companies, what they seek to do is make maximum profits and you do that through "efficiency." what does it mean in practice?

to take out all of the slack in the system because you are bringing out profits at every turn. when it comes to something@@ lie health care or eldercare, that means you don't want to have a single empty hospital bed or a single empty bed in an eldercare facility. but if you have a shop like a pandemic, have no slack to absorb that shock in a disaster. what we have seen in texas a similar energy. there is no slack and in the system, no built in redundancy. if you are plugged into the national grid, if you have a shock to your state or in one location, the energy from somewhere else that is not having a shop is able to come in and cover for you. in texas, they took out all of those redundancies and so then you have a weather shock that puts stress on the system, knocks out capacity, and there is a surge in demand -- because it is freezing and everyone

wants more energy -- and it blows the whole system out in the same way the pandemic blew out any capacity in the health care system. if that makes sense. these private companies prioritize short-term profits over costly investment in maintaining the grid, in winterizing the grid for an extreme event. they took out all of the built in redundancies. today, texans are at the mercy of galatian allergic politicians who fail to require that energy companies plan for shock like the one they're expressing right now and like the ones, frankly, we will see more and more of because of our destabilized climate. juan: as you have often documented come every crisis brings an opportunity for other capitalists to profit. you will benefit from this crisis? can you talk about the shale gas company, comstock resources? >> look, energy companies -- it

is a windfall as they are proudly telling their investors. comstock is as shale gas company and on an earnings call last wednesday, their chief financial officer said this week is like hitting the jackpot with some of these incredible prices. because once again, there no protections for consumers. all of this was sold to texans based on this would lower their energy costs. but there is no protection from costs going up when you have a huge surge in demand like they're expressing right now. so people who were fortunate enough not to lose their power -- and i know you'll be talking about this more later on in the show -- but people who had their power stay on our now being hit with these absolutely exorbitant electricity bills. once again, no protections because it is a market free-for-all which was the

vision from the start. so you have politicians like ted cruz banging their hands on the table saying "this is wrong, what are these huge bills?" it is legal. this is the result of the energy system they built. amy: naomi, you have former governor rick perry who was also the secretary of energy of the united states, retreating an article saying -- "if we humans want to keep surviving frigid winters, we have to keep burning natural gas and lots of it for decades to come." he went on to say, "texans would be without electricity for long than three days to the federal government out of their business." i don't know if that is why senator cruz fled to mexico come to keep the federal government out of texas, but this moment

where you have this older white, wealthy republican leadership of texas, deregulation going back to the 1930's -- for people to understand, you have the eastern grade, western grade, and texas. el paso is not a part of the texas independent grid and so they did so much better. but what this means for that leadership and the young leadership that has been fighting for a green new deal, that has been recognizing covid as a scientific reality that texas was disastrous in dealing with? >> sure. there's a very strong youth-led movement in texas calling for green new deal for a while. i think they're going to be calling for that greater confidence and greater volume and greater determination in the weeks and months to come, which

is why in "the new york times" piece that you mentioned, i described all of this deflection as a form of panic. we know they know that we know that they have no solutions for the problems that they have created. all they have to offer texans is more deregulation, or privatization, more austerity, more disaster capitalism. as usual, we're seeing ways of criminalizing people who protest against foss fuel companies. they don't have solutions to build problems, which is why -- we're seeing that on absolutely every level. i want to come back to what you were saying about this rift between the leadership who really don't have to worry about their power, are taking vacations in the middle of this, are clearly not worried or making these glib statement like, "oh, yeah, we will live without power for much longer if necessary."

they are not the ones without power. there is so much inequality. as i said earlier, whenever there is any disaster in the u.s., it followsacial faultlines, economic faultlines. i think we should think about ted cruz's ill-fated trip to mexico not as a "mistake come, as he now describes it, but in a way as a metaphor. a maphor for how these politicians actually think about the climate crisis. theyon't think it is a hoax. they just said that publicly. they know it is real. these are people with deep ties to the oil ant gas industry. the oil and gas industry lots of ways is benefiting from the climate crisis because there is melting in the arctic, opening up trade routes because of that. they're having to adapt all kinds of their own

infrastructure to deal with the reality of climate change. they don't genelly believe it is a real. down the front lines of it in lots of ways. what they believe -- and we have talked about this before the show -- is this is 70 else's problem. they believe their wealth from their power, and the privilege will protect them from the worst. it looks like ted cruz boarding a trip -- a flight to mexico in the middle of a disaster to go to the ritz carlton in cancún. and that is something i have tracked over the years in this privatized response to crisis. so it isn't just the systematic neglect and deregulation of the private sphere, of the infrastructure that regular people come everyday people have to depend on in crisis, it is they are simulneously building their privatized kind of rescue bubble. there was a short-lived airline

that i wrote about in "the shock doctrine" many years ago because it was ahead of its time, called help jet. it was launched in florida. it was a private airline that would send a notice to people in florida when their beachfront homes were at risk from hurricane. their slogan was something like "turn a disaster io a luxury vacation." this cup it was it a limousine to pick you up, take it to the airport, and jet you out on a private jet and make your reservations at a luxury resort. that was their idea of how to deal with the disaster. now in california when there are wildfires come there private firefighters that come to protect the mansions and wineries. they don't see themselves as part of the public infrastructure that they are systematically allowing to degrade. they believe they will be fine. what is outlook li -- what does that look like? it looks

like ted cruz. it is a metaphor for the fact they don't believe they have to deal with the effects of the disasters they themselves are creating. juan: if we could, the biden administration, i'm wondering if you can give us a brief take on how it has been responding to this crisis and also the initial -- in its initial weeks in terms of its climate policy? >> you know, i think there obviously are some good signs when it comes to it. the canceling of the xl pipeline, most significantly we are seeing much more coordination between different arms of the government and this is something that has been lacking in previous administrations where climate d been treated as a narrow solution issue that should be dealt with by the epa in the energy department. i think one of the most

significant things is this commitment to having individuals whose job it is to make sure that all the different arms of the government, all the different department and agencies are talking to each other. keystone needs to be more than just one pipeline canceled. it needs to be a principal. in the principal is we cannot be building new fosl fuel infrastructure. i know you covered the intense battles against line 3 come against the dakota access pipeline. all of this new fossil fuel infrastructure needs to be canceled. we cannot be locking in new fossil fuel infrastructure will need to be winding out if we're going to get off fossil fuel in a decade, which is what scientists have told us we need to do. there are good signs but unfortunately we are still at the level of symbolism, not the level of actually doing what is necessary to prevent the kind of catastrophic warming -- we are

already in the era of climate disaster. but if we don't get off the road we're on, if we don't swerve, then we're going to be dealing with shocks that we can't adapt to. i think we need to be talking about whether energy belongs in climate at all. whether this is too much of an essential service and whether we just need to much change too quickly to have the private sector involved in energy in the first place. these are the sorts of policies discussions that the biden administration because of the private sector come is really not willing to engage in yet. they're going to be under huge pressure i think particularly after this by the progressive wing of the party, play outside climate justice movements. and we will see what happens because they have already moved a lot more than they wanted to move -- biden is doing more than

his campaign was promising certainly in the early days, so we will see. they are under pressure. they have moved and they're going to need to move further. amy: naomi, only have 30 seconds, but such extreme victims of this catastrophe. we learned about an 11-year-old cristian it would outside, saw snow for the first time, came inside and posted up. we hear this as part of the 70 people that have died as the result of the storm. you have a book coming out tomorrow. tonight you will be doing a virtual event with sunrise movement at the brooklyn public library. your book, "how to change everything: the young human's guide to protecting the planet and each other." your final thoughts on why you wrote this book? >> thank you, amy. at this event tonight, we will be joined by dakota iron eyes, a young woman who is from standing

rock and was one of the young people who helped start that incredible movement against the dakota access pipeline. it is just one example of young people -- and i'm not just talking about university students, i'm talking about middle school students and high school students -- are truly the heart and soul of the climate right now. i wrote the book for this incredible generation who have been leading climate strikes, who have been pushing politicians, speaking treat in incredible ways like greta that you talk to much on the show. what of this amazing generation of millions of young people around the world. there are not a lot of books i take them seriously, that treat them with the dignity to believe and understand their ready for the truth because they're living it and they need the tools, intellectual tools and facts and figures to fight for the future

that they deserve. so that is why i wrote the book. i'm so excited to have these opportunities to interview young people about why they have built this amazing movement. and that is what we will be doing tonight and over the next few weeks. amy: naomi klein is senior correspondent at the intercept and a professor at rutgers university. we will let your "new york times" op-ed piece headlined "why texas republicans fear the green new deal." her latest book is coming out tomorrow, titled "how to change everything: the young human's guide to protecting the planet and each other." this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. while millions of texans lost power last week, some of those who were fortunate to keep their lights are now facing a shocking surpse -- astronomically high energy bills. some have been charged up to $16,000 for just a few days of energy use. on sunday, governor abbott ordered a moratorium on disconnecting power to customers who cannot pay these bills.

the skyrocketing bills is a result of the state's move to radically deregulate the energy grid. some consumers purchase electricity plans with rates that fluctuate with the market. we are joined now by two guests. akilah scott-amos is a texas resident who saw her electricity bill jump over $11,000 during the storm. tell us what happened. >> thank you for having me. i woke up on sunday to a debit being taken out of my aount in $100 irements, because thais what i have set at. when went on the facebook page, i am with griddy energy and they're very active with faceboo so when i went on there, there were telng everyone to switc providers iediately. the first thini did w to givehem a call because i do not understand why my bill

$-456. the first option was to switch. e second option was tturn my power ootally ando to a hote opti o -- of crse, i d call i called arod to seval ergy comnies. ere we either noting new ients or the itch thecould t happenntilhe 22nd. i really h no choice step disign uforhe 22nd, but there s nothinelse i cld do. as f as tuing thpower off at her home and going to a hotel , that absolutely was not an option will stop leaving her home unprotected, that wasn't going to work. we also have a very big dog. i have two children getting over a cold. we are still in a pandemic, saluting the house was not an

option. as the days went on, my bill got higher. the next day it was $2500. the next day it the same amount. we pulled back on our energy use. we don't use that much anyway to begin with. yeah, we were not using lights. our heat is gas, but it uses electricity to blow. we had our electricity on 62 to the house. we used our gas fireplace. we used the internet to keep ou phones and tlets crge. but other than that, we decrsed our use significantly. i saw a big jump in our kilowatt usage, which definitely isn't accurate. agn, $25 a day. now bill is a little over $11,000. juan: were also joined by tyson

slocum. could you tell us, this whole issue of deregulation, what happen in texas and these skyhigh bills, what is your take on it? >> it is totally unacceptable. while clearly some individual energy companiesear responsibility, ultimately, it is state officials and regulators who just did a terrible job allowing these types of predatory utility pricing plans to be even offered to residential household in the first place. we have to remember that for the first 100 years of our electricity system, several law states -- federal law states -- that is what we call them public utilities. naomi was doing a great job earlier talking about the

significant public interest responsibilities that electricity provides. it literally is life or death. in texas -- and texas is not alone -- we have had a huge radical shift in the oversight of electricity markets away from regulatory protections to protect people and ensure reliability. and instead, a reliance on market forces. and texas is the clearest case of this where instead of enforcing mandatory reliability standards for owners at power plants, texas instead relies on huge price increases to incentivize power gerators to deliver electricity even during perilous times like winter ice storms. so what we saw was as prices spiked to $9,000 a megawatt

hour, which is astronomical -- typical is $20 a megawatt hour -- there were thousands of texans that signed up for retail rate programs that were directly tethered to the wholesale price. and during most times when power prices are normal, many of these customers saw some bill savings. and that is the way the company's market it, these plans to households. but then of course when prices spiked, these companies simply passed on those extremely high prices on to their customers. so the real question here is, what on earth were regulators thinking in allowing households to sign up for these types of predatory plans? we have seen this with credit cards and payday lenders and

with home mortgages. energy is the same type of thing where we are staying in the deregulated environment, unscrupulous companies preying on their assumptions that households will not understand or read the fine print. it is unreasonable to expect people to understand what is going to be happening with wholesale prices. sophisticated wall street energy traders would not evenign up their own families for this type of plan because they understand the risk. i think first and foremost, as we move forward, the first thing texas needs to do is ban these types of predatory practices so that households are not exposed to these high prices. ju: i went to bring keri blakinr --akilah scott-amos

into the conversation. what did you know about the ways these prices could go up? and this whole system of them taking money out of your accounts, not at the end of the month, but apparently on rolling basi >> right. inderstand thwholesale scenariond i understand it rks in a stae marketnd the rketas been stable because ey are in charge. and so they should have some type of stop loss trigger in there, the same way th do with anything else so that foshort time we don't get hit on the short end of the stick. it is just not right. they failed. they failed. amy: does this mean you will have to pay or they're just putting off your payment? they won't cut off your energy? >> right now it means -- yeah,

d't ve to paright no th'reot goingo cut ff but weill see wonthat go. i know govnor abbott is taing withrcotn ordeto arrae sething, but don' ha any proems with payin i have no problems witpaying fair share. but this is not fair. amy: akilah scott-amos, thank you for being with us. we would have said you are one of the lucky texans who did not lose electricity but instead your electricity bill jump almost $5000 overnight the first -- overnight. and tyson slocum is director of public citizen's energy program. thank you for being with us. when we come back, we look at what happened in texas' prisons and jails. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "dark was the night, cold was the ground" by blind willie johnson.

this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we look now at the dire conditions incarcerated people in texas faced as they were left for days in their cells, often with no heat or running water, during last week's winter storm that overwhelmed the state's deregulated energy grid. at the federal medical center carswell, "fort worth star telegram" reporter kaley johnson reported more than 1000 women held there finally got heat friday after nearly six days of freezing, though the bureau of prisons disputes this. one prisoner told "the intercept" sewage water was everywhere in the facility, which has also been hit hard by covid-19, and houses whistleblower reality winner, who tested positive for covid in july. reports are emerging from immigrant jails a solitary confinement cells with no heat. texans locked up in city and county jails -- accused of

crimes but awaiting trial or unable to post bond -- also suffered. this is brandy s, who is jailed in bowie county, describing conditions there in a call recorded thursday by the texas jail project. >> we are not receiving any tissue. i am in a pot of 19 women. laundry has not came at all. we had water, but the heat has been out for days. amy: that was brandy s, jailed in bowie county. in houston, at the harris county jail -- the third-largest in the united states -- at least one

man was reported dead last week as men shivered in overcrowded cells, many sleeping on the floor next to overflowing toilets. harris county sheriff ed gonzalez described the jail last month as "bursting at the seams" and this was last month before the storm. he had already warned of a potential health crisis. across texas, officials said 33 prisons lost power and 20 had water shortages. for an update on all of this, we go to houston where we're joined by keri blakinger, staff writer for "the marshall prect" and the publication's first formerly incarcerated reporter. her latest piece is headlined "inside frigid texas prisons: broken toilets, disgusting food, few blankets." in it, she shows several photos of the kind of food prisoners have been forced to eat and describes the "increasingly pitiful meals, including one that was nothing but a small piece of cornbread, a half a piece of cheese, a handful of

raisins, and a hot dog with no bun or ketchup." keri, welcome back to democracy now! describe what took place over is last week. >> texas prison nditions have gone from bad to dire, i would say, in dozens of units. for some prisoners, i think this was a little bitike harvey all over again. definitely more widespre this time. once the per started going out , we start cigna's happen in prisons. prisons did n have the infrastructure going into alof this that many people don the fr world. we are seeing places that already had trouble heating things adequately. there's been long-standing issues with a lack of air conditioning in the summers a every winter we hear the same complaints about lack of heat or very uneven heat.

in a lot of cases, even if the heat is working, the ductwork is shoddy and old a it doesn't get anywhere. many of the storms you lose electricity and you lose water or water pressure in several units. if overflowing toilets. uncertain reports of units where they had fou toilets per 100 men and on a good day it is not good enough. the conditions get bad pretty quickly. there's not enough snow to do with tusands of men to flush the toilets. the is food on top of that. as you mentioned, i nt pictures of what the meals oked like. there clearly not enough to support growth people. these ar meals that are what happens with their on lockdown because thfood tends to get worse during lockdown.

when there's not enough staff to help coordate these things, these bag meals d of looking sadder and sadder. it is clearly not adequate. juan: what kind of oversight work, requirements on their by state officials -- are there by the state officials? for instance, are there any requirements for them to have emergency nerators, backup systems in case of power failures? >> i don't know if there's a legal requirement for it. there's not as much oversight as are regarding jails. the oversight for prison sort of falls to the agency in the state legislators. the fact of the matter is this -- we have roughly 100 prisons and that is expensive. we have a lot ofse infrastruure and equient problems. we don't have working fire alarms in most prisons. we do have generators, which

they do have generators, they don't always go on as planned. even if they do, the ductwork is problematic at best. it is not so much these things don't exist as there often just nonfunctional. juan: in terms of the situation in county jails, are you familiar or have a sense of what is been going on there? >> in harris county, which is where i live, the biggest jail, about 9000 people in the jail, we're hearing a lot of tse faly dir complaints. but here i think -- the sheriff is bee out saying the jail is going be a problem. like, he has been trying to get the population reduced and has been having issues with the judges in the state and prosecuts trying to work with them or work against them, whatever thease may be.

amy: he sued to get the population reduced, the sheriff. >> he has been vocal about this before covid and during covid. i thinke would be the first to say that this ia problem. one think also about the jails here is that they actually managed to get people vaccinated as a result of this, which i thought -- i mean, i wld site it is a silver lining but it is such a cerebral situatio to say that. they managed to get about 900 people vacnated with vaccines that would havgone better because of the loss of refrigeration when electricity went out elsewhere. i think it does shosort of ere the's's sheriff -- sheriff's interest lie in terms

of allocating for the people. amy: reality winner is in texas. >> platiff complains about the conditions. i chked out family and friends lawyers of people who were in there. the thing is, if y turn off the heat, the sta has an incentive not to turn out the heat because and they have to work in the conditions. what i have heard is that it takes a while for the heat to be functional and there were places in the facility where the conditions varied quite a lo some places of the facility h long power outages than others. i haven't tten any coirmation about that. amy: keri blakinger, thank you for being with us, and for your reporting with the marshall

project. we will link to your latest piece "inside frigid texas prisons: broken toilets, disgusting food, few blankets." tune in tomorrow to democracy now! true member the science fiction writer octavia butler who died 15 years ago this week. she get one of her last

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ eric campbell: flying insects, by definition, get around. along forests, over fields, and if they're lucky, through insecticides, but for decades people have had