As millions of Texans were left in the darkness and cold during a massive winter storm, Texas leaders began pointing fingers and calling for investigations. The Texas Legislature will now address reform of the state’s electrical grid as an “emergency item” and seek answers as to why electric producers and distribution systems failed miserably.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott blamed private power production companies on Monday, KTRK ABC 13 reported. He said these companies that use a variety of electricity production methods “fell short” and called the winter storm the season’s version of “Hurricane Harvey.”
“The people who have fallen short with regard to the power are the private power generation companies,” Abbott told the Houston ABC affiliate.
“There’s a separate part of the system that is not working right now, and those are the private companies that generate the power that goes into ERCOT,” the governor said.
The winter storm did not sneak up on Texas like a tornado or earthquake. The frigid temperatures, snow, and ice were very accurately found in any 10-day weather forecast.
Governor Abbott issued warnings and deployed resources well in advance of the storm.
“The Governor addressed power and energy concerns on Monday and Tuesday,” the governor’s offices said in a press release on February 13. “Power companies already have crews in place, and other states have deployed power crews to Texas to assist in potential power outages.”
Texas Democrats wasted no time in making the statewide power outage political and blamed Gov. Abbott.
“If Abbott cared more about doing his job than trying to scare oil and gas workers into voting for him, Texas should have been able to avoid this crisis,” Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement Monday published by Forbes. “There is no reason at all that Texas—a state that produces the most energy in the country—has millions of people without power.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner also placed the blame on state officials.
“The State must own and explain the magnitude of these power outages across the state,” the Houston mayor tweeted.
“ERCOT is the traffic manager of the electric grid which reports to the State. Neither the City nor the County controls or regulates ERCOT or the power generators. That is solely the responsibility of the State.”
Governor Abbott and House Speaker Dade Phelan called for an investigation into why the energy producers were not better prepared and why ERCOT failed in its oversight of these producers.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.
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