Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has been in the spotlight since she helped raise millions of dollars to help Texans who were the victims of a fierce winter storm that left millions without power and clean water. But her purpose was not completely philanthropic, according to Justin Haskins, executive editor and a research fellow at the Heartland Institute.

“Never one to let a crisis go to waste, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., blamed Texas’s Republican-led government for the power outages and then, quite remarkably, alleged, ‘The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal,’ Haskins wrote in a commentary published by Fox News on Sunday.

The Green New Deal, also dreamed up and promoted by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), is crafted to transform the American economy and infrastructure — including the energy sector, where fossil fuels would be banned and wind and solar power put in their place.

Haskins points out that, in fact, the increased use of so-called “renewable” energy and not coal, oil, and natural gas caused the breakdown of the power grid in Texas:

AOC’s proposed massive transformation of America’s energy industry would likely require destroying millions of acres of land while building billions of new solar panels and at least a million new wind turbines.In the process of rolling out the Green New Deal, many of the 6.8 million jobs that are currently supported by traditional energy sectors, like oil and gas, would be wiped out.

AOC has long claimed that these changes are necessary to stop the “existential threat” of climate change – a completely ludicrous argument unsupported by any available data – but now, she’s also asserting that the Green New Deal would magically prevent power outages and other problems like those now being experienced by Texans.

Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. If the United States were to march down AOC’s long road to energy socialism and economic calamity, Americans would find themselves much more susceptible to the power outages Texans have been suffering through over the past week.

Haskins cited data from the Texas comptroller that show in 2009 “coal-fired plants generated nearly 37 percent of the state’s electricity while wind provided about six percent.” 

He also reported at least three coal-fired plants in Texas have shut down and that the use of wind power had quadrupled in the state — coming from the same wind turbines that froze during the recent storm. Haskins wrote:

The primary reason the Green New Deal would make our energy system less reliable is extremely simple to understand: When the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, wind turbines and solar panels aren’t producing power, which means electric grids dependent on these forms of energy must have more-stable forms of power generation backing up wind and solar facilities at all times, or else under poor weather conditions, blackouts are certain to occur.

Haskins said the failure of some of the fossil fuel sources, such as natural gas, was because the delivery infrastructure was not properly winterized. 

The same was true of the wind turbines.

But don’t believe, Haskins warned, that the Green New Deal is the panacea that Ocasio-Cortez is claiming it is.

“If AOC’s Green New Deal dream were to become our nightmarish reality, you should not expect a better energy system,” Haskins concluded. “Instead, prepare for Texas-like energy disasters to routinely come to a community near you.”

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