Texas governor blames power outages on Green New Deal — which isn't law yet

As millions of Texans suffer without heat in sub-zero temperatures, the state’s Republican governor took time to play politics in Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, using the crisis that is endangering his own constituents to bash climate change policy.

In his appearance on Hannity’s program, Republican Gov. Greg Abbot wrongly blamed the rolling blackouts in his state on more climate-friendly energy sources like wind and solar, and said policies like the Green New Deal — which call for using those energy sources more than fossil fuels — would be bad for the country.

Abbott said:

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 … and that is our wind and our solar got shut down and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis.

But wind and solar power were not what caused the rolling blackouts across the Lone Star State, which are leaving millions in the dark and without heat as temperatures plunge below freezing.

The Texas Tribune reported that all energy sources in the state are failing, including gas, coal and nuclear energy sources.

“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” Dan Woodfin, a spokesperson for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, told the Texas Tribune.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the congressional Democrats pushing for the Green New Deal, slammed Abbott for blaming his state’s problems on policies that do not yet exist.

“I go offline a few days and return to a GOP Gov blaming policies he hasn’t even implemented for his own failures,” Cortez tweeted. “Gov. Abbott doesn’t seem to have a grasp on his state, so here’s a reminder: Texas runs 80-90% on fossil fuels. The real ‘deadly deal’ is his failed leadership.”

Other Democrats are also blaming the current power situation on Abbott.

“While they focused on bathroom bills, ‘show me your papers’ legislation and fighting with sports teams over the Star Spangled Banner, 30 million Texans were left vulnerable to uncontrolled Covid spread, a bungled vaccine rollout and now this ‘rolling’ power blackout,” Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) tweeted.

O’Rourke added, “If you can’t do your most important job — protecting the lives of those you were sworn to serve — then get out of the way and give the power and resources to local leaders who are fighting with all they’ve got to get past your mess and save the people in their communities.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.