Texas Governor Greg Abbott is under fire for falsely blaming statewide power outages on the Green New Deal and green energy sources during an interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
In the segment on Fox News, Abbott blamed the failure of the current energy grid during Texas’ cold snap on proposed efforts for renewable energy sources and the state’s current wind turbines. Abbott made these claims even as the state’s own administration was blaming the failure on natural gas infrastructure.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott told Hannity.
“It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure we’ll be able to heat our homes in the winter time and cool our homes in the summertime.”
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is responsible for a sizable chunk of Texas’ electrical grid, said the failures across the state cake from problems with natural gas.
“It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system,” ERCOT’s Dan Woodfin told the Texas Tribune on Tuesday.
Abbott has questioned ERCOT’s practices in the wake of millions of Texans losing power during the recent winter storms.
“The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours,” Abbott shared in a statement on Tuesday. “Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather. This is unacceptable.”
In spite of these moves, Texas citizens and others were none too happy with Abbott’s prime-time appearance. Going on TV to score political points against a progressive policy goal while extreme winter weather continues to threaten the lives of millions did not play well.
