- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has angered the governor of Texas for blaming the power outages for the Green New Deal.
- “Here’s a reminder: Texas uses 80-90% on fossil fuels,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
- Millions are without power in Texas amid a devastating winter storm.
- Visit the Insider Affairs section for more stories.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on Tuesday made serious criticism of the Texas government, Greg Abbott, after he falsely accused the winter power outages on the Green New Deal and renewable energy sources.
“I’m going offline for a few days and going back to a GOP government blaming the policy that it did not even implement for its own failures. Government Abbott apparently has no grip on his state, so here’s a reminder “Texas runs 80-90% on fossil fuels. The real ‘deadly deal’ is its failed leadership,” the New York Democrat tweeted.
Ocasio-Cortez in a separate tweet said Abbott “should go and show off TV and help people”
“After that, he should read a book on the energy supply of his own state,” she added.
Abbott referred to the Green New Deal, a broad proposal to discuss climate change not actually implemented in the US as a “deadly deal”, while speaking out during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity interruptions in his state discussed.
“It shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States,” Abbott told Hannity about the disruptions. “Our wind and our solar power shut down, and together they were more than ten percent of our power grid, and that put Texas in a situation where it had no power.”
“It just shows that fossil fuels are needed,” he added.
—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) 17 February 2021
Millions of people have lost power in Texas as the state and its neighbors face record low temperatures and a fatal winter storm.
Although Republican leaders like Abbott tried to blame renewable energy sources for the outages, a senior official of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state’s power grid, painted a different picture.
“It seems that many of the generation that went offline today were mainly due to problems with the natural gas system,” Dan Woodfin, senior director of ERCOT, told reporters at the Texas Tribune on Tuesday.
ERCOT said that 16 gigawatts of renewable energy generation was offline, the Tribune reported, while doubling thermal sources (including gas, coal and nuclear energy) lost almost twice as much (30 gigawatts).
Insider reports that renewable energy shortages accounted for only about 13% of total outages in Texas. In short, wind turbines are not the main cause of the Texas disruptions.
The main issue in Texas appears to be that officials have not adequately prepared for cold weather. There are anti-ice systems available that can help wind turbines through harsh winter temperatures.
In tweets, Portrayed Ocasio-Cortez Texas as a warning story for leaders who do not take climate change seriously.
“The infrastructure failures in Texas are literally what happens if you do not pursue a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“Poor about the next-generation infrastructure investments, little focus on equity, leaving communities behind, climate deniers in leadership, not long prepared for disaster,” said Ocasio-Cortez, who was at the forefront of the Green New Deal in the House, added. “We need to * help people * now. * We need to realize that these are the consequences of lack of long-term.”