- Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has written that Texans prefer power outages over power network regulation.
- Perry briefly serves as secretary of energy under former President Donald Trump.
- Perry also exaggerated the role of renewable energy sources in the blackouts.
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The Republican of Texas and former Gov. Rick Perry wrote a blog post on Kevin McCarthy’s website’s minority leader, which made the bold assertion that Texans would rather continue with blackouts than have the federal government regulate their power grid.
“Texans would be without electricity for more than three days to keep the federal government out of their pocket,” Perry wrote. “Try not to allow the crisis of the day to have a resilient network that keeps America personally, economically and strategically secure.”
Perry also briefly served as Secretary of Energy during the office of former President Donald Trump. Perry and the current governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, have provoked similarly misleading points of discussion about the Green New Deal and the role of renewable energy sources amid the blackouts.
“If wind and solar are where we’re headed, the last 48 hours should give everyone a real break,” Perry wrote. “We need to have a base charge. And the only way you can get a base charge in this country is [with] natural gas, coal and nuclear power. ‘Perry later acknowledged that the vast majority of Texas’ energy comes from non-renewable energy.
As a privatized state network, the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT) has been evading federal regulations for years.
In a Tuesday interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Abbott said, “The Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States.”
At a news conference on Wednesday, his first during the three-day eclipse, Abbott said he did not have full information on when Texans can expect the force to resume.
ERCOT acknowledged that the power outages were largely due to the failure to overwinter winter gas, coal and nuclear energy systems.
Experts supported that, as the power systems became largely offline, the demands for electricity increased during the storm, causing major failures in the state’s private power grid.
ERCOT also said that wind turbines typically produce about 25% of the energy during the winter in Texas, with natural energy sources accounting for about half of the energy production.
At the end of his blog post, Perry said, “the sun will come out, the temperatures will be moderate, and it will become part of our rearview mirror.”
According to ERCOT, as of Wednesday morning, approximately 2.7 million households in Texas were still without power. Another blizzard is expected on Wednesday night.