Texas Signal: “Throughout this unfolding crisis, [Texas Governor Greg] Abbott has been oddly absent. He spent most of his day yesterday tweeting out the limited information on offer from [Electric Reliability Council of Texas] and seems perpetually unwilling to shoulder blame for his policy and leadership failures. Unfortunately for Governor Abbott, the buck may well stop at his desk. As the Governor of Texas, he is principally responsible for emergency management and response, and the response through the first two days of this unprecedented winter weather event has certainly been lacking. How is it possible that Abbott and other state leaders made such little oversight effort over ERCOT that they were unaware that wind turbines and the power plants we rely on hadn’t been properly winterized? Did their ideological devotion to deregulation leave Texas Republicans asleep at the wheel? That very much seems to be the case thus far.”

“But there are other more pressing questions Abbott needs to be held to account for. With this storm forecasted well in advance, why wasn’t he more proactive in communicating protocols for mitigating the disaster to the County Judges and Mayors fighting desperately to get people heat?
In a state with a political process so dominated by energy producers, how could so few of these titans of industry known that their plants couldn’t pass muster in a deep freeze? When did Abbott know that the cost of energy production was multiplying exponentially, and did he attempt to put any safeguards in place to protect consumers as the cost of generating a megawatt of electricity shot from $15 to $9,000? Did Abbott have any conversations with energy producers who stood to profit from such a surge in pricing last week or this weekend? Did Abbott at any time make an effort to pressure ERCOT into more conservative energy management strategies that could have kept more Texans online? The ultimate irony here is that, while energy costs soared, many of those power plant owners are now losing millions of dollars as their plants remain offline.”