Three years after a devastating winter storm forced Senator Ted Cruz to flee to Cancun (abandoning poor Snowflake) and left millions of Texans without power because the state’s power grid was shitty, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott rolled out his latest attempt to shirk responsibility by demanding the main power company around Houston upgrade its services, CNN reports.
Millions lost power as Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas last Monday; more than 400,000 people in and around Harris County are still without power a week later. Heat continues to impact the region, with temperatures reaching into the 90s as people suffer without air conditioning.
Abbott, who rode out the storm on a “business trip” to Asia, demanded that CenterPoint Power come up with a plan to upgrade their network by July 31st, about two and a half weeks from now. Although he hasn’t made a significant investment in the state’s infrastructure himself–instead taking credit for projects paid for under President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure deal even as he denigrated the bill as government overreach and overspending.