Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ran to the friendly confines of Hannity Tuesday night to blame the devastating power outages currently plaguing his state on solar and wind sources, directly contradicting his own energy department. Millions were still without power in the Lone Star State as the governor spoke to Fox News.
“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy such as natural gas and nuclear, as well as solar and wind,” Abbott declared. “Our wind and our solar got shot down and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into this situation.”
A senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, however, said hours earlier that frozen wind turbines during the deadly winter storms have been “the least significant factor in the blackouts,” noting that the main factors are “frozen instruments at natural gas, coal and even nuclear facilities.” Over the past 24 hours, numerous Republicans and right-wing media personalities have falsely claimed that failing windmills and renewable energy sources are the root cause of the widespread power outages in the Lone Star State, despite the fact that wind and solar shutdowns have only accounted for 13 percent of total outages.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who introduced the resolution into Congress, responded on Twitter, “The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you don’t pursue a Green New Deal.”
