Pretty much the whole of Texas’ government has proven themselves to be the asses we’ve always known them to be over the course of this brutal winter storm that hammered the southern state this week. The people of Texas, who are typically accustomed to warm weather all year round, have found themselves buried in endless inches of snow, suffering from massive power outages, frozen and busted water pipes, and serious structural damage from the weight of the winter precipitation.
All while their Republican leaders have done a whole lot of nothing.
I’m sure you’ve all seen the now-viral post of one Texas city’s mayor who pretty much told people to suck it up, their suffering isn’t his problem. Just as I’m sure you’ve seen all of the controversy surrounding Senator Ted Cruz’s Cancun getaway in the middle of the massive storm that was hammering his constituents. And now, a new report claims that the governor of the state of Texas wasn’t actually much help either.
Chief executive of Dallas County, Judge Clay Jenkins, told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson yesterday morning that President Biden’s administration was readily assisting his city in their response to the record-breaking winter storm. However, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, proved to be pretty darn useless.
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“I haven’t heard from the governor. I haven’t heard from any of the state leaders,” Jenkins said, “[but] we have heard from the White House and we’re very thankful.”
Jenkins explained that water supplies were still running “because the Biden administration and FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) sent us generators,” which the city used to run their water treatment plants amid the power outages.
“We can’t do everything but everyone in public service can do like the people of Texas are doing now, helping each other,” he said, appearing to take another jab at Governor Abbott, who has been called upon to step down after his shoddy response to the winter storm crisis in his state.
Abbott, of course, has readily placed the blame on the state’s main energy supplier, ERCOT, who he said was unable to provide details on when the power outages would come to an end.
Texas Gov. Abbott blames solar and wind for the blackouts in his state and says “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America” pic.twitter.com/YfVwa3YRZQ
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 17, 2021
“We’ve been warning the governor about this since 2011 when it was nearly this bad around the Super Bowl,” Jenkins went on to add of Abbott. “You may remember the ice storm. There was a federal report that said if you don’t winterize it will happen again. There was a state report saying the same thing.”
.@GovAbbott please apologize to Texans who lost power and immediately order your team @PUCTX to pass weatherization requirements like Oklahoma and the other states.
You chose not to do it before. Please do it now. @TexasHouse @TexasSenateGOP, please pass bills requiring this. https://t.co/bTFYTgNM68— Clay Jenkins (@JudgeClayJ) February 18, 2021
“The governor made a conscious choice not to do that,” Judge Jenkins criticized. “When you’re in a regulated market and you tell companies to do something it’s the same as telling them not to because they only get their energy bought if they’re at the lowest cost. It was completely predictable.”
You can watch the clip here:
Featured image via screen capture
