I am sure that you have already heard or seen examples of the conservative misinformation machine’s attempts to blame the Texas power outages on the inadequacies of wind turbines, solar power, and the Green New Deal.
Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, gave the game away, however,
when he made two different TV appearances on the same day to discuss the problems Texas is facing.
Chris Hayes of MSNBC broadcast the clips back-to-back, highlighting both the conservative, Republican lies about green energy, but also Gov. Abbott’s close kinship to Pinocchio. You can almost see his nose grow in the clip below.
First, Abbott spoke on local, Texas television. When talking only to Texans, he explained the power outages accurately, like a reasonable person. The primary issue was a lack of winterized equipment, especially for the natural gas facilities and pipelines. The gas tanks and supply lines were frozen solid.
Then Abbott spoke to a national audience on the Fox network. In this interview, he spewed his conservative hogwash about the failures of wind farms and solar panels, though (strangely enough) he did mention that these sources only supply about 10% of Texas’ power. (He, obviously, was counting on his conservative coconspirators to be so busy cheering his lies that they wouldn’t stop to reflect on the obvious incongruity of his statement.)
Gov. Abbott’s two-faced appearances demonstrate that he is a sock puppet for America’s fossil fuel industry, as are all the other conservatives spewing the same rubbish. They are exploiting the poor people of Texas by balancing their corporate lies about what went wrong on the frozen backsides of suffering people who have no heat or clean water.
But, hey. That’s what selling your soul to corporate power will do to you.
According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Greg Abbott has taken over $28 million from fossil fuel corporations over his political career, including $11 million alone in his most recent election campaign.
No wonder he can only criticize the Green New Deal.
The real problem in Texas – aside from unscrupulous politicians – is the inhumane economics of deregulated privatization. Neoliberalism strikes again, but his time it’s the conservative fan base of anti-government, pro-laissez faire capitalism that is paying the price. (As opposed to the South American working class and other species of human cannon fodder typically exploited by US corporations around the world.)
Federal regulators warned Texas officials a decade ago (!) that its power grid was not prepared for extreme winter conditions, the very conditions that struck Texas this week. (Check out this good overview of the issues by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Thanks to my friend Suzanne McDonald for bringing this report to my attention.)
Texas had been warned. The CEOs and politicians chose to do nothing.
It’s not hard to figure out what happened. First, the majority of Texas is not connected to the national power grid. Texans pride themselves on their independence. So, they decided to go it alone.
Furthermore, Texan “power independence” is motivated by the conservative hatred of federal regulation. By keeping Texas power separated from the rest of the nation, Texas power companies remained free of regulatory oversight.
Ahem……Sooooo…when federal regulators told Texan power company officials that they were woefully unprepared for future blizzard conditions, Texan politicians remained warm and cozy with their corporate overlords and told the feds to stuff it. No one could force them to do otherwise.
It’s not hard to imagine the decision-making process.
The CEOs and board members of Texas power companies got together and decided that preparing for a “once in a century” winter storm front was not cost effective.
Cost effectiveness is the cold, hard, bottom-line reality that the sycophants of unfettered, global capitalism love to ignore – and what too many of their followers rarely think about. (The economics at play are also known as neoliberalism – check out this good discussion at Jacobin magazine.)
It is ALWAYS a bad idea to hand over control of public services/utilities to private corporations. Private corporations do not work in the public interest, regardless of what the PR department tells you.
Yes, yes, neoliberal propagandists like to talk about the superior services
that will supposedly arrive with privatization, and the lower prices made possible by glorious deregulation.
Except, this predictable PR palaver is all smoke and mirrors.
The truth of the matter is that the #1 priority of any corporation is PROFIT, making as much money as possible for its shareholders. Cost effectiveness is judged according to increasing profit margins.
Winterizing Texas was not economically feasible if these corporations were to continue raking in the dough.
Predictably, then, the rich made more money while the majority of Texans were set up to suffer. But, hey, it’s only once a century, right?
This, folks, is neoliberal chicanery writ large.
