Ten people have died in Texas from freezing temperatures amid a winter storm that continues to threaten millions of lives, yet Texas Republicans are blaming renewable energy rather than take responsibility for their failed leadership.

Millions are without power or are experiencing rolling blackouts for hours at a time during a bitterly cold week as a winter storm continues to plunge Midwest and Southern states into deep winter conditions.

The state’s electrical grid has failed. And it’s because Texas has an independent grid that is not interconnected with the national grids, allowing Texas to avoid federal regulations, resulting in a deregulated and privatized grid that generates more profits for a small number of wealthy individuals at an increased risk for consumers.

Texas also failed to bury cables deep enough under ground and did not winterize equipment and facilities.

In short, Texas Republicans, who dominate the state government, failed to prepare for this winter storm and failed to protect the people. Yet, Abbott apparently had time to appear on Fox News with Sean Hannity on Tuesday night during the emergency to cast false blame on renewable energy sources and use the crisis to attack the Green New Deal.

“Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as solar and wind,” Abbott said. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis. So this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America…it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas as well as other states to make sure that we’ll be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.”

Yeah, Abbott is lying.

As he said, wind and solar only make up more than 10 percent of Texas’ power grid. Fossil fuel energy sources failed even more spectacularly in the state. And the reason why all of Texas’ energy sources failed is because the state neglected to winterize the equipment. There are wind mills and solar panels that work just fine in the coldest and most wintry places on Earth because they have been prepped to withstand such weather. Texas made no such effort at all. The independent system Texas Republicans have bragged about for so long and have held up as an example every state in the nation should follow has now been proven to be a complete failure that has forced the virulently anti-socialism red state to beg for federal aide.

If anything, this disaster makes it clear that America needs the Green New Deal more than ever to overhaul our energy infrastructure and Texas needs a change in leadership from the top down starting with Abbott. Because change will only come to Texas when Republicans are no longer in charge.

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