Beto O’Rourke Criticizes TX Gov. Greg Abbott For Blaming Texas Power Disaster on Green New Deal

Former Representative Beto O’Rourke criticized Texas Governor Greg Abbott for blaming Texas’s current power disaster on the Green New Deal, which has yet to be implemented.

Abbott blamed solar energy and wind turbines for power outages in his state, which has been battered by a winter storm that has left countless residents without water or electricity.

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” Abbott told Fox News personality Sean Hannity during an appearance yesterday. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. … It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.”

In fact, the majority of Texas’s energy losses are the result of a failure to winterize power-generating systems.

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O’Rourke responded earlier this morning, urging Abbott to “Accept responsibility.”

“You’re the governor of a state where millions don’t have power, where people are literally dying of exposure, and you go on Fox News to talk about… the Green New Deal? You are the governor,” he wrote on Twitter. “Your party has run Texas for 20 years. Accept responsibility and help us get out of this.”

O’Rourke has in recent days taken Abbott and the Republican Party to task for their failure to respond to the crisis, writing yesterday in a longer thread that “Texans are suffering without power because those in power have failed us.”

Texas lawmakers have called for an inquiry into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages electric power for more than 26 million customers.

Alan Herrera

Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.