AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – While frozen Texas suffers one of the worst electricity outages in US history, Republican Governor Greg Abbott blamed grid operators and frozen wind turbines, but it was easier with another culprit: an industry of oil and gas which is the dominant business of the state and its biggest political contributor.
And with the worsening number of victims on Thursday after a week of historic winter storms, which killed more than 20 people in Texas, dogpiling on a power grid that is proudly isolated from the rest of the country ignores warnings known to the state’s Republican leaders for years.
“It’s almost like a murder suspect blaming his right hand for committing the crime,” said Democratic state deputy James Talarico. Her Austin suburban home was without power for 40 hours and had no taps running on Thursday, when about 1 in 4 people in Texas woke up with instructions to boil water.
Like most of the state’s 30 million residents, Talarico’s energy is controlled by network managers at the Texas Electric Reliability Council, which Abbott again installed on Thursday after more than 4 million people at one point were suffering interruptions in subzero temperatures.
But this is not where the responsibility ends, since the plants that supply the grid have been shut down by the extreme cold, and natural gas producers have not protected wellheads from freezing. “ERCOT is a convenient whip,” said Talarico.
The crisis has put the fossil fuel industry, which wastes money on the Texas Capitol, in ways that Abbott did not have to navigate by driving America’s second largest state through other disasters, including hurricanes and the ongoing pandemic. For the first time on Thursday, Abbott asked Texas to order the power plants to be reversed.
Oil and gas built and enriched Texas, and so did its politicians, including those who became presidents. But none have won campaign contributions on the Abbott scale, which in six years in office has raised more than $ 150 million from donors, more than any governor in US history..
Texas’ energy interests are the biggest supporters of his political rise, and he did not rule out a candidacy for the White House in 2024. More than $ 26 million of his contributions came from the oil and gas industry, more than any other economic sector , according to an analysis by the National Institute on Money in Politics.
As the Texas power grid started to fail on Monday, Abbott had a reaction overnight after going to Fox News and failing solar and wind power producers at a time when natural gas systems, coal and nuclear power were responsible for almost twice as many outages.
Pressed on these comments later, Abbott took a softer tone and acknowledged that all sources of power were compromised. But he accused ERCOT of deceiving the public with messages that the network was ready for the storm.
“It is especially unacceptable when you see what ERCOT has said to the state of Texas,” said Abbott.
ERCOT is overseen by the Texas Public Utility Commission, whose three members are appointed by Abbott. While ERCOT manages most of the Texas power grid, the Texas commission and legislature make important policy decisions that influence the ongoing crisis.
After the last major state freeze, during the 2011 Super Bowl, held in Arlington, Texas, a federal analysis concluded that energy producers’ procedures for preparing their equipment for the winter “were inadequate or were not followed properly” in many cases. The report repeatedly cites another Texas freeze in 1989 as a clear warning.
Preparing power generators against the harsh winter is essential in colder climates. In Iowa, where wind farms supply 40% of the state’s electricity, mills are spinning all week, despite temperatures dropping to minus 17 degrees in Des Moines. In Texas, utility workers say they can’t speak because the power generators here don’t do the same.
A decade ago, the report on the latest fault in Texas lists a number of ways to prepare an oil well or natural gas device for the winter and the estimated costs: installing a production facility in cold weather ($ 23,000 ), collecting gas released from an injection pump to provide a heater ($ 675) or building a fiberglass hut to shut down production equipment ($ 1,500).
Winter preparation for 50,000 wells – just under a third of the total number of active natural gas wells in Texas – was estimated in 2011 at a cost of up to $ 1.75 billion, a figure that would almost certainly be higher today due to inflation. In comparison, the Texas oil and gas industry paid $ 13.9 billion in taxes and royalties last year alone, according to data from the Texas Oil & Gas Association.
Republican Ryan Sitton, former commissioner of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, said a problem with strengthening power plants is the cost passed on to consumers of electricity. Regarding Abbott’s focus on ERCOT, Sitton said: “Requesting an investigation is easy. Really, doing a good research and taking responsibility for the results is where the rubber meets the road. “
He said that oil and gas interests, which generously financed their own political campaigns, did not have the influence that the public imagined.
“They make donations, of course. But, unless the entire energy industry is speaking with a unified voice, which almost never happens, there is not so much influence, ”said Sitton.
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The merchant reported from Houston. Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.