Opinion: Unregulated Fossil Fuels Caused Much Harm In TExas Energy Crisis

In the middle of a bitterly cold few weeks in Texas, disaster struck. An ice storm covered large swaths of the country, dropping unusual amounts of ice and snow on the Deep South. Record-breaking low temperatures and frozen natural gas power facilities led to the complete failure of Texas’ energy sector. 

How did the Lone Star State, the most energy-rich state in the country, see 4.5 million homes experience unprecedented power outages?

The answer to the first question lies in how Texas built its laissez-faire energy system. In 1999, in an attempt to lower electricity rates, the Texas State Senate passed a bill that authorized competition among retail electric providers. However, according to a report published by the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, electricity prices rose above the national average in the years following deregulation. Not only did the deregulation fail to deliver lower costs for Texans, it also allowed deeper problems to ferment.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, is the main regulatory agency within Texas’ energy sector. ERCOT is the only regulatory agency in the country that refuses to mandate the power companies to hold an emergency power reserve in the event of a disaster. According to the New York Times, there was also no effort to winterize the natural gas facilities and wind turbines, the two main energy sources in Texas. So when an unprecedented storm hit, things fell apart fairly quickly.

For everyday Texans, dealing with power outages during a bitingly cold winter turned into an untenable situation. In total, 5 million families lost power resulting in food and water shortages and numerous deaths, including an 11-year-old boy. Now, as the ice thaws and temperatures rise, some Texans are finding electric bills upwards of $15,000. With such desperate circumstances, many looked to their state or local governments for help, what they instead got was careless political maneuvering.

Colorado City mayor Tim Boyd went to Facebook to say that he was, “sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout” and that, “the City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!” 

His ruthless “survival of the fittest” message was immediately met with harsh criticism, but as more Texan politicians began scoring political points in the days after the worst of the storm, it became clear that help was not on the way.

In a Fox News appearance, Texas governor Greg Abbott blamed the rolling blackouts on renewable energy despite the fact that Texas uses natural gas as its main energy source. He also fired at the Green New Deal, a piece of legislation that has not actually been signed into law or taken effect in any state, much less in Texas. In these statements, Abbott prioritized defending the fossil fuel industry which has given him over $26 million in campaign contributions rather than helping the everyday voters who will suffer the most. It should be no surprise that Abbot, who has a very comfortable relationship with these industries would opportunistically attack a piece of proposed legislation specifically designed to wane the country off of nonrenewable resources.

While politicians like New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised nearly $5 million to provide food and supplies for struggling Texans, Texas senator Ted Cruz flew to Cancun with his family. In fact, Cruz joked about leaving the state at the Conservative Political Action Committee over the weekend saying, “Orlando is awesome [but] it’s not as nice as Cancun.” Ocasio-Cortez, a very unpopular politician among Texans, responded to the disaster immediately by raising money and helping those in need while Cruz cowardly used the disaster to make jokes at the expense of those in the other party.

All three of these disgraceful actions by Texan politicians reveals a complete unwillingness to provide Texans with any sort of robust social safety net.

As climate change continues to present us with increasingly intense natural disasters, we must begin to understand exactly how this will affect basic necessities. When lawmakers designed a deregulated energy grid to benefit the rich, it also made the lives of everyone else more unstable. By incentivizing the profit makers rather than the citizens, Texas was completely unprepared to weather the storm. 

Are we going to be a nation of the survival of the fittest, or are we going to be a nation that builds solidarity and solves the problems of the future? We had better start answering some of these questions before all of us start dealing with the consequences.

Austin Gaebe is Opinion Writer. Follow him on Twitter at @AustinGaebe.

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