With the heat wave that is going on in Texas, Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke finds this is an issue that Governor Greg Abbott failed to fix. This is another issue that O’Rourke uses to gain voters to his side as he runs for Texas Governor.
Recently, ERCOT released a message to residents of Houston to use less energy. ERCOT said to conserve energy between the hours of 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. which is usually the hottest part of the day. You see, Houston residents are facing 100 degrees in the hot and humid weather.
O’Rourke said:
“The governor of the 9th largest economy on earth — the energy capital of the world — can’t guarantee the power will stay on tomorrow. We need change.”
The Democratic candidate also threw blame at ERCOT in a tweet.
“We can’t rely on the grid when it’s hot. We can’t rely on the grid when it’s cold. We can’t rely on Greg Abbott. It’s time to vote him out and fix the grid.”
ERCOT is an independent agency and able to avoid federal energy regulations. This includes upgrades that are required in other states in the country.
This is not the first instance of energy problems in Texas, especially in the hot summer months. It also happens in the wintertime as recently as 2021.
O’Rourke wrote:
“After [the 2021] crisis, Abbott took millions in campaign checks from energy CEOs that he allowed to profit off it. Helps explain why he won’t fix the grid.”
This is how O'Rourke plans to fix the grid issue:
ERCOT suggested residents should lower their temperature by a degree or two and not run major appliances or the pumps for their swimming pools during the afternoon to early evening hours.
On Sunday evening, ERCOT released:
"No system-wide outages are expected."
O’Rourke is doing anything to close the gap between him and Governor Abbott for the November 8, 2022 elections.
The challenger added:
"Remember Abbott's grid failure that left millions without power and caused hundreds of our fellow Texans to lose their lives? After that crisis, Abbott took millions in campaign checks from energy CEOs that he allowed to profit off it. Helps explain why he won't fix the grid.”
Then the Democratic party continued:
"Greg Abbott had the chance to #FixTheDamnGrid after Winter Storm Uri, but he chose to bail out his buddies instead," the party tweeted. "So, now we've got a failing power grid in 100+ degree heat and with expected rolling blackouts across TX over the next 3 days."
Abbott’s press secretary Renae Eze said:
“Since May, Texas has set and broken power demand records 26 times without any systemwide issues or disruptions for the more than 26 million Texans served by the electric grid.”
The grid has withstood these strains “in large part because of the reforms passed last session and the increase in power generation by more than 15% over last year.”
You can read more about the power issues in Houston here.
Has Governor Abbott done enough to fix the electrical power issue in Texas?
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