Representative McCaul defends Texas power grid: ‘We’re not used to this type of weather’



[ad_1]

Power sharing, McCaul acknowledged, “would be [also] have been helpful. We could have shared with other power grids. “

He described a 2011 report from the state legislature that contained recommendations “on how to winterize our operations,” which was never properly implemented. “This is what we are going to look at moving forward,” he said, “so that it never happens again.”

“The difference between Texas and, say, the Northeast, is that we’re not prepared for this,” McCaul continued. “We are not used to this type of weather.” The grid “has not been wintered for subzero temperatures”.

“Everything that happened in the last week was predictable and preventable,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who served in the state legislature in 2011 and introduced a bill that reportedly wintered the grid, on CBS News’s “Face the Nation”. .

Adding insult to injury, many residents have also received historically high energy bills due to extreme weather – something McCaul said federal funds will help reimburse customers.

An emergency disaster declaration by President Joe Biden “brings federal help from the federal government, and that’s what Texans desperately need right now,” McCaul said. “Current plans with federal assistance are to be able to help homeowners” not only repair their homes, but also pay “their electricity bills.”

When asked if the idea of ​​using federal funds to pay for the fallout from the failure of a state-run network was “pretty rich,” McCaul sidetracked.

“Here is the deal, is it [it happened] because we are not wintering, “he said.” We must move forward strongly and make the investments that they have not made in the past “by implementing the recommendations of the 2011 report.

Climate change, McCaul said, “is real.” The question “is how to deal with it”.

He called for “a Manhattan-type project to deal with clean energy,” referring to the Manhattan Project, by which the United States developed the atomic bomb during World War II.

Asked about the Democrats’ perspective, in some cases doing more than Republicans to help the GOP-controlled state, McCaul was glowing.

“It’s great that they are crossing party lines to help Americans first and not just Republicans and Democrats,” McCaul said of the efforts of former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) to assist. Texans affected by storm. “This is how it really should be.”

“When a crisis hits my condition, I’m there. I’m not going on vacation,” McCaul continued. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ‘s decision to fly to Mexico for a spontaneous midweek vacation “was a big mistake.”

[ad_2]

Source link