An old Ted Cruz tweet mocking California's 'failed energy policies' resurfaces as a storm leaves millions of Texans without power
Category: News & Politics
Via: flynavy1 • 3 years ago • 21 commentsBy: gpanetta@businessinsider.com (Grace Panetta) 5 hrs ago (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
An old Ted Cruz tweet mocking California's 'failed energy policies' resurfaces as a storm leaves millions of Texans without power© Alex Brandon/AP Sen. Ted Cruz. Alex Brandon/AP
- In August, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas mocked California's "failed energy policies" on Twitter.
- His post resurfaced on Tuesday as over 3 million Texans were without electricity during a winter storm.
- Texas' state-run power grid failed because of the weather-related strains on its resources.
- Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.
An August tweet in which Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas mocked California's "failed energy policies" recirculated on social media on Tuesday as millions of Texans were without electricity because of a rare and severe winter storm.
As of Monday, about 154 million Americans were under some form of winter-weather advisory, CNN reported. About 3.6 million Texans were without power on Tuesday afternoon, according to the outage-tracking site PowerOutage.us, as the state's infrastructure struggles to handle the inclement weather.
In the tweet on August 19, in response to a message from the governor's office urging Californians to turn off unneeded lights and limit their use of appliances, Cruz said California was "unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity."
—Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 19, 2020
Twitter users on Tuesday were making fun of Cruz's tweet given the circumstances in Texas, accusing him of hypocrisy, and, in some cases, responding angrily to the six-month-old tweet.
"Hey Sen. Cruz, Texas could use some civilization about now. People are freezing to death," Lisa Falkenberg, the opinion editor of the Houston Chronicle, tweeted.
Over the summer, California experienced wildfires and extreme heat waves that strained the state's power infrastructure and caused outages. State and local officials responded by urging citizens to limit their electricity use.
Now, Texas' power grid has failed; the state's infrastructure is largely unequipped to handle lots of ice and snow and freezing temperatures.
In the 1970s, Texas developed a state-run and -regulated power grid, called ERCOT, largely to avoid federal regulation and federal energy standards, The Texas Tribune reported in 2011. The rest of the contiguous US states are on either the Eastern Interconnection or Western Interconnection grids.
Most of Texas is on ERCOT, except for El Paso and parts of the Panhandle and eastern Texas.
ERCOT mainly runs on wind and natural gas - those are well-suited to heat waves when demand for water and air-conditioning increases, the Chronicle reported, but Winter Storm Uri has hobbled wind turbines and strained natural-gas resources.
Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that malfunctioning instruments at power plants and natural-gas shortages - not the frozen turbines - were primarily responsible for Texas' power-grid failure.
The power outages and rolling blackouts have affected designated warming centers and shelters. Two men were found dead this week in Texas; their deaths are believed to have been due to exposure to low temperatures.
"The ERCOT grid has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union," Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, told the Chronicle. "It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances."
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"The ERCOT grid (in Texas) has collapsed in exactly the same manner as the old Soviet Union," Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, told the Chronicle. "It limped along on underinvestment and neglect until it finally broke under predictable circumstances."
But I'm sure Texas business owners kept getting their tax cuts though....!
I feel for the good folks in Texas, but the piper has to be paid sooner or later.
What tax cuts are you referring to exactly?
I'm guessing the same sort of tax cuts given away to businesses like what the Tea-Party types did in Kansas once they got control of the government there. I'm only guessing though about Texas. It's going to take a decade for Kansas to dig itself out from the damage done to Kansas infrastructure by the Teapers....
You have to take care of infrastructure....
Oh, sorry, I thought you were making an informed statement with some facts to back you up.
My bad!
Stay warm!
Not a problem, we haven't lost power during this and only lost cable/internet for about an hour yesterday morning.
Also, my heater and fireplace are gas.
Cruz is evil.
Cruz needs to have whatever it is, whenever it can be.... shoved up his ass sideways!
But hell, I have my own POS like Rubio and Scott to tend to. I tell you Florida is becoming more red simply through self imposed stupidity. I've never seen a group of people wanting to not know facts like those in Florida.
Can you possibly relate what exactly Ted Cruz has to do with the Texas power grid?
His effort in pointing fingers at another state (California) would have been more useful if he kept his nose in the electrical grid that services Texas. He is one of that states senators you know.....
As an informed person who keeps up, I am almost positive that you already know that U.S. Senators have little to nothing to do with the running of their states.
Ted Cruz has as much to do with Texas power grid as you or I do.
But I get that he is a Republican, so...................
You say you are informed.... I challenge that as it's not that Cruz is a republican in this matter.... It's because he's a gutless/spineless ass.
Cruz is a grifter, through and through. Will say/do anything that he thinks will get him more prestige and of course, more money.
Perhaps I could have worded that differently.
I was actually giving YOU credit for being an informed person.
You can read my statement either way.
Was I wrong?
Karma
I have lived all my life (minus a very cold year in Colorado) in California and I am familiar with fires, heatwaves, and power outages. Now, I'm no expert on power systems, so I won't judge that, but this sure looks like one of those false equivalencies you hear about.
That happens literally every year, and it has been happening every year since pretty much forever - certainly in my lifetime. And not just when it's hot or there's a fire, but also when it rains, or it's windy. That's why it's worthy of criticism.
But the important point is: It happens every year.
By contrast,
This is the first time in the history of ever that the entire state of Texas has been under a winter storm warning. First time. Ever.
Ever.
Seems like one of these things is not quite like the other.
It shouldn't be a surprise that snow and ice would have this effect on a electric grid that doesn't normally get tested in this way. We have problems from snow and ice in the North East but our grid deals with it multiple times a year and still the ice finds weak points here and there. With a grid like Texas has that never sees ice they don't get the yearly tune up so the weak points accumulate and you can guarantee the ice found every one of them. The bright side is their grid will do much better if there's an ice storm next year.
Agreed. All sorts of systems that aren't used to this kind of thing are overwhelmed when it finally happens. Pretty normal.
Yep..... Ice plays hell on high-tension lines that aren't ready for it!
Kinda like how extreme heat waves and massive wildfires will play havoc with an electrical grid.
Point being Ted Cruz is a dumbass who is only in the Senate for a) they paycheck and b) to try to score "zingers" in an effort to keep collecting that paycheck. The motherfucker has not actually done ANYTHING since he was elected, except the formerly stated.
I doubt it. I imagine they will chalk it up to "a one time thing" and make exactly zero needed improvements. Pretending it won't happen again is a lot easier than preparing for it.