President Joe Biden has declared
a state of emergency in the state
of Texas after Senator Ted Cruz and
Governor Greg Abbott requested
a federal disaster declaration.
Biden was actually immediately
responsive to their request and
it was for good reason.
Texas has been dealing with severe
temperatures that have been,
of course,
contributed to by climate change.
And what people are experiencing
millions of people
are experiencing in Texas right now
are rolling blackouts as
the freezing temperatures literally
lead to people losing their lives.
That's how cold it's been and
people can't even rely on power to
keep themselves warm with heat.
So the White House went on to say
that funding measures will include
mass care and sheltering and
FEMA is authorized to use necessary
equipment and
resources to help ease the impacts
of the winter weather emergency.
More than 4 million
Texans have been left without
power as a result of these rolling
blackouts that are taking place.
And the rolling blackouts by
the way, are refered to as
controlled blackouts.
Meaning that the companies that run
the power are intentionally doing
these rolling blackouts as a result
of an increased usage of power.
Now you're going to hear all sorts
of nonsense from Right Wing media
including places like Fox News,
there are endless clips including
a clip featuring Tucker Carlson,
Harris Faulkner,
all of them arguing that what
Texans are experiencing is really
the by-product of renewable energy.
That is not the case.
I'm going to give you a quick
example of what they're saying and
then we're going to debunk it.
Let's take a quick look.
>> Winter storms in Texas have left
over 2 million people without power
as their wind turbines are frozen
solid, former Texas Governor in the
Energy Secretary Rick Perry, said,
this is the risk of Green Energy.
>> You need to have a diversity of
energy sources no matter where
you are.
And it couldn't be
a greater example of that
in the state of Texas right now.
We got massive amount of wind farms
out in West Texas, but frozen up,
all of that wind energy was lost.
>> Is this what America would look
like under the Green New Deal?
>> No, this isn't what America
would look like under
the Green New Deal.
This is what America looks
like when it's heavily reliant on
the fossil fuel industry and
essentially allows for
overwhelming deregulation of
the fossil fuel industry.
So back in 2002, by the way, Texas
deregulated its utility companies,
specifically energy companies.
And that has led to quite a bit of
issues today, including the fact
that since these private utilities
don't have to basically through
regulation reserve power for
emergency events like this.
They don't,
they don't have a legal incentive
to do it because of regulations.
They certainly don't have
a financial incentive to do it and
so there are no reserves.
There's an increased demand for
power as people are trying to warm
themselves up using their heaters.
And when you have this situation
tied so closely to the market and
this whole notion of supply and
demand, people are going to get
screwed.
And that's what you're going to
experience in Texas.
Let me give you the evidence for
the case that I'm trying to
make here.
As the financial times reports,
the Electric Reliability Council of
Texas had announced rotating
outages at 1:25 AM local time on
Monday after the cold weather froze
wellheads and interrupted supply to
natural gas-fired power plants, and
some wind turbines became encased
in ice,
curtailing electricity output.
So it is true that wind
turbines are froze.
But this goes back to the issue of
deregulation and also climate
change since the cold temperatures
that Texas is experiencing right
now is rare, almost unprecedented.
The state does not implement
regulations ensuring that wind
turbines have something known as
like deicing gear, right?
So the wind turbines don't
have the deicing gear, they could
have had the deicing gear, but
that regulation doesn't exist in
the state of Texas.
So that's a problem.
Now what portion of the power
outages are caused by wind
turbines in the state freezing,
less than 13%.
As you guys know, Texas is all
about thought the fossil fuels.
And so there are issues with the
fossil fuel industry not reserving
energy for these emergency events.
But more importantly just not
having the equipment necessary to
respond to insanely cold
temperatures that the state is
experiencing right now.
Generators are paid only for
the energy that they sell, not for
keeping capacity in reserve for
times of stress.
Electricity retailers compete
fiercely for customer business,
unlike utility monopolies that
operate in some other states, and
can adjust prices according to
market conditions.
So they adjust these companies in
Texas, can adjust the prices based
on market conditions and
when there's less supply and
more demand, what does that mean?
It means that providing electricity
is going to be far more expensive
to the consumer.
So wholesale electricity prices for
delivery surpassed the grid's price
cap of $9,000 per megawatt-hour
in the early hours of Monday this
week.
Multiples above average prices of
$25 per megawatt-hour, okay?
So obviously the price increased
significantly, and
what they're doing, is implementing
these rolling blackouts because of
a lack of supply.
But more importantly because, if
they don't do this, what's likely
to happen, is that the consumers in
the state of Texas will be slapped
with these massive electricity
bills that they were not expecting.
And so to blame this
on the green New Deal or
to blame this on renewable energy
is absolutely ridiculous.
And what you guys are experiencing
right now in this propaganda
campaign is the fossil fuel
industry attempting to get ahead of
accurate news reports about
what's really going on.
And how this privatized system that
favors fossil fuels in the state
of Texas is really to blame for
what Texans are experiencing.
[LAUGH].
>> It's just so frustrating.
>> It is, what I started taking
notes because I was like I didn't
want to forget some of the things
that I wanted to say.
The first thing that I wanted to
point out was, despite
of the issues that we may have with
Joe Biden and his history and some
of the things that he participates
in, I have to commend him in his
response to all of Texans.
This in spite of his differences in
ideology with the actual governor,
where as the former president of
this country had an issue with the
governor of New York and responded
to the whole state of New York with
animals towards all of the people.
And I just think that we should be
able to say,
this is how a president is supposed
to behave because they're supposed
to be the president of all people,
regardless of what
their political affiliation is.
So I wanted to point that out
because I think that is
not lost on me.
One thing we need to do is there
are a lot of people who will do
research and they research what
celebrities said in an old tweet.
We need to find them,
follow the money and find out who
is paying Tucker Carlson and
all of these people who continue to
push these talking points.
We need to expose these people
really all of those internet
research gurus that are out
there and
they can find when you said that
you didn't like cows 10 years ago.
Y'all need to follow the money and
find out who's paying these people
to continuously push out all of
this misinformation that's not only
wrong, but it's also harmful to the
American people because there are a
lot of people believe this stuff.
And a lot of people have lost their
lives in the last couple of years.
Because of all of
the misinformation that is being
peddled by Fox News and people like
them and we have to call it out if
we really are about the people.
The other thing is that, the people
in this country are feeling and
have been feeling for
a long time the consequences
of the imbalance in our government.
Because they are clenching the bag
and these people
are who are getting paid by these
corporations and are benefiting
from all of this horrible stuff
that is being rained down on
the environment and the people.
They don't want to let go of the
bag and we are the great casualty
of this war we always have been.
And the pandemic has been a great
evidence of that as we are,
walking into fire half a million
people dead.
And we they've normalized it we've
become desensitized to loss and
struggle and strife, it's become
an American thing for people who
are below the line to suffer and
struggle and it just be Tuesday.
And at some point we are going to
have to recollect our humanity and
restore dignity to all people in
America or
the poor are going to eat the rich.
Because people are only going to be
able to take this but for so long.
All of these things are connected
and it is all part of
the oppressive system and the toxic
capitalism in this country that is
now causing its wreaking havoc on
all corners of America from Flint
to Texas, from New Orleans
to California everywhere we look.
We are seeing the consequences of
this greed and at some point,
people are going to have to take
heed because people can only
struggle and stare for so long.
>> Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And I mean, just this one story
involving frigid temperatures
not just in Texas by the way, this
is impacting the southern plains,
Arkansas, North Dakota,
they're experiencing
frigid temperatures as well.
It's just that Texas and the way
that they run their power grid
and deregulation tied to it has
put the state in a uniquely awful
position to respond to a climate
fueled weather event that that
they're experiencing.
And so what really stood out to me
with this story was just,
how well organised and prepared
these fossil fuel companies are to
respond in a way that tries
to protect themselves before anyone
even thinks about, like doing
a deep dive in the story,
understanding what's going on.
I mean, Fox News was already on it
with the propaganda about how, no,
it's not the fossil fuel industry,
it's the wind turbines.
And so they will do anything to
maintain the system that we
already have in place right now,
regardless of what it does to
the future of this planet
regardless of what it does to this
planet right now as we speak.
I mean we're experiencing extreme
weather events as a result of
climate change and they don't care.
I mean, it's all about profits,
it's all about
ensuring they maintain
the system that we currently have.
And it's just absolutely
disgraceful, just last weekend,
last Friday there was a big story
about more than 100 cars in a pile
up in a highway that had basically
frozen over.
So I don't know if you guys have
seen those videos, I do
not recommend watching them because
they're absolutely devastating.
But people are dying and at the end
of the day these private companies
fossil fuel companies are only
thinking about what they can do to
protect their own profits.
>> Yeah, it's the American way and
you think about these people who
are now dealing with COVID and
these freezing temperatures and
dealing with economic strife and
dealing with
not having adequate health
care like all of a compounded.
It is so much on the psyche and
just to think about when
you trickle down to the black and
brown people who have are not able
bodied.
Like that are dealing with this
because we forget that there
are other people on this planet
who are not, who can't even stand
up right now and in addition to
this have to deal with all of this.
My heart just goes
out to the people in Texas but
it goes out to all of the people in
America because this is
the beginning of all a lot of,
well, not the beginning.
It's just these things have been
happening for a long time and
they continue to happen.
And the water in Flint [LAUGH]
[CROSSTALK].
>> What we're serious seeing is
an acceleration of the despair.
It's just one after the next, and
and nothing gets addressed
appropriately by certainly not our
congressional lawmakers and we see
failure on the local level as well.