Lets be clear on what’s happening here: in the middle of severe snow storms & power outages Texas Republican officials are making a move to bolster the oil/gas industry and strip the state of its renewable energy sources. This is what @NaomiAKlein has called “disaster capitalism”
Explaining how this shock doctrine works @NaomiAKlein points out that “free-market” ideologues wait for a disaster & then “when we are psychologically unmoored & physically uprooted, that these artists of the real plunge in their hands and begin their work of remaking the world”
What we are seeing here is the shock doctrine at work: as Texans reel from this disaster, state Republicans are laying the ground for furthering the capitalist interests of the oil/gas industry & shifting energy production away from any renewable sources, even though they know...
Wind turbines are not to blame, natural gas has frozen in the pipelines, the energy grid has not been weatherized. Officials know @ERCOT_ISO the “nonprofit” provider & the Public Utility Commission of Texas (appointed by Governor) that oversees and appoints ERCOT CEO failed us.
Officials know that the Texas Railroad Commission (3 elected republicans) regulates gas pipelines & industry. They chose not to require weatherization to save costs and generate profits. When Dems introduced HB 3571 in #TXLege few years back to require protections Reps killed it.
During this crisis the Public Utility Commission passed an “emergency order” that changed rules to transfer the increase in the price of producing power to consumers - “scarcity pricing” means ERCOT charges consumers more so that the private industry profits from this disaster.
This is disaster capitalism folks, state republican officials in Texas are blaming #GreenNewDeal as they change rules to allow private industry to profit from human misery & lay the ground for curbing renewable energy production in the future to increase oil/gas industry profits!
Fellow Texans, as @KeeangaYamahtta reminds us, it is up to us to hold officials accountable for this disaster capitalism & to push for “previously unthinkable solutions.” We must ask ourselves how a #GreenNewDeal can protect us from future storms, power outages & price gouging
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