Texas disaster is what happens when you DON’T pursue a Green New Deal – AOC

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has blasted Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the state’s infrastructure planning, claiming her Green New Deal would better prepare areas for extreme weather conditions.

“The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Wednesday. 

The message appeared to be in response to Abbott criticizing a potential Green New Deal due to many renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines failing in the state’s historically cold weather. In an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday evening, Abbott said not being able to rely on these energy sources in extreme weather is part of the reason for rolling power outages in his state.

“This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and nuclear, as well as solar and wind,” he said. “Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than ten percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into this situation.”

Ocasio-Cortez has since expanded on her criticism of Texas and its governor. 

“So many Texans are in desperate conditions without heat, water, and little relief. Gov. Abbott needs to get off TV pointing fingers & start helping people,” the congresswoman tweeted. “After that, he needs to read a book on his own state’s energy supply. I’ll be prepping TX relief emails if he needs help.”

She also pointed to a “system of inequality” as being responsible for some being without power and others not. 

“Natural disasters reveal how brutal & inhumane our system of inequality is. No one should be left to fend for themselves in a natural disaster. This is why we insist on justice in climate policy. In a modern society, equity is as important as technology,” she tweeted.

Many have pushed back against Ocasio-Cortez on social media, saying disaster readiness and better infrastructure would not be exclusive to the passage of something as expensive as the Green New Deal, which would move the US to completely renewable energy. 

“The failure in Texas is what happens when a place that doesn't normally get extreme winter weather fails to winterize gas lines and wind turbines. AOC and conservative outrage is what happens when both sides see a way to push an agenda,” podcaster Tim Pool tweeted. 

“No, the infrastructure failures in TX are quite literally what happens when a once-in-a-century winter storm blows through a state that hasn't winterized its power plants, pipelines, and wind turbines bc this happens so rarely. But hey never let a catastrophic storm go to waste,” Federalist editor John Daniel Davidson added. 

While renewable energy sources have failed during Texas’ storms, a report from Politifact has also highlighted that 80 percent of the state’s power issues fall on coal-and-gas-fired plants also failing in the extreme cold. 

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