Former Texas governor, Trump appointed United States Secretary of Energy and Republican Rick Perry encouraged Texans to tough out the cold during the power outage and suggested it was a worthy sacrifice for keeping the federal government from regulating their power grid.
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)—which manages Texas' power grid and is not managed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—roughly 2.7 million households were still without power as of Wednesday when severe snowstorms froze pipelines that caused the rolling blackouts in the Blizzard State.
Perry—who served as the 14th United States Secretary of Energy under the Trump Administration—wrote a blog on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's website, saying:
"Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business."
"Try not to let whatever the crisis of the day is take your eye off of having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically, and strategically."
The former governor's post was a reaction to McCarthy suggesting that "those watching on the left may see the situation in Texas as an opportunity to expand their top-down, radical proposals."
Like many of his fellow conservatives, Perry shared the false claim the power outages were due to renewable sources—like wind and solar energy.
Their claims ignore the fact these renewable energy sources operate year round in northern states like Maine and in Antarctica and the Arctic circle. Those locations get considerably more snow and ice than Texas is experiencing.
He went on to promote resources such as coal, natural gas and nuclear-based power plants to prevent blackouts in the future despite the fact all of these are currently in use in Texas.
"If wind and solar is where we're headed, the last 48 hours ought to give everybody a real pause and go wait a minute."
"We need to have a baseload. And the only way you can get a baseload in this country is [with] natural gas, coal, and nuclear."
Despite Perry's claim, however, ERCOT officials cited the state's natural gas providers were the primary cause for the blackouts. Their pipelines were not equipped to handle the frigid temperatures brought about by the winter storm.
