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Just months after his last scandal during an unprecedented winter storm left scores of Texans without heat, Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz is once again in hot water—no pun intended—as his state's electricity grid crumbles amid a near-record heatwave.
As Texas' electricity authority struggles to meet demand for air conditioning, folks on Twitter were at the ready to remind Cruz of when he mocked California last year for rolling blackouts due to the exact same problem.
In those tweets, Cruz attempted to paint California as a failing state incapable of providing "basic functions of civilization."
California is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity. \n\nBiden/Harris/AOC want to make CA\u2019s failed energy policy the standard nationwide. \n\nHope you don\u2019t like air conditioning!https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1295870204354818048\u00a0\u2026— Ted Cruz (@Ted Cruz) 1597857608
The 2020 rolling blackouts in California were the state's first since an infamous period of sustained rolling blackouts in 2001.
Nonetheless, Cruz and many other conservative politicians seized on the news in an attempt to cast California as a crumbling Democrat-led state besieged by cuts to basic services.
Cut to less than a year later, and the electrical power authority in Cruz's Republican-led state—The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)—is begging citizens to cut power usage as much as possible this week, just as California did in 2020.
According to an ERCOT spokesman:
"A significant number of forced generation outages combined with potential record electric use for the month of June has resulted in tight grid conditions."
Those outages—which ERCOT official Warren Lasher called "very concerning"—seem to have caught the utility by surprise.
As Lasher told The Texas Tribune:
"I don't have any potential reasons [for the plant outages] that I can share at this time."
As temperatures soared to near-record June levels, ERCOT's outages left an estimated 2.4 million Texas homes without power—a number that dwarfs what happened in California last year, when rolling blackouts affected just 500,000 of the state's 40 million citizens.
On Twitter, people wasted no time in pointing out Cruz's latest hypocrisy.
So\u2026 how\u2019s the electrical grid in Texas right now? \n\nAsking for a country.— Erie Siobhan is Vaxxed to the Max \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 (@Erie Siobhan is Vaxxed to the Max \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8) 1623767415
This tweet aged well. Maybe check out the latest status of @ERCOT_ISO . You ran to Mexico when they f\u2019d up this winter, where are you going next, Moscow?— \ud83d\ude37 Deb Lane \ud83c\udf08\ud83c\udf0a\u270a\ud83c\udffe\u270a\ud83c\udfff\u270a\ud83c\udffd (@\ud83d\ude37 Deb Lane \ud83c\udf08\ud83c\udf0a\u270a\ud83c\udffe\u270a\ud83c\udfff\u270a\ud83c\udffd) 1623699644
Texas is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity. \n\nTed Cruz want to make TX\u2019s failed energy policy the standard nationwide. \n\nHope you don\u2019t like air conditioning!pic.twitter.com/OWscJuXJUM— \u04cdI\u023b\u0126\u00c6\u023d \u03e2I\u023b\u04a0\u03e8 \u269b\ufe0f (@\u04cdI\u023b\u0126\u00c6\u023d \u03e2I\u023b\u04a0\u03e8 \u269b\ufe0f) 1623708158
Tough luck Teddy-boy.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-admin-california-agree-bring-offshore-wind-farms-pacific-coast-n1268534\u00a0\u2026— Mary Quite Contrary (@Mary Quite Contrary) 1623696087
So the Texas grid is not winterized. Ok...\n\nBut it is not summerized either?— Claude Gohier (@Claude Gohier) 1623695772
Ted, your tweet keeps on aging into a fine vintage.https://twitter.com/mattlargey/status/1404498195795828746\u00a0\u2026— Autarkh (@Autarkh) 1623699906
It\u2019s really hard to keep up with all the things that Cruz STANDS AGAINST. I think it\u2019s fair to say, in the bigger picture, he stands against problem-solving.pic.twitter.com/N1maVYSsb2— Thom Rutledge (@Thom Rutledge) 1623761735
Build that wall @GregAbbott_TX with all the money saved by shutting down the Texas energy grid.\n\nTime for another trip to Ritz-Carlton in Cancunpic.twitter.com/1fQppNd2np— Meidas Rick\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08 (@Meidas Rick\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08) 1623695891
What does Ted Cruz care about ERCOT\u2019s grid crashing yet again? He\u2019ll be in Cancun— Pool Ladder, MD (@Pool Ladder, MD) 1623695720
cancun probably has A/C— Kellen (@Kellen) 1623695766
This is Cruz's second scandal in just four months to arise from the collapse of his state's power grid.
Cruz was publicly humiliated in February after he was caught fleeing with his family to Cancun during his state's freak winter storm.
The power outages during that storm resulted in an official death count of 151. More recent independent analysis, however, revised the death toll to as many as 978 people.