AUSTIN, Texas--Nearly one year from last February’s deadly power grid failure, and two months after Abbott promised the lights would stay on this winter, he is now going back on his word. Abbott now says he cannot guarantee that the pressure on our power grid will not leave us with statewide outages.

The continued lies by failed Governor Abbott has created uncertainty amongst millions of Texans who are now being advised to prepare for the possibility of once again being left out in the cold. A hypocritical request coming from those who had a year to prepare and shield us from another preventable winter storm disaster. The lack of leadership and preparedness by our Governor and other Republican legislators is why we are again in this vulnerable predicament.

Under Gov. Abbott’s watch, ERCOT was forced to cut off power to 4.5 million people in order to save a complete collapse of the state’s grid, a gargantuan failure of leadership where an estimated 700 Texans died. It is the largest forced power outage in U.S. history and it was seconds from a complete collapse.

Instead of passing laws to fix the power grid, Abbott has chosen to protect the profits of energy companies and has even accepted $4.6 million in campaign contributions from these same companies who profited billions at the expense of higher monthly utility bills for Texans. And just yesterday, Governor Abbott was endorsed by Texas Alliance, an oil and gas organization. It’s clear who Governor Abbott is serving and it’s not the good people of Texas.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa issued the following statement:

“Last year, millions of Texans and hundreds of people died because of Greg Abbott's incompetence and corruption. He was warned repeatedly about the grid's vulnerabilities and still did nothing — and on this eve of another record-breaking weather event, he continues to lie to Texans and put our lives at risk.

“It is incomprehensible how badly Greg Abbott handled the emergency situation last February. The system didn’t fail due to extreme weather -- it was a failure of Republican leadership over decades to plan and invest in our state’s infrastructure and after an entire year, we are still dealing with his incompetence and failed leadership.

 “Greg Abbott and the Republican-led legislature should have been focusing on fixing the state’s grid. By not doing so in any one of the four sessions, they failed yet again to take the needs of our state seriously and we are left vulnerable as another winter storm approaches. All of which could’ve been avoided if they had just done their job instead of taking campaign contributions and corporate interests bribes from companies who benefit from the grid’s failure. Proving once again that self-serving Abbott, will protect his own interest instead of the millions of Texans he was elected to serve.”

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