Evan Smith, CEO and Editor-In-Chief of the Texas Tribune, slammed the response to the winter storm that ravaged large parts of Texas on Monday, and lamented the state not being connected to other power grids in the U.S.
Smith appeared on “MSNBC Live” and was asked by host Katy Tur about who was to blame for the state of some communities in Texas who continue to have no power or water days after the storm. (RELATED: Former Obama Energy Secretary Says Texas Storm Shows ‘What The Stakes Are’ For US Inaction On Climate Change)
“I think the blame goes around. There is a lot of it to go around. I think you have to blame ERCOT to some degree because they’re the ones with their hands on the electric grid. You also have to blame past legislatures that had the opportunity to reform ERCOT and declined to,” Smith began.
“But, you know, at the end of the day, who is at the top of the org charts? State leaders today. People want someone to blame, they look to leadership. In moments like this leaders are supposed to lead. We spent a lot of the week without adequate communication from leadership,” he continued. “I think that there are frankly still people in communities like Austin and Houston where we have lack of water. I think power has now been mostly restored where people can’t even get information about an eta to get water back on.”
The massive storm hit Texas on Monday causing an arctic freeze and left millions of people without power in the frigid temperatures. As of Wednesday at least 21 people have died as a result of the storm.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), that manages Texas’ power grid, has come under heavy criticism from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for being “anything but reliable.” On Thursday he released a statement saying that he will be ordering an investigation into Ercot and demanded “immediate transparency.”
“We’re in day five of this as you said. It’s extraordinary. And it shouldn’t be necessary, especially in a state that likes nothing more than to brag about its own awesomeness,” Smith continued. “My colleague at the Texas Tribune, Ross Ramsey, wrote a column for us today saying essentially so much for Texas exceptionalism. We’re going to have to rethink that concept, along with a whole bunch of others here going forward.”
Tur then asked Smith if Texas would “rethink” allowing the federal government to regulate how it distributes energy.
“You know we hate regulation, especially over regulation as we perceive it, Katy, and we hate being told what to do. We hate being controlled by anybody. And we hate especially being controlled by the federal government,” Smith responded.
“Texas being on its own grid has been a feature and not a bug here. This is part of who we are and how we think about the world. But the fact is had we been not on our own grid over this last week, we could have gotten power from other states … There is a lot of reasons to be connected to the rest of the world, and I think we’re going to have to have that conversation immediately and going forward in Texas,” he concluded.