With millions of Texans still without power in the wake of a winter storm and frigid temperatures, everyone is looking for someone to blame.
Many Democrats are blaming Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for failing to adequately prepare for the storm. Many conservatives are blaming the environmental movement — insisting that frozen wind turbines show the limits of alternative energy sources. (This is a gross exaggeration.) But the primary fall guy is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), an independent organization that operates Texas’ power grid. “This was a total failure by ERCOT,” said Abbott on Tuesday. “These are the experts. These are engineers in the power industry. These aren’t bureaucrats or whatever the case may be. These are specialists, and government has to rely upon on these specialists to be able to deliver in these types of situations.” The story, as you might guess, is actually slightly more complicated than that. It’s rooted in Texans’ views of their state as a quasi-independent country — and a desire to have as little federal interference in their lives as possible. Yes, there are politics at the root of this. “Texas’ secessionist inclinations have at least one modern outlet: the electric grid,” wrote the Texas Tribune back in 2011. To understand what is happening right now in Texas — and who’s to blame — you have to go back to 1935, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Federal Power Act, which governed electricity sharing and sales between the states.
