AUSTIN, Texas – As frozen Texas reels under one of the worst electricity outages in U.S. history, Republican Gov.
Greg Abbott has blamed grid operators and iced-over wind turbines but gone easier on another culprit: an oil and gas industry that is the state's dominant business and his biggest political contributor.
And as the devastation widened Thursday from a week of historic winter storms, which have killed at least nine people in Texas, the dogpiling on a power grid that is proudly isolated from the rest of country ignores warnings known by the state's GOP leaders for years. “It's almost like a murder suspect blaming their right hand for committing the crime," said Democratic state Rep.