Abbott Fails the People of Texas

Last week Gov. Greg Abbott proved once and for all what a petty, mean-spirited, little man he is by essentially giving notice to several hundred state employees that they’re fired as of September 1^st by vetoing Article X of the budget bill passed by both houses of the state legislature. Abbott announced he would do it in a fit of pique days after House Democrats walked out late on the last day of the session, breaking quorum over the voter suppression bill known as SB7. By vetoing that line item in the budget he is making the workers who clean the capitol, operate the cafeteria, run the parking garage suffer. The veto will hardly be noticeable to the elected members of the state legislature as they only get $500 a month and they all have full time jobs elsewhere. The folks that will hurt the most are the ones that had nothing to do with the politics of the session, they take care of the building and the people, they’re just like you and me.

Abbott also signed two bills into law aimed at strengthening the electric grid and reforming the agencies that regulate it. The bills were a response to a massive winter storm that broke the state’s electric grid, which according to a Buzzfeed investigation, killed as many as 700 Texans. Prior signing the bills, Abbott confidently declared that “everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas.” Last week we learned there are more problems with the grid when statewide notice was sent out requesting that all electricity users take steps to conserve because several generation plants were down with unscheduled repair issues. Nothing in the bills Abbott was so proud of addresses these issues and summer has just begun.

One of the electricity grid bills Abbott signed is SB3 which power generators and transmission line operators to weatherize their facilities. That’s great but the big problem during Snowpocalypse was that natural gas supply disruptions, the law requires only gas facilities deemed to be “critical” to weatherize. The agency responsible for making the determination of what’s critical is the industry-friendly Railroad Commission so we have no reason to be hopeful that they’ll actually select all the necessary infrastructure.

SB3 will take effect in six months so the regulatory agencies have time to work out the details. The catch is that the legislature failed to set a deadline for when regulators must begin actually enforcing the law. House Democrats attempted to remedy that with an amendment to establish a six-month deadline for enforcement after the regulatory agencies create their weatherization rules. The bill’s main author, Representative Chris Paddie, opposed the idea citing “financial and operational concerns,” the amendment was voted down along with another to make penalties mandatory also failed. Does anyone actually believe this legislation will do anything to insure that our electric grid will be better prepared for the next winter storm or hurricane, or extreme high temperatures?

Abbott recently announced that he’s picking up Trump’s ball on the border wall and will use $250 million in state funds to build some of it. He says he’s going to work with the Biden administration to have the previously purchased land returned to the original landowners then negotiate with them to have the state buy that land so he can build his wall.

Greg Abbott has shown he doesn’t care about regular folks, little people, he’s just worried about re-election and his action putting state employees out of work to spite House Democrats last week shows why he must not be.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - June 23, 2021