San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
‘Why I just undid EVERYTHING 100%’
After receiving my first COVID-19 shot Tuesday, I was sitting in the observation room with other first-timers. Two women were talking about their jobs at H-E-B when one asked, “Did you hear about the big announcement the governor’s going to make today?”
“No. About what?”
“I think he’s lifting the mask mandate.”
The other woman pondered that before saying, “I don’t think now is a good time for that.”
That answer alone makes her a better choice for governor than Greg Abbott, who, within a couple of hours would not only lift the mask mandate, effective Wednesday, but also say, “It is time to open Texas 100 percent.”
If coronavirus were a country, we’d have reason to wonder if Abbott had been compromised into aiding and abetting it with as reckless, irresponsible, idiotic, shameless, negligent, selfish, cynical and life-threatening decision ever made by a Texas governor.
Nothing screams “My political interests are more important than the public’s health” louder than ignoring the advice of national, state and local health officials, the White House, and mayors and county judges by pursuing actions that spread COVID-19.
Three of Abbott’s four medical advisers on the Department of State Health Services weren’t
consulted by the governor before he made his announcement. The one medical adviser he did talk to is the one who agrees with the governor’s decision.
With COVID-19 numbers down in Texas and multiple vaccines more readily available, we’re close to the place we want to be. But leaving that route will take us on a lengthy and deadly detour.
Abbott’s lack of leadership during the pandemic has been defined by three characteristics: a consistent delay in responding to the virus; prematurely ending his executive orders that were slowing COVID-19’s spread; and blaming others when his poor decisions spiked infections across
the state.
Mayors and county judges got ahead of Abbott in making masks mandatory in their municipalities only to see him supersede their authority. Last May, he reopened Texas despite the state failing to reach three key benchmarks. When COVID predictably spread, Abbott blamed it on young people not wearing masks, something he wouldn’t make mandatory until the next month.
Now, less than a month after being literally and metaphorically powerless to bring light, heat and running water to wide swaths of his constituents, Abbott is using the power of his office to make COVID-19 more accessible to
those same constituents.
Preceding his announcement, he tweeted out the tease: “Get ready. Big announcement in 15 minutes.”
At a Mexican restaurant in Lubbock, before cheering unmasked business leaders and elected officials, he made his big announcement. There was no reporting on whether Abbott or his unmasked cheerleaders left the wait staff with tips big enough to cover their wages should they get sick, but a giddy Abbott boasted on Twitter, “I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING. I also ended the statewide mask mandates.”
Abbott declared a state to be 100 percent open when nearly 100 percent of its residents — about 93 percent — had yet to be fully vaccinated.
Remember his tweet in two or three weeks.
Abbott is saying to rip off the masks, fill up the restaurants, pack the movie theaters, and body-roll through Spring Break and St. Patrick’s Day.
No doubt Abbott would have prematurely declared victory in a war we had yet to win. But it’s hard to believe it happened so soon after the humiliation and disgrace he and others invited by leaving millions of Texans unprotected from power outages during the winter storm.
The enduring image of Abbott last month was his lie blaming the outages on renewable energy.
Informing his announcement to open an unmasked Texas 100 percent wasn’t the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but likely the 2024 presidential candidate he may see each time he looks in the mirror. It’s the same candidate who told him to lie about the power outage.
This is his play to the anti-mask brigade who believe freedom’s just another word for nothin’ but someone else’s life left to lose — the “No one is more put upon than I” patriots who pretend they’re the only ones who’ve had to sacrifice this past year.
All of us want to go back, unmasked, to our lives, doing the things we did, seeing and holding the people we’ve missed.
Because we want to return to those lives while protecting each other is why many of us will continue to mask up, socially distance and avoid large crowds.
Gov. “I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%” can listen to his conscience.
Three weeks ago, Texas faced the costliest natural disaster in its history: 4.5 million people without power, nearly 15 million without running water, and a death toll we won't fully understand for months. Among those who lost their lives was a 69-year-old San Antonian who lived alone. He did not have electricity, and the authorities said his bedroom was 35 degrees when they found him.
Texas failed this man, and there are no words to describe what must have been a painful, lonely death.
In the weeks following, we have been overwhelmed with news and a tightly scripted narrative from Gov. Greg Abbott attempting to contain the fallout. His finger-pointing deflects attention from his inaction and a vain attempt to protect former employees that he appointed to the Public Utility Commission, the agency entrusted to regulate our gas and electricity infrastructure.
It's hard to keep up with the avalanche of breaking news and political spin. Piling on, Abbott rescinding our mask mandate is more political misdirection. Here is what Abbott is not telling you.
Notified in advance
After 25 hours of legislative testimony, the most shocking development is this: According to two witnesses, Abbott was informed of likely widespread power outages 48 to 72 hours before the storms hit. What did he do with that time? What could
you have done if you knew?
I can tell you what Abbott didn't do: He didn't pass the warning along to Mayor Ron Nirenberg or Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. Anyone who lives on the Gulf Coast can tell you how vital the 72 hours before a storm are. Giving people time to prepare, stock up on groceries, ready shelters — these actions save lives. If our business community and local leaders had been warned about the looming outages, we could have been better positioned to offer aid.
No lessons learned
The week of the storm, $50 billion in electricity sales occurred,
the same amount sold in the previous three years combined. Yes, you read that correctly. In seven days, the electricity market sold what it took 1,095 days to sell under normal conditions.
I know what some of you are thinking — that's supply and demand. Not so much. The scarcity in the market had nothing to do with the amount of gas in the ground. We have so much supply in Texas that oil producers often burn excess gas to avoid the high cost to store and market it.
Scarcity resulted from singledigit temperatures freezing wellheads and pipelines, forcing many producers offline. These
assets were inoperable because producers failed to heed warnings to weatherize pipelines to ensure deliverability after the catastrophic 2011 winter storms.
Hitting the jackpot
The scarcity in the market was partly created by many of the same actors now being compensated handsomely for their “screw you” market mentality. So it's no surprise that on an earnings call with investors, the chief financial officer of Comstock Resources, an energy company controlled in part by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, said energy sales during the storm were “like hitting the jackpot.”
Never mind that while his company rolled around in profits, Texans were literally freezing to death and boiling snow to flush toilets.
If gas producers like Comstock are hitting the jackpot, who is the casino forking over the winnings? We are. We will be paying out that windfall for a long time.
Responsibility before reform
We cannot begin to reform this broken system without first taking responsibility. Singling out the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, is not enough. That's like blaming the gasoline for the fire instead of the arsonist. Abbott has yet to hold himself and his appointees accountable, and he is silent on reining in industry.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently launched an investigation into these massive price spikes and the possibility that some actors were participating in market manipulation. I welcome this news, but it's not enough. We need a transparent outside investigation by law enforcement authorities to ensure that every responsible agency, official or industry actor is held to account. Last week, I called on Travis County District Attorney José Garza to open an investigation. I am encouraged that he has since elected to do exactly that.
There will be multiple reform proposals, and I welcome the debate. But no amount of reform can fix a broken system unless we hold accountable those who left Texans out in the cold.