Power companies in Texas didn’t winterize their plants like they were told to 10 years ago, leading to the crisis in Texas, says Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas.
“Texas’ big problem was they were using resources to move toward solar and wind and did not weatherize their plants. Ten years ago, Texas was told in a report, ‘you’ve got to weatherize your plant,’ but the emphasis was getting kudos from people like (Chuck) Schumer and having more and more intermittent types of power,” Gohmert said Monday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s “John Bachman Now.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last Friday issued Civil Investigative Demands to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees the electrical grid in Texas, and other power companies.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation in 2011 found Texas power generators were “reactive as opposed to being proactive in their approach to winterization and preparedness” and recommended changes to prevent outages again. But those recommendations weren’t mandated.
“Our chairman of the board of ERCOT in Michigan and vice-chairman of our ERCOT board in California apparently didn’t realize just how important that was,” said Gohmert.
The 2011 report found that 26 power generators that failed during a winter storm that year failed during a similar 1989 storm.
Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, CenturyLink 1209, Mediacom Ch. 277, Frontier 615 or Find More Cable Systems – Click Here.
Related Stories:
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.