White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki used a question to call out Texas politicians lying about the real cause for Texas Electric Grid failure.
Jen Psaki checks Texas politician attack on green energy
Texas, a state where its Republican politicians are full of hubris, have a false sense of independence from the U.S. and consider the laissez-faire markets their god, decided to keep most of Texas off the national electric grid. Then the Governor of Texas attempted to blame renewable energy, specifically windmills, for causing the Texas Electric grid failure. A reporter asked Jen Psaki if Texas should be on the national grid.
Of course, Jen Psaki was not going to answer that question directly. It is for the Department of Energy. But she used it to segue into a necessary narrative.
“Let me first say that building resilient and sustainable infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather and a changing climate will play an integral role in creating millions of good-paying union jobs, creating a clean energy economy, and meeting the President’s goal of reaching a net-zero emissions feature by 2050,” Jen Psaki said. “And also will be beneficial in future storms. I will say that there have been some inaccurate accusations out there. I’m not sure if former Secretary Perry made these but that it was suggested that renewables caused failures in Texas’ power grid. And actually, numerous reports have actually shown the contrary, that it was failures in coal and natural gas that contributed to the state’s power shortages, and officials at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas which operates the state’s power grid have gone so far as to say that failures in wind and solar were the least significant factors in the blackouts. I know that wasn’t exactly your question but I just wanted to convey that since there’s been a lot of confusion about it.”
In other words, instead of lying about renewable energy causing blackouts, concentrate on the good jobs they create. And they do that while working toward mitigating climate change.
This is what makes Jen Psaki so good. She takes the opportunity to use relevant questions by reporters to segue into the administration’s message. It allows her, over time, to repeat the narrative over and over again. That is important.