AOC says Green New Deal would have helped to prevent Texas blackouts

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said passing the Green New Deal would have helped to prevent the devastating power outages in Texas that have left millions struggling to find warmth in their homes amid a brutal winter storm and record-shattering cold temperatures.

“The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don’t* pursue a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted on Tuesday night.

More than 3.4 million customers remained without power on Wednesday in Texas, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks utility outage reports. There were also widespread outages in Louisiana and Mississippi, and rolling blackouts across a broad swath of the Midwest.

State leaders, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, have criticized the operations of the state’s power grid. Abbott on Tuesday called for an investigation into the group that manages the power grid in order to prevent more such outages.

But Ocasio-Cortez said policy failures such as the lack of investment in the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, political leaders who do not believe in climate change and the abandonment of low-income, minority and indigenous communities are to blame for the dire situation.

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