PolitiFact s ruling: False
Here s why: U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, was one of several Texas Republicans casting blame for the state s blackouts this month as millions of Texans huddled in their frigid homes.
As with many other Republicans and conservative pundits, Crenshaw pointed his finger at wind energy as the primary culprit. But in a Feb. 16 tweet thread, Crenshaw expanded criticism beyond frozen wind turbines to include the federal subsidies for the wind industry and force the grid to rely in part on wind as a power source.
“Why don’t we have extra gas power when we need it most?” Crenshaw tweeted. “Because years of federal subsidies for wind has caused an over reliance on wind and an under-investment in new gas and nuclear plants.”
PolitiFact s ruling: False
Here s why: Wind energy is big business in Texas. Over the past five years, wind has grown from supplying 11% of Texas energy demand to 23% and is now the state’s second-largest resource after natural gas.
But that growth has come despite attempts from some conservative groups to slow its progress, and many of those groups seized the opportunity to criticize the renewable resource after initial reports surfaced that turbines were freezing up due to this week’s historic single-digit temperatures across much of Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott became one such critic on Tuesday night as millions of Texans were without power and facing another freezing night. The governor appeared on Sean Hannity s Fox News show and tied the crisis to the state’s renewable energy resources.