This is what experts say about blackouts in Texas 2:19
(CNN) -
The multiple crises gripping America - from a once-in-history pandemic to a deadly winter storm that left millions of Texans without heat and clean water - have jeopardized the bright future of three of the nation's most prominent governors, who are trying to defend their judgment, preparation and oversight against irate residents in three of the nation's largest states.
Republican Greg Abbott and Democrats Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, who are running for reelection in 2022, face vastly different issues and varying degrees of guilt over what their critics see as flaws in judgment.
But the heated scrutiny over all three underscores the growing responsibility of high-profile great state governors after four years in which former President Donald Trump took a decentralized approach to the nation's most pressing issues and elevated the responsibility of governors to provide your people essentially by telling them they were on their own.
A fourth governor, Republican Ron DeSantis of Florida - who was embroiled in controversy over his disorderly handling of COVID-19 for much of the past year - is also in the limelight again this week, facing fresh allegations of political favoritism in around the placement of a pop-up vaccination site that was created to serve the residents of two wealthy zip codes.
The devastating impact of the pandemic and the near collapse of the Texas power grid has revealed the nation's lack of cohesive planning for disasters - whether the US is ready to treat and vaccinate millions of Americans in the clutches. from a deadly virus or to protect them from the alarming severity of major weather events, including winter storms, hurricanes, and wildfires that have developed in the midst of a climate crisis.
Governors are being held to account for the widespread problems that have been exposed by these events: the enormous income inequality, food insecurity, a horrific level of health inequity, and the inefficiency of the country's health care delivery system. country.
While governors can't control the unpredictable trajectory of a new virus or the severity of a winter storm, weary Americans don't have the patience right now for excuses, much less covering up when things go wrong.
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Abbot, the Republican Governor of Texas, is fast becoming the embodiment of the risks of the spirit of laissez-faire and anti-regulation in the Lone Star State as he struggles to explain why the state power grid was unprepared for the storm. winter that led some Texans to burn furniture and fences to keep warm while another 13 million remain under notifications of boiling their tap water for safety.
The governor compounded his own problems by foolishly rushing on Fox News Tuesday night to blame green energy sources like wind and solar for the massive failure.
But the Texas Electric Reliability Council, which runs the independent Texas grid, later clarified that problems with the natural gas supply were largely responsible.
Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, faces a well-funded effort by Republicans to remove him from office after he enacted restrictive stay-at-home orders to try to stop the growing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in his state.
His opponents say those actions paralyzed small businesses and slowed the state's economic recovery.
While his leadership was widely praised for much of the past year, he became the target of hypocritical charges by attending a birthday party in November at a posh restaurant while urging Californians to stay home and avoid gatherings.
The Cuomo administration in New York is under scrutiny for handling some of the data related to COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities in New York, weeks after the state's attorney general, Letitia James, revealed that the New York State Department of Health underestimated that death data by roughly 50%, essentially neglecting the deaths of residents who had been transferred to hospitals.
The prosecution in Brooklyn and the FBI are now investigating the handling of some of the data, as the
Albany Times Union
first reported
.
It is unclear whether authorities are investigating Cuomo or members of his administration.
The profile of those three governors, and attention to their potentially lofty ambitions, intensified during the past year during the pandemic, when they were constantly in front of the microphones.
But that increased exposure has now magnified his mistakes and potential roadblocks.
Douglas Brinkley, a CNN presidential historian who teaches history at Rice University and was still without power in Texas Thursday afternoon, said it reminded him of the old adage that the nail that is highest is the one that drives in.
"When something like COVID-19 hits those states, it becomes a crazy fight that is kind of hard to understand," Brinkley said, noting the size and complexity of New York, California and Texas.
"It's so much easier to run North Dakota or Arkansas than to run one of the Big Three like that."
Brinkley added that the lack of federal planning for four years of Trump's decentralized approach has created “a banquet or famine environment across the country where people have had to live alone without giving or federal leadership, and creates a huge confusion".
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Texans demand answers as Abbott vows to fix power grid problems
"Nobody gives us answers," Texas resident on blackouts 2:12
In an effort to repair their worth, all three governors have followed the guiding principle of any viable public relations effort by stating that they take responsibility for the issues facing their states.
Abbott was the last to take that step during a briefing on the Texas power grid crisis Thursday afternoon, where he said power had been restored to most Texans after a week in which more than 4 million customers were without it at any one time.
And he stressed the actions he is taking to ensure that the situation "never repeats itself."
Though Democrats have argued that Abbott has a responsibility for failing to make sure the Texas power grid was storm-ready - a criticism Republicans often leveled at Newsom when California was forced to deal with blackouts during heat waves. last summer - Abbott put most of the blame on ERCOT, which has operated Texas' independent power grid since 1970. (ERCOT's autonomous nature meant that Texas was unable to borrow power from neighboring states amid the crisis this week).
Abbott said it is asking the Texas Legislature to not only investigate what happened, but to order winterization of the generators and electrical system.
He angrily indicated that a new chairman and vice chairman were elected to ERCOT's board from outside Texas in the weeks leading up to the storm, although it was unclear how that would have affected the agency's long-term planning.
He noted that the agency's annual winter assessment "reassured people that there would be enough power to meet peak demand this winter," and that turned out to be grossly incorrect.
When asked if he took responsibility for the crisis, he replied: “I take responsibility for the current state of ERCOT.
Once again, I find what has happened unacceptable.
“Texans deserve answers about why deficiencies occurred and how they will be corrected.
And Texans will get those answers, ”Abbott said.
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But his initial instinct to politicize the crisis by misleadingly claiming that the nation's transition to renewable energy sources was the root of the crisis.
"This shows how the New Green Deal would be a deadly deal for America," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity earlier this week.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas told CNN's Anderson Cooper late Thursday that it is clear that state agencies, ERCOT, and the public services commission that oversees ERCOT "were caught completely off guard."
He blamed Abbott for reigniting a political debate on renewables in the midst of a crisis: “If you look at what happened, most of the failures were with the production and delivery of fossil fuels.
Some were from wind turbines, ”Castro said.
"But it was all because the state government never prepared for these kinds of weather events."
Cuomo faces setback on multiple fronts
Cuomo: Covid-19 deaths reported accurately 3:23
The revelation that the prosecution in Brooklyn and the FBI are now investigating the handling of some of the data related to COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities was a sinister political development for Cuomo, because the investigation could follow as long as is positioned to seek a fourth term.
The New York governor has come under fire both for his explanation of what happened and for his behavior while trying to mitigate the damage of the data reporting scandal.
Last week, Cuomo's senior assistant Melissa DeRosa admitted in a call with state lawmakers that the administration tried to delay the release of data on COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities, out of caution in the face of an investigation. preliminary from the federal Department of Justice.
During a news conference Monday, Cuomo - who built trust among New Yorkers last year with his sober updates on the Covid-19 crisis - said that data requested by lawmakers on COVID-19 deaths was not provided as Soon enough, but he insisted that the state's death counts were accurate.
"To be clear, all deaths in nursing homes and hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported," he said.
Cuomo defended his administration's delay in releasing data on COVID-19 deaths, explaining that the Department of Health "paused" state lawmakers' request for COVID-19 death data while his administration focused on a related investigation of the Department of Justice.
The delay in responding to requests for information, he said, created "a vacuum" that has allowed conspiracy theories to flourish.
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"The vacuum we created by not providing information was filled with skepticism and cynicism and conspiracy theories that added to the confusion," he said.
"Without excuses.
We shouldn't have created a vacuum, ”he said.
“We should have done a better job of providing information.
We should have done a better job of ending disinformation… I accept responsibility for that.
Newsom focuses on accelerating the pace of vaccines
Vaccination centers in California run out of vaccines 5:57
Newsom, who profusely apologized to Californians for going to the birthday party last year promising to "preach and practice, not just preach," has tried to stabilize his political position in California by focusing on virus mitigation efforts while, The threat of a recall is largely ignored.
After lifting the lockdown orders, he has focused on improving vaccine implementation in California, which got off to a shaky start.
He has spent his final days visiting vaccination sites in Los Angeles, Fresno, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Clara to highlight the improvement in the state rate of delivery of more than 6 million doses of the vaccine.
On Tuesday, he appeared in Los Angeles at the opening of one of the first community vaccination sites in the country, which was created in partnership with FEMA and the Biden administration.
Once again, he ignored questions related to the recall, stating that he understands Californians' frustrations with the havoc the pandemic has caused and that he is doing everything he can to help bring their state back to normal. .
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"It has been a difficult and challenging year for all of us," Newsom said in Los Angeles, noting the downward slope of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in a state that has been one of the hardest hit by the virus.
“But the fact is, on a large scale, we are moving in the right direction, including in terms of vaccine administration and doses, in terms of getting people back to work and our children going back to school.
So those are empirical and objective truths.
Voters in all three states will search for empirical truths as they judge how their leaders fared in these crises, and all three governors will be called to answer for them at the polls.