AOC rips into Texas governor for blaming storm outages on the Green New Deal, saying his 'failed leadership' is the true 'deadly deal'

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez excoriated Texas' governor for blaming power outages on the Green New Deal.

"Here's a reminder: Texas runs 80-90% on fossil fuels," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

Millions are without power in Texas amid a devastating winter storm.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday offered scathing criticism of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after he blamed winter-storm power outages on the Green New Deal and renewable energy sources.

"I go offline a few days and return to a GOP Gov blaming policies he hasn't even implemented for his own failures. Gov. Abbott doesn't seem to have a grasp on his state, so here's a reminder: Texas runs 80-90% on fossil fuels. The real 'deadly deal' is his failed leadership," the New York Democrat tweeted.

Ocasio-Cortez in a separate tweet said Abbott "needs to get off TV pointing fingers & start helping people"

"After that, he needs to read a book on his own state's energy supply," she added.

Abbott had referred to the Green New Deal, a broad proposal to address climate change that hasn't been implemented in the US, as a "deadly deal" while discussing outages in his state during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America," Abbott told Hannity of the outages. "Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10% of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis."

He added: "It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary."

Millions of people have lost power in Texas as the state and its neighbors contend with record-low temperatures and a fatal winter storm.

Though Republican leaders like Abbott have sought to blame renewable energy sources for the outages, a senior official with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the state's power grid, painted a different picture.

"It appears that a lot of the generation that has gone offline today has been primarily due to issues on the natural gas system," Dan Woodfin, a senior director at ERCOT, told reporters on Tuesday, according to The Texas Tribune.

ERCOT said 16 gigawatts of renewable-energy generation were offline, The Tribune reported, while almost double that (30 gigawatts) was lost from thermal sources — including gas, coal, and nuclear energy.

Renewable-energy shortages accounted for only about 13% of the total outages in Texas, Insider reported.

The primary issue in Texas appears to be that officials did not adequately prepare for cold weather. There are anti-ice systems available that can help wind turbines run through harsh winter temperatures.

In tweets, Ocasio-Cortez portrayed Texas as a cautionary tale for leaders who don't take climate change seriously.

"The infrastructure failures in Texas are quite literally what happens when you *don't* pursue a Green New Deal," Ocasio-Cortez said.

"Weak on sweeping next-gen public infrastructure investments, little focus on equity so communities are left behind, climate deniers in leadership so they don't long prep for disaster," Ocasio-Cortez, who has spearheaded the push for the Green New Deal in the House, added. "We need to help people *now.* Long-term we must realize these are the consequences of inaction."