Texas Republicans Raked In MILLIONS From Energy Companies After Energy Grid Collapse

Republicans in Texas have made quite a haul for themselves from the fossil fuel industry this year, even after the massive failures - and deadly collapse - of their energy grid during a winter storm this year. Energy companies have forked over millions of dollars to Republicans, including to Governor Greg Abbott, in order to avoid any new regulations. Farron Cousins explains why Texas is doomed as a result of this.

Don't forget to like, comment, and share! And subscribe to stay connected!

Connect with Farron on Twitter

*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Republicans in the state of Texas have done virtually nothing to improve the state's energy grid, following a massive collapse, a deadly collapsed people died because of the collapse of the energy grid earlier this year during winter storm URI in Texas, as you'll recall, that's when Ted Cruz tried to flee the state, go down to Cancun, got busted, blamed his daughters for it. And then unfortunately had to come back to Texas where he found out that people like AOC

Were already down there raising money to help those who needed it.

Nevertheless, massive failures from the Texas energy grid and the energy sector in the state of Texas was worried that obviously, since they now had national attention on them, because they're not on the federal energy grid, they've got their own thing. The fossil fuel companies essentially run it because they own the government there. So fearing that they would face massive regulation after, you know, their failures led to multiple deaths. They decided the best thing to do was not to spend money upgrading the energy grid, but instead spend money paying off more politicians since the collapse of the energy grid, the energy sector in the state of Texas has donated $4.6 million

To Republican Texas, governor Greg Abbott, uh, Lieutenant governor Dan Patrick

Has received $1.3 million from the energy sector. So the two men combined have a pulled in almost $6 million from this sector in just six short months because they fear regulation so much that they would rather spend money paying off people

Like Patrick and Abbott than spending that same money

To actually upgrade the energy grid. It makes no sense. And to be honest, yes, fixing the energy grid is definitely going to cost more than $6 million, but you could make some pretty vast improvement with $6 million, but no, rather than do that, it's just easier to pay off the politicians because that's a one-time investment. That's going to pay off dividends future. And it already has

A couple months ago, Abbott signed

A piece of legislation, you know, to upgrade the energy grids, to have the energy companies do all these things. Essentially it was a regulation except for the fact that they don't have to do it yet, or they kick the can down the road. As long as they start by some point in the year, 20, 22, that's good enough to, you know, fulfill what this legislation says they need to do. So they bought themselves some time. And what happened in that time folks? Well, I'm glad you asked because we almost saw another complete collapse of the Texas energy grid during a sweltering heat wave in Texas, just last month, where residents were told they needed to conserve electricity during the heat wave and not run their air conditioners. This type of thing is going to continue. Texas is allowing itself to be controlled by the very people, screwing them over.

And the voters in Texas, y'all got to wake up on this issue here, because as long as you have these Republicans that are bought and paid for by the energy sector, which is obviously the most powerful sector in Texas, but as long as that happens, your going to keep getting screwed. Your life could quite literally be in danger. As we saw during winter storm URI, let's pray. Another one of those happens again, but if it does, y'all, aren't prepared. You're going to go through the same things in sure. Greg Abbott, when he signed that legislation saying y'all got a year, year and a half to fix things or start fixing things. He said, Texas, his energy grid has already been fixed. They fixed it after the storm,

They fixed what broke. They didn't fix the problems that led to the total collapse. And that's the problem. But Hey,

As long as you keep writing checks to the right people, you can pretty much get away with anything here in the United States.