In light of the historic power outage that plagued Texas in early February of 2021, Deconstructed host Ryan Grim interviewed former congressional candidate Mike Sigel and University of Austin professor Varun Rai to discuss what happened and how the outage could have been prevented. Without detailing how the power outage occurred, Grim provides a convincing and accessible explanation of how Republican Texas legislators set the groundwork for a vulnerable, deregulated energy system. Through this explanation, a powerful point is made about how voter suppression, especially through gerrymandering, is intrinsically connected to the fight for climate justice as many elected officials and appointed bureaucrats are in the pockets of fossil fuel corporations. The conversation with Sigel does well to break down how free market mechanisms allowed for energy prices in Texas to spike more than 10,000% after the outages, making electricity in the emergency unaffordable to some consumers. Rai points out that in Texas, demand for electricity would not have been so high if the homes were built to be more energy efficient.

For all the  energy system analysis in the episode, there is a disappointing acceptance that the only solution to what is described as a political issue is more politics. Sigel explains that Republicans are solely to blame for Texas energy policy and that such policy will only change when Republicans are replaced. Such a perspective makes it easy to forget about the power of organized coalitions. With unions as large as the United Mine Workers of America, which represents coal workers across the United States, making clear their support for a just and resilient climate transition, it is negligent to place all focus on electoral avenues. Through a labor and climate alliance, organized workers have the power to dramatically shift Texas energy policy to be more accountable to those who actually operate and maintain their energy grid instead of the wealthy corporations that own them who often stress the “necessity” of shareholder returns. Furthermore, the episode does not mention the fact that the Texas energy grid is isolated. Even a grid that is weatherized and well-regulated is bound to have hiccups, and it should be highlighted that had Texas’ grid been connected to interstate energy grids such as the Eastern Interconnect, many of the severe production outages and price swings could have been mitigated.