1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Quote for the day… “‘[W]ho’s to blame?’” Texas governor Greg Abbott repeated back to a reporter. “That’s the word choice of losers.” “Every football team makes mistakes,” he continued, referring to Texas’s popular sport. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry about it, ma’am, we’ve got this.’” No one expects any different answer from politicians who vote time after time after time in favor of either power, money, or satisfying political donors over the well-being of constituents. This is the go-to response after any tragedy that could have been prevented if politics didn’t intrude. The hypocrisy is no longer shocking. It’s just assumed. When the GOP is confronted by tragedy, on their watch at least, it is ‘not the time to discuss or point fingers.’ But shouldn’t a weather-related tragedy start with examining GOP cuts to NOAA and the NWS that came before our Texas disaster? The WSJ reported that after a deadly flood in 1987, officials in Kerr County applied for a grant to install a flood warning system, but their application was denied. They considered installing one paid for by the county but decided against it. Then county commissioner Tom Moser told the reporters: “It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities. Trying not to raise taxes.” And isn’t it true that my junior Senator Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to NOAA and future efforts to improve forecasting of weather events? Reducing forecasting funding for weather events that are increasing in extremity and frequency and caused by the very climate change he has consistently discounted? Didn’t Senator Cruz insert language into the GOP OBBBA prior to its signing by Trump on Friday that eliminated a $150 million fund to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public” around weather forecasting? And wasn’t a further $50 million in NOAA grants to study climate-related impacts on oceans, weather systems, and coastal ecosystems also removed? Why shouldn’t efforts like these, which will result in less weather monitoring in the future, not be considered in the wake of our recent tragedy in Texas? Shouldn’t political decisions such as these that go against constituent safety and science, in favor of political ideology, be called out for what they are? And should the hypocrisy of our elected representatives be given a pass just because they try and persuade us that now is not the time? That’s garbage. And we’re tired of hearing it. You were bold in your detrimental actions. Man up and take responsibility for them now. One hundred and eleven people are dead and more than 160 are still missing in Texas. That’s a whole lot of folks who aren’t going to be satisfied with deflection instead of answers. You work for them. They deserve better.