Tag Archives: Governor Greg Abbott

Texas governor bars mask mandates for schools, other government entities

(Reuters) -Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday ordered all government entities in the state, including school districts, to lift mask mandates by week’s end, though existing guidelines for face-coverings in schools may remain in effect through June 4.

Abbott’s executive order puts Texas at odds with the latest guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending that students in schools across the United States wear masks for the 2020-2021 academic year because not all will be inoculated against the coronavirus.

Abbott said Texas was making strides against the COVID-19 pandemic through vaccinations, antibody therapeutics and voluntary health-safety practices “utilized by Texans in our communities,” leaving government mask requirements no longer necessary.

“We can continue to mitigate COVID-19 while defending Texans’ liberty to choose whether or not they mask up,” he said in a statement announcing the executive order.

Abbott and many other Republican politicians have cast mask mandates as an imposition on personal freedoms but nevertheless grudgingly required face coverings at the height of the pandemic as hospitalizations and deaths surged out of control.

Texas lifted its state-imposed mask mandate 10 weeks ago but sued officials in Austin, the state’s capital city, for refusing to go along with the lifting of those restrictions.

Abbott said that beginning Friday, local governments or officials that attempt to impose a mask mandate or other restriction in defiance of his latest executive order barring compulsory face-coverings would be subject to a $1,000 fine.

Public school districts are given more time to comply, but after June 4, “no student, teacher, parent or other staff member or visitor can be required to wear a mask while on campus,” his announcement said.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio)

Texas is latest U.S. state to advance Republican-backed voting limits

By Joseph Ax and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) -Texas joined other Republican-controlled states on Friday in advancing a slew of new voting restrictions, defying opposition from many of the state’s businesses and adding to a fierce national debate over voting rights.

The state House of Representatives in Austin gave the legislation preliminary approval at 3 a.m. CDT (0800 GMT) on Friday after hours of debate before delivering final approval around 2:45 p.m. (1945 GMT), largely along party lines.

Members of the House and the state Senate, which passed its own bill imposing voting limits last month, will now work to reconcile the two bills before sending a finalized version to Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has indicated he will sign it.

Other states, including Georgia and Florida, have also enacted Republican-backed voting curbs after Republican former President Donald Trump falsely claimed his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in last year’s presidential election was the result of massive voter fraud. Republican legislators in numerous other states are pursuing similar changes.

The Texas House bill gives more access to partisan poll watchers and bars election officials from sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to voters, among other restrictions. The Senate bill includes limits on early voting and would prohibit 24-hour polling sites and drive-through voting, both changes that Harris County made last year during the coronavirus pandemic.

Sponsors of the bills said they are intended to prevent voter fraud while bolstering election integrity and public confidence in balloting.

“This bill is about protecting voters,” Republican Representative Briscoe Cain said during the House floor debate.

Democrats and civil rights groups counter that there is no evidence of widespread ballot tampering, and argue that such legislation disproportionately burdens or discourages voters of color, as well as the elderly and disabled. Voting rights advocates say Texas already has in place some of the highest barriers to voting of any state.

“In short, this bill is nothing but voter suppression,” Jasmine Crockett, a lawyer and first-term Democrat, said on the House floor.

On Tuesday, dozens of companies – including American Airlines Group Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and Microsoft Corp – urged legislators to reject any law restricting access to ballots.

Voting by mail, and early voting in general, surged during the 2020 election as voters sought to avoid ballot-box queues in the midst of the pandemic.

The Texas vote came a day after Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a new law making it more difficult for voters to cast ballots by mail or to use ballot drop boxes.

In March, Georgia adopted a Republican-backed law that included sweeping new restrictions, sparking backlash from major U.S. corporations and prompting Major League Baseball to move its All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest.

More than three months after Biden was sworn in, Trump has continued to assert that the election was stolen. Courts have rejected those claims in more than 60 lawsuits challenging the results.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas, and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Gerry Doyle, John Stonestreet and Jonathan Oatis)

Texas lawmakers prepare bill to cut $5.1 billion in winter storm power fees

(Reuters) – Texas lawmakers on Monday were preparing legislation to cut about $5.1 billion in disputed electricity and services fees levied on power marketers during a winter freeze that sent the state’s power market into financial crisis.

The cold snap last month spurred a power crisis that pushed the state’s weekly electricity costs by nearly 10 times the usual to about $47 billion. Those costs led at least two bankruptcies and a sparked a battle between lawmakers and the state’s power regulator over the handling of the crisis and resulting prices.

Governor Greg Abbott on Monday submitted an emergency proposal authorizing legislators to address billing errors and service fees that led to a heated battle between lawmakers and the state’s power regulator over who can rescind the charges.

Lawmakers were moving to consider as early as Monday a bill cutting about $3.2 billion in power charges and services fees that state’s market adviser last week testified were improperly levied and should be corrected.

Arthur D’Andrea, the head of the state’s Public Utility Commission (PUC), rejected any change and advised lawmakers they could do it at the risk of a legal backlash. His refusal during a hearing last week to rescind prices sparked a heated comments between senators and the PUC chief.

One state senator, Charles Schwertner, ended his remarks by telling D’Andrea, who was appointed to the commission by Abbott: “My faith in you as chairman is severely, severely lacking.”

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Marguerita Choy)

Texas sheds coronavirus mask, occupancy restrictions

By Brad Brooks

LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Texans awoke on Wednesday with a statewide mask mandate and occupancy restrictions in businesses lifted, a move some heralded as freedom and others as foolishness.

On paper, Texas’ rollback of coronavirus mitigation efforts is the most sweeping seen in the United States, along with a similar measure in Mississippi. In practice, vast swaths of Texas have rarely enforced mask or occupancy mandates in the past year, anyway.

Several major retailers, grocery and restaurant chains in Texas said they would still require that masks be worn in their stores, which under Abbott’s order relaxing restrictions is their right to do.

Still, some expected to see standoffs between maskless customers and store employees on Wednesday.

Texas was one of the first states to reopen its economy after the first wave of pandemic cases last May, and the nation’s second most populous state led the way again last week when Governor Greg Abbott announced the relaxation amid declines in new daily COVID-19 cases and with the rollout of vaccines.

As of Sunday, 18% of the U.S. population had received at least one dose of a vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

County officials in regions where COVID patients take up 15% or more of hospital beds for seven consecutive days can enact new mask and occupancy restrictions, under Abbott’s order, but no regions are currently in that situation.

Austin’s city council voted to still require masks – and dared state officials to sue the city.

“In Austin, we’re committed to saving lives,” city council member Greg Casar wrote on Twitter.

The Texas Education Agency’s guidance for public schools is for the continued use of masks, while nursing homes in the state will not loosen restrictions.

The Dallas Jewish Conservatives organization plans to host a party Wednesday evening with about 200 people. There will be a moment of silence for the pandemic’s dead, refreshments for the guests and a bonfire into which folks will be encouraged to toss masks.

“It’s about freedom, liberty and personal responsibility,” said Benjie Gershon, founder of the group. “The act of throwing a mask into the bonfire … is in no way meant to belittle or undermine the tragic numbers of individuals who have fallen ill to COVID.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Texas governor lifts state’s mask mandate, business restrictions

(Reuters) – The governor of Texas lifted most of the state’s coronavirus pandemic restrictions, allowing businesses to reopen at full capacity as of next week and telling residents that masks were no longer required.

The move by Governor Greg Abbott marks the furthest any U.S. state has so far gone to roll back harsh restrictions on businesses and residents imposed by political leaders in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is now time to open Texas 100%,” Abbott said at an afternoon news briefing. The full lifting of the mandates will take effect on March 1, he said.

Abbott’s order comes as COVID-19 infections have plummeted in recent weeks across much of the world, including the United States.

According to a Reuters tally roughly 68,240 new cases have been reported on average each day this week, or 27% of the peak daily average reported on Jan. 7. The United States has recorded 28,681,793 infections and 513,721 coronavirus-related deaths since the pandemic began.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler and Matthew Lewis)

Texas lawmakers look to lay blame for deadly power blackout

By Jennifer Hiller and Gary McWilliams

(Reuters) – Texas state lawmakers on Thursday started digging into the causes of deadly power blackouts that left millions shivering in the dark as frigid temperatures caught its grid operator and utilities ill-prepared for skyrocketing power demand.

Hearings are highlighting shortcomings by grid planners, electric utilities, natural gas suppliers and transmission operators that led to billions of dollars in damages and dozens of deaths. Consumer advocates have called for more stringent regulation of utilities and a review of retail marketing plans.

“Who’s at fault?” State Representative Todd Hunter demanded of utility executives. “I want to hear who’s at fault. I want the public to know who screwed up.”

“The entire energy sector failed Texas,” said NRG Energy Inc Chief Executive Mauricio Gutierrez, who testified at the hearing.

While executives said there were broad failures of leadership and preparation, the biggest was the state’s natural gas system, responsible for the largest share of Texas power generation, said Curtis Morgan, CEO of Vistra Corp. Texas is the country’s biggest producer of natural gas, but without better ties between gas producers, pipelines and power plants, the state will face future cold weather outages.

“We just couldn’t get the gas at the pressures we needed,” said Morgan, who instructed employees to buy gas at any price but could not acquire enough to run plants.

Up to 48% of the state’s power generation was offline at times last week and at least 32 people died, including an 11-year-old boy of hypothermia in an unheated mobile home.

“We owe it to them and every Texan to make sure this never happens again,” said State Representative Ana Hernandez, noting that hospitals still have supply chain problems and burst pipes, and some people cannot access food and water. “The impact of this disaster was not only financial.”

Utilities were ordered to cut power to prevent a larger catastrophe, Bill Magness, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator, said on Wednesday.

Six of ERCOT’s 15 directors resigned this week and a nominee withdrew before taking a seat.

ERCOT did not warn residents that the state’s power generation would not keep up with demand, even under perfect conditions, despite warnings the week prior from utilities, Morgan said.

“We did not give people a fighting chance,” Morgan said.

Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday said public anger was justified and pledged proposals to increase power supplies and to protect those residents hit with enormous power bills. He blamed ERCOT, saying it should have acted faster to prevent generators from falling offline.

But Abbott “hand picks” members of the Public Utilities Commission that oversees ERCOT, Representative Rafael Anchia said.

RETAIL DEFAULTS AHEAD

Of the about 100 retail electric providers in Texas, a quarter are at risk of default on multimillion-dollar service charges levied by ERCOT. Some may sell customers to larger firms to cover costs, stifling retail competition, said Mark Foster, an attorney and former special counsel to the state’s Public Utility Commission.

“They call it the blood week,” Foster said. One of his clients, electricity marketer Young Energy LLC, faces a $19 million bill for services that cost $37,000 the prior month, he said. “There will be a significant decrease in competition for the consumer,” he said.

Texas state Senator John Whitmire asked whether ERCOT explored claims that natural gas producers intentionally cut supplies to electric generators to drive up the fuel’s price.

ERCOT CEO Bill Magness replied he had no first-hand knowledge.

The “big missing money” is not sitting with utilities, who paid historically high prices for natural gas, said Morgan.

“The gas business made a lot of money,” he said.

(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller and Gary McWilliams; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Lisa Shumaker)

‘Fragile’ Texas energy grid comes back to life, steep challenges remain

By Brad Brooks

LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – A “fragile” energy grid has fully returned to life for frigid Texans who have spent five days dealing with blackouts caused by a historic winter storm, but challenges in finding drinking water and dealing with downed power lines loomed on Friday.

All power plants in the state were once again functioning, but about 280,000 homes were still without power early Friday while 13 million people – nearly half of all Texans – have seen water services disrupted.

Ice that downed power lines during the week and other issues have linesman scrambling to hook all homes back up to power, while the state’s powerful oil and gas sector has looked for ways to renew production.

Hospitals in some hard-hit areas ran out of water and transferred patients elsewhere, while millions of people were ordered to boil water to make it safe for drinking. Water-treatment plants were knocked offline this week, potentially allowing harmful bacteria to proliferate.

Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which encompasses Houston, said she was pleased with progress in the past 24 hours, but warned residents to brace for more hardship.

“The grid is still fragile,” she said, noting that cold weather would remain in the area for a few days, which would “put pressure on these power plants that have just come back on.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed that all power-generating plants in the state were online as of Thursday afternoon. He urged lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure the energy grid was prepared for cold weather in the future.

“What happened this week to our fellow Texans is absolutely unacceptable and can never be replicated again,” Abbott told an afternoon news conference.

The governor lashed out at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a cooperative responsible for 90% of the state’s electricity, which he said had told officials before the storm that the grid was prepared for the cold weather.

The lack of power has cut off water supplies for millions, further strained hospitals’ ability to treat patients amid a pandemic, and isolated vulnerable communities, with frozen roads still impassable in parts of the state.

Nearly two dozen deaths have been attributed to the cold snap. Officials say they suspect many more people have died, but their bodies have not yet been discovered.

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Texas governor shuts down drop-off sites for early mail votes

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – Texas counties will each be limited to a single site for voters to drop off their mail ballots ahead of Election Day, under a proclamation issued by Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday.

The order will close down more than a dozen satellite locations in at least two counties: Harris, which includes Houston, had opened 12 sites to collect early mail ballots, while Travis, which includes Austin, had four.

Texas is one of the few U.S. states that does not allow all voters to request absentee ballots without an excuse. Instead, only voters who are over the age of 65, have a disability, are confined to a jail or will be out of town on Election Day can vote by mail.

Earlier this year, both the state Supreme Court and a federal appeals court rejected efforts to extend mail voting to all Texans amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The Nov. 3 election includes the White House race between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden as well as federal, state and local contests.

In a nod to the outbreak, Abbott, a Republican, had issued an order in July allowing voters to submit mail ballots in advance, rather than only on Election Day, and extending early voting by several days. Thursday’s proclamation modified that order.

“As we work to preserve Texans’ ability to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic, we must take extra care to strengthen ballot security protocols throughout the state,” Abbott said in a statement. “These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting.”

The decision drew immediate criticism from the chairman of the state Democratic Party, Gilberto Hinojosa, that Abbott was changing the rules at the last minute.

“Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans are scared,” he said in a statement. “We are creating a movement that will beat them at the ballot box on Nov. 3, and there’s nothing these cheaters can do about it.”

Texas, which has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades, is seen as potentially competitive this year, though polls show Trump with a narrow lead.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Texas Governor unveils school safety plan after deadly shooting

Community members stood in support as students and administrators returned for the first day of class since a deadly mass shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, U.S., May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Pu Ying Huang

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott unveiled a $110 million program intended to increase school safety by putting additional trained marshals inside schools and more closely monitoring social media for threats in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting earlier this month.

The plan was announced nearly two weeks after a 17-year-old armed with a shotgun and pistol killed 10 students and educators at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area.

It followed a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February in which 17 people, mostly students, were massacred.

“Everybody in this entire process and everybody in the state of Texas never wants to see another occasion where innocent students are gunned down in their own schools,” Abbott told a news conference in Dallas on Wednesday.

The proposed funding works out to about $20 per student in a state that has about 5.5 million students enrolled in its public schools.

The 40-point plan, which followed meetings last week between Abbott and education and law enforcement officials, calls for enhanced mental health resources for students and new metal detectors for extra security at schools, Abbott said in a statement.

The Texas Democratic Party issued a statement condemning the governor’s plan, claiming that he failed to directly address gun crimes that occur in the United States.

“Nothing in Abbott’s plans address the reality that it is too easy for a weapon to end up in the hands of someone wanting to cause harm,” Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement.

Abbott is an ardent defender of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Soon after the shooting at Santa Fe High School he said that any proposed legal changes that he would consider to improve school safety would “protect Second Amendment rights.”

His proposals include eliminating a rule that requires some school marshals to store their weapons in a safe while on campus.

Abbott said he would ask lawmakers to consider legislation to allow law enforcement, families, school staff or a district attorney to file a petition seeking the removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person only after legal due process was provided.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Scott Malone)