CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Lizzie Fletcher

Interview

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WHITFIELD: Right. Still a long way to go. All right, Natasha Chen, Mayor Turner, thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

All right, with me now to talk more about the crisis that continues to play out there in Texas is Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher. She is a Democratic Representative from Texas. Congresswoman, it is good to see you.

REP. LIZZIE FLETCHER (D-TX): Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to hear your focus on what's happening here in Texas. Thanks for including me today.

WHITFIELD: Absolutely. And so what's happening where you are? How are you doing? How's your family? How about at your home? Water? Power? Well, I see lights on and you're with us via computer, but if you're at home, how are things?

FLETCHER: That's right. Well, thank you. My family is doing fine, all things considered. We, like so many people across our city have had some busted pipes, we were out of power for a little over 48 hours here, some of my family members longer.

And everything we just heard Mayor Turner describing I think is right across our community, but we feel fortunate that we had a little bit of notice. On Monday, my parents' power went out first. So I had time to fill up my bathtubs.

And we are still under that boil water notice here in Houston and throughout much of my district, although we do have some of the jurisdictions in my congressional district as well where that boil water notice has been lifted.

And so, there is hope. We are slowly emerging from the power crisis. But this water crisis is very real. And I, like the Mayor, Mayor Turner is my Mayor, and like him, I've been handing out bottled water, working with our City Council members, with Harris County Commissioners to make sure that people across our community get bottled water, drinking water, and also water for other uses, and there's just such a great need right now across our community and across the entire State of Texas.

WHITFIELD: So clearly, you knew what to do with, you know, putting water in your bathtubs. You were born and raised in Texas. But you know, beyond the energy stuff, which we will talk about in a minute, what do you believe happened here?

Do you feel like as a whole, Texans were caught off guard, you know, not ready for this kind of weather?

FLETCHER: Yes, it's a great question. And I think there was a cascading series of failures here. As one person I talked to recently put it, you know, this was like a hurricane out in the Gulf, and in fact, that's how I responded to it.

I have a bag ready for hurricanes that has a weather radio and lamps in it and emergency candles. I didn't need the off this time, but you know, I went and got my bag and filled up my bathtubs, but really, we didn't have the kind of notice we have for a hurricane even though ERCOT was looking a week before the events at a real power loss.

And so I think there was a huge communication failure to those of us who had our power shut off, as well as real risks to the grid. And so we have seen that this catastrophic power failure was magnified by a failure to communicate with customers by an inability to roll those blackouts so that some people have been without power for 72 hours or longer.

It's one thing to roll your power off for four or five hours at a time, and I think we could have made adjustments if there have been better communication.

But really, we have to reevaluate our entire system here and see what failed. I think there are failures at every level, but especially failure of government and paying attention to the information we have had for years about what we need to do to protect not just our grid, but to protect our neighbors and our citizens of the state of Texas.

WHITFIELD: And how will you go about reevaluating? You serve in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Texas State leaders have not pushed utilities to winterize the grid, the power lines, the power plants you know in the past. You're calling for an investigation into ERCOT for starters, which runs, you know much of the Texas grid, but what can Congress do in this reevaluation?

[15:15:10]

FLETCHER: Well, that's right. The Energy and Commerce Committee has called for a full investigation, and my colleague Marc Veasey from Fort Worth, and I serve on that committee and are very grateful for the quick and early support of our Chairman and Subcommittee Chairman on getting an investigation rolling, calling on the F.E.R.C. to work with us as well.

Now, the F.E.R.C. evaluated a failure in Texas 10 years ago, and had several recommendations, including winterization of our equipment. And what we've seen is the way the Texas system is designed, we don't have incentives for power providers to do that winterization, there are not financial incentives.

And the other thing is in this market-based system, we don't really have excess capacity, and that's to bring costs down, but we've seen the cost over the last week in lives. We've seen the incredible devastation and disruption from this loss of power across our state.

And so, we really need to reevaluate both winterization as well as capacity issues and we need to look at oversight and regulation.

Ultimately, the Governor of Texas, the State Legislature oversee not just ERCOT, but the Public Utility Commission. We need to make sure that there are enforceable standards, and I think that what our committee can do on Energy and Commerce is talk about the best practices.

But also, we need to look and see what all of these systemic failures are. And here in Texas, I think people are willing to reevaluate how it is that we do things to make sure that our number one priority is met, which is keeping people safe.

And I always say, keeping people safe is the first responsibility of government and our government in Texas failed us this week.

WHITFIELD: One of your constituents is Senator Ted Cruz, and you've said in response to his Cancun trip this week that leadership matters. Is his apology enough?

FLETCHER: Well, I really haven't focused on Senator Cruz this week because what I'm seeing is leadership across our community.

I know that my colleagues in Congress are out doing what I'm doing. I know that our -- I mean, we just saw Mayor Turner, who has been such a champion this week. Our County Judge, Lina Hidalgo, and mayors, City Council members, County Commissioners, the leadership structure here locally, really has been superb, under very difficult, challenging times.

And I should also add that in a time where our state government has really made it difficult for local governments, you know, there are sort of a lot of responsibility and yet, an attempt to take away authority.

And so there are some real structural problems that we need to focus on here in Texas, when it comes to how our government can work together, and it's something I think we do well, we did it well in August, when we had Hurricane Laura bearing down on us. I saw Federal, State and local government working together very well.

We haven't seen that, as well, before this crisis, I hope we will continue to see it after this crisis. And I'm working with our Division of Emergency Management, which is working with F.E.M.A.

Now, there is a way to help not only during the disaster, but in this recovery, and that's what I hope and expect to see from our leaders at every level.

And I'm really proud of our leaders here in Houston and Harris County who have worked so hard to get our community back on its feet.

WHITFIELD: When we hear from some Texans who say they want to hear from senior leadership, they are talking about members of Congress and the U.S. Senate. And you know, you're with us right now. We've seen other Members of Congress who have been on the ground, helping to distribute aid.

But then there have been some that we haven't heard or seen much of including Senator John Cornyn. Have you heard much about his whereabouts? His commitment? And where he is?

FLETCHER: You know, I haven't been in touch with Senator Cornyn directly, either. I have been in touch with other Members of Congress. We have had calls with ERCOT this week.

We've had calls with the Texas Division of Emergency Management every morning, and I hear my colleagues asking questions on those calls as I am. So I know that many members of our congressional delegation are very engaged in responding with their communities. And of course, there are so many things the Federal government can do

in moments like this. And one of the critical pieces is distributing aid.

And I led my colleagues on Thursday in urging President Biden to sign the major disaster declaration as quickly as possible which he now have done.

WHITFIELD: And he will be visiting Texas this week. Yes, and he is visiting Texas this week. Do you think it's particularly important for the President to see firsthand where the need is and to show his face and make --

FLETCHER: I do think so, and I think he has been very respectful in saying he wants to come at the appropriate time when it's not a burden on the recovery efforts, and so I appreciate.

I think many of us over the last week when we had no power and no sense of when it was going to be restored. And now of course, there's the water crisis. It's important to know that people are seeing that; that the President of United States understands the devastation here and is doing everything he can to help.

So I'm glad to see the response from President Biden. He has been on top of this since before the weather hit, signing that initial disaster declaration.

And I think it's really important for us here in Texas to see that and to see it from all of our elected leaders.

[15:20:21]

WHITFIELD: All right, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it and all the best.

FLETCHER: Thanks so much.

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