Experts in the News

"We’re all high-fiving ourselves because the numbers are going down, and I am saying that we are in the eye of the hurricane," said health policy fellow Peter Hotez of the coronavirus case count.

Past efforts to reform the grid have stalled. Will this year be different?  "We’re a state with a weak governor system ... and each agency only addresses one piece of the problem," said Rice Faculty Scholar Dan Cohan of last week's catastrophic power failures. "This is going to need a fix from the state Legislature."  

Could last week's power crisis prompt a broader reckoning about the limits of Texas' anti-government, low-regulation philosophy? Not if its leaders' political ambitions and desire to differentiate themselves from the Biden administration are factors, said fellow Mark Jones. “Any time that Mr. Biden gives in to the left wing of his party, those will be opportunities for [Gov. Greg] Abbott,” said Jones.

While the Texas GOP's role in last week's statewide power outage has drawn a lot of negative attention, their “one saving grace” is they won’t have to face voters again until November 2022, said political science fellow Mark Jones. “Much will depend on how long people’s memories are — and what else occurs in the interim.”

"You might say, 'We lost a week. What's the big deal?' But my worry is the stakes are high because of new variants now permeating the U.S," said health policy fellow Peter Hotez of Texas' winter storm, which slowed the state's COVID-19 vaccination rate.