LETTER TO THE EDITOR 2.21.2021 

In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, “If I were a prince or a legislator I should not waste  my time saying what ought to be done; I should do it or keep silent.” 

As Texans attempt to recover from last week’s destabilizing energy infrastructure failures and challenges  with water supply, it is well past time for our legislators to take action to make sure our power grid is  available in all types of weather, as bad weather events will continue to intensify as climate change  progresses.  

Texans are resilient, but we need an energy infrastructure to match our collective resiliency, not test it.  

This week’s events serve as the expensive bill that has now come due after years of deregulation and the inaction after the winter storm and outages of 2011. Several Texans paid last week with their lives,  and thousands are now paying thousands for plumbing, drywall, and other repairs. Even the luckier  ones paid a high price: a personal currency consisting of shivering and fear. 

As House and Senate committees meet this week to discuss these latest failures in our energy  infrastructure, their actions (or inactions) will speak far louder than their words ever will.  

Our elected officials can and must do hard things for all Texans. As Rousseau once suggested, these  leaders should do them, or keep silent. We watch and we wait, to see if they will.  

Susan Motley 

President, League of Women Voters Irving