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White House Announces Immigration Reform Bill; Cold Weather Causes Large Power Outages in Parts of Texas; Households in Texas Burning Belongings to Keep Warm; Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Draws Controversy for Blaming Renewable Energy Technology for State's Power Outages. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2021 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: So many Texas residents are dealing with burst pipes, as you can see in this home, and they're having to sleep in their cars or in warming shelters.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Burn their possessions to keep warm. The winter storm also, sadly, impacting the pandemic vaccine effort, 19 states have now been forced to cancel or postpone appointments. Lack of supply. Winter weather is heading to the northeast now with five to eight inches of snow expected here in the New York area.

We begin now with CNN's Camila Bernal. She is live in Dallas with our top story. And Camila, there is some data showing some families getting their power back. I spoke to one last hour. What are you seeing there on the ground?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim. It is improving, but don't forget that it always fluctuates throughout the day depending on the energy usage. And don't forget about the emotional tolls. So many Texans are really struggling. It's been a hard week, a hard year, and they're going to have to deal with another round of wintry weather.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERNAL: Texas in crisis. Hundreds of thousands of residents still without power and heat after days of brutal cold temperatures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm nervous. I'm nervous. I don't know what's going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our house is 32 degrees inside. We're worried about the pipes.

BERNAL: Residents documenting the damage. Some posting photos on social media of frozen pipes bursting, sending water and ice into their homes.

BRIANNA BLAKE, TEXAS STORM VICTIM: We have no firewood left and we started using things in the house to keep the fire going. And seeing my two sleeping babies under a bunch of blankets in front of the fireplace that was slowly going out was heartbreaking.

BERNAL: Many are seeking refuge wherever they can, including warming centers or furniture stores.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can freeze in the middle of the night. So we had to find someplace to go.

BERNAL: Some even sleeping in their cars to stay warm.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not like sleeping in your own bed. But we were warm.

BERNAL: Grocery stores running low on food. Nearly 12 million Texans are experiencing water disruptions with most of those under a boil water notice. Even hospitals are struggling to maintain water pressure. In Galveston, most residents have no power or heat. The local medical examiner setting up a refrigerated truck outside its building anticipating an influx of deaths. The county's judge furious.

JUDGE MARK HENRY, GALVESTON COUNTY, TEXAS: Everyone knew this was coming. We had at least a week's advance notice. So I'm very upset.

BERNAL: The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT, under fire for the power outages. The company said on Wednesday it restored power to more than 1 million households. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for an investigation and for the company's executives to resign. But Abbott himself is under fire, critics accusing him of deflecting responsibility by placing blame on renewable energy sources.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): This shows how the green new deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.

BERNAL: Changing his tune just hours later.

ABBOTT: The companies that generate the power, their operations have frozen up or have trip wired and are nonoperational. That is the lead reason why there is a shortage of power.

BERNAL: Beto O'Rourke disagrees.

BETO O'ROURKE, (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our renewable energy portfolio actually outperformed the forecast, regardless of what Greg Abbott and other Republicans and right wing media are saying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERNAL: And the rolling blackouts are going to continue throughout the day. But the problem is that people really are tired of waiting. ERCOT says that they're going to try to make those blackout periods shorter, but there are no guarantees. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Camila, thank you very much for all of that reporting.

So joining us now is Judge Clay Jenkins. He's the highest elected official in Dallas County and its Emergency Management director. Judge, thank you for being here. I know what a busy morning it is for you. What is the situation with water in Dallas County right now?

JUDGE CLAY JENKINS, DALLAS COUNTY DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Well, our biggest water supplier is the Dallas Water Utility for the city of Dallas. That's in pretty good shape. People in Dallas don't need to conserve. They can keep dripping their faucet, and so can all the people around them. But then other cities like University Park are under notices from their city. Look, if you are in a crisis like this, do whatever your city asks you to do. There are different sources and different water treatment plants. The water treatment plants for many cities have been compromised.

CAMEROTA: Have you gotten word on when power will be restored to everyone in your area?

JENKINS: Right now, there is no power out due to lack of generation in Dallas county and the 8 million person metroplex.

[08:05:00]

What we have now is lines and transformers that are frozen during the time the power was out that after they were reenergized, they were found to be faulty. So Oncor crews are out trying to restore those. So in Dallas County there's about 23,000 people who have been without power now for three straight days. Worried about them. Working with Oncor on them. Next door in Tarrant County it's about 35,000 people. In the rest of the counties, it's around 3,000 people. And those folks have not had power for three days in subfreezing temperatures.

CAMEROTA: We've talked to some families. They have kids. They are desperately struggling to keep their kids warm. They're having to burn some of their belongings. Some of their pipes have frozen. Freezing water is pouring into their homes. It is a catastrophe. And I just want to read you what the former energy secretary and, of course, your former Governor Rick Perry said in a blog yesterday. He said "Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business." He's basically saying that this is the price of energy independence and he thinks it's worth it. Do you agree with him?

JENKINS: No, the fault of this lies squarely on Rick Perry and the current Governor Greg Abbott. They and their team passed the regulations that tell people whether or not they need to winterize. They chose not to tell companies to winterize, that they need to winterize, which in a regulatory environment for a commodity is telling people not to winterize. They're now trying to blame it on a company called ERCOT that Governor Abbott hired. They can easily fire that company and hire another one.

But if they don't take responsibility and fix this by putting in winterization guidelines for gas lines that are frozen underground and for energy generators that haven't worked because they're not winterized, this will happen again. The fault lies with those two individuals alone.

CAMEROTA: And so just so -- go ahead.

JENKINS: There also is a group called the railroad commission that are three elected officials that oversee gas pipelines. They do shoulder the responsibility for not modernizing the gas pipeline system. But it is actually -- there's plenty of blame to go around, but at the top of the food chain it is the governors and the railroad commission.

CAMEROTA: So just so I'm clear, with governors Perry and Abbott, you're saying that they consciously chose to, what, do this on the cheap? Was that their motivation?

JENKINS: They consciously chose to do rock-bottom prices for large commercial enterprises. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad choice, but the bad choice was to do that so much that it was at the expense of reliability for residential customers and all of us in extreme weather. Extreme weather in Texas and around the world now is a completely predictable event. We know it will be hotter than ever before and colder than ever before, and we know it's always been extreme heat and extreme cold.

So to say that you're fine with three days of power outage, and that's the price you'll pay, is a false choice. Look, the choice is not a federal takeover or people freezing in their homes. The choice is to require winterization of equipment like all 49 other states do, including those with as low or lower prices than we have.

CAMEROTA: Really good to get your perspective, Judge. Judge Clay Jenkins, thank you very much. Take care of yourself, and obviously we'll be watching what happens there.

JENKINS: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, more than 100 million Americans are now in the path of snow and ice today along the east coast. How long will the bitter cold last in Texas? CNN meteorologist Chad Myers tracking it all. Are they going to get relief any time soon?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: They are. Monday and Tuesday look very good across the state. And let me put this into a weather perspective, because I don't think people are understanding why the demand was so high. Texas gets hot, 105 degrees. You try to cool that state or your inside down to 80, that's a 25 degree delta. That's a 25-degree difference. But the temperature outside was zero. And you try to warm that up to 70. That's a 70-degree difference. You're trying to bring that house up 70 degrees compared to trying to bring it down 25. And that's why they needed so much power there.

Things are getting better here across parts of Texas. It begins to warm up. There will be some severe weather in parts of Florida and Georgia today. Some of those storms could have a tornado or two. I know you see snow out here in west Texas down here across Del Rio. But that is a minor system and it doesn't really affect the cities that have been so affected. [08:10:04]

Current temperatures are still in the 20s. Some spots up even into Oklahoma City are well below that. We warm up a few degrees today. But the big story is that we begin to warm another 10 degrees tomorrow. So Austin, you get to sunny and 42. That will help. When the sun beats on your home, things will get better. There's the warm air across the east. There goes the cold air. And in fact, New York, you get cold by the weekend. Not as cold as Texas, but certainly colder than you've been.

And then a snow event for today will also keep it cold. Warmer air does get in here. Look at Dallas. By Wednesday, 73. Take that for sure. Here comes the snow, though, for New York City all the way to Philadelphia. Some icing in D.C. also into Richmond. Some of this ice could be significant, quarter to half inch thick. That could be a problem bringing down some power lines there. And then the snow farther to the north.

New York, I think you're probably the city somewhere between five and nine inches, more to the west in the higher elevations, Poconos, all the way into New Jersey, that's where the heaviest snow will be, Jim.

SCIUTTO: It's already falling here. We're going to seeing it. We'll see how much sticks. Always good to have you on. Look forward to some relief for the state of Texas coming soon.

New this morning, the Biden administration is rolling out an ambitious immigration reform bill. Will this legislation get the votes to pass? Does it have a chance? Details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:04]

SCIUTTO: Developing overnight, the Biden administration announced a sweeping, ambitious immigration reform bill, creating, among other things, an eight-year path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants already living here in the U.S.

Joining us now, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, CNN White House correspondent, John Harwood.

Thanks to both of you. Good to have you on this morning.

You know, Dana, Alisyn and I were talking about this earlier. You don't want to underestimate the change here. Before we start handicapping whether this can get passed, the Trump administrations was about the wall, it was bout demonizing immigrants. You know, the Biden administration has already changed a lot of this dramatically.

But for lasting change, you need legislation. And I just wonder, when you look at the sweep of this bill here, does it or do parts of it have chances of making it?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is such a good question. You know, I lost track of how many hallways I stood in, how many rooms I stood outside of where Democrats and Republicans were negotiating parts or all of the very thing that Joe Biden put out this morning.

And, look, I mean, if Donald Trump had the will, the desire, he could have done a lot of this himself because he certainly had the political capital to. He didn't.

So that's where we are right now. And Joe Biden understands, probably more than most of the senators, because he has done so much wheeling and dealing of this kind that you got to start big. You got to start comprehensive on something as sticky and as divisive as this. And then see where it takes you.

It's not to says that the things like the Dreamers, which has the most bipartisan support, won't be separated out eventually. But the idea is you put that in with the other things that are more difficult in order to sweeten the deal at the beginning and see where it goes.

CAMEROTA: Dana, can I just -- can I just challenge you on that?

BASH: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: Why start big? It just hasn't worked. Why not just start narrow?

BASH: You're right.

CAMEROTA: I mean, just start narrow with the Lindsey Graham, Dick Durbin thing.

BASH: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: Starting big, we've seen this movie before as I've said. Like, it doesn't work.

BASH: We have seen this movie before, and, look, it's unlikely to work, especially -- you're exactly right, especially, let me give one example. Marco Rubio was one of the key senators in the last bipartisan deal in the Senate which didn't even get taken up in the House, which is much more conservative among Republicans. And now, he's up for re-election in Florida.

Does he think about it much more politically than he did last time because he got hammered politically last time by people in his own party? Probably.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

BASH: But, you know what? It's just an opening gambit and it's an opening bid. And my sense, it's your question, right or wrong, is that you don't start small because then you can't get big. You start big and understanding that you might just get small.

SCIUTTO: It's a good point. These ideas, they'll be called radical left agenda. But these ideas have been floating around in a bipartisan space for some time, even a path to --

BASH: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: -- citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

So, John Harwood, what is the president's play here, right? I mean, he's already signaled in the CNN town hall he'd be willing to parcel some of this out, including on Dreamers. Is that what you see happening and fairly quickly?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I do, Jim. And I think that reflects the difficult, strategic calculation that the Biden administration has to make. They have to decide, you know, as Dana was suggesting, the Republican Party has moved right since 2013 on this issue. The Democratic Party has moved left.

Democrats now have unified control of the government for the first time in 11 years. So there's a lot of appetite for moving but the Biden team has to figure out, can you go big all within a matter of months, big on COVID, big on climate, big on infrastructure, big on health, big on immigration? That is a lot to load onto the circuits of a very narrow majority.

There are -- there is the special budget rules let you do the COVID bill with only Democratic votes. They'll have another shot at doing that after the COVID bill. What are they going to put into that vehicle? Is it going to be infrastructure? Is it going to be infrastructure and immigration or parts of immigration?

The rules restrict what you can put in. I would guess that pieces of this would get put into that next vehicle and they would try to take a digestible chunk first. But it is not easy because there are multiple constituencies within the Democratic Party that want action as soon as possible and they have to figure out who gets what and how fast.

CAMEROTA: Dana --

BASH: Can I just add one more thing --

CAMEROTA: Yeah, quickly.

BASH: -- to that just real quick?

It's kind of like a presidential budget. A president never thinks the budget is going to get passed. But it's their wish list. It's their desire. It's their platform.

[08:20:00]

And that's what this is.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Thank you for that.

Let's talk about this, I guess, cold war at this point? But I think Donald Trump might want a hot war with Mitch McConnell? So, they -- these two are at odds. They're publicly criticizing each other. Donald Trump is going so far as to insult Mitch McConnell, calling him

dour and sullen. And then he went do into his looks but I'm going to skip that.

And then Mitch McConnell, a source close to Mitch McConnell told us this. You are probably not going to hear McConnell utter the name Donald Trump ever again. He's moving on.

Well, Dana, is that possible to move on when a large chunk of the Republican Party and certainly Republicans in Congress are not moving on and they are, for instance, we have just confirmed the reporting that Congressman Steve Scalise is the latest person to make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to, I don't know, I guess curry favor, kiss the ring, whatever, of Donald Trump?

BASH: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: So how realistic is it that Mitch McConnell can never utter the name again and move on?

BASH: Not realistic. But the reporting from our colleague Manu Raju makes clear from the reporting that I've done which kind of matches that, not that Mitch McConnell thinks that Donald Trump is going to go away, but that his part in this hot war, as you said, is over right now. He's dialing it down and that is a signal to the former president that he's dialing it down.

There are a lot of people in the middle there who are kind of going back and forth between the two camps trying to calm things down, for a host of reasons. The most practical of which is 2022, and the biggest concern among Republicans who are trying to game out, trying to get the majority back is that Donald Trump will be so angry at Mitch McConnell that he will back Republican candidates in primaries who have no chance of winning the Senate seats, they believe. Kelly Ward in Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia, which is a fascinating story, and the list goes on and on.

So you are seeing emissaries -- Scalise is a different story but with regard to the Senate and Mitch McConnell, emissaries trying to calm both sides down, especially Donald Trump at this point.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, listen, if you look at the Georgia Senate race, right, the president did not help there. That issue was him denying the election and taking it out on voters and voters responding, right?

CAMEROTA: He blames Mitch McConnell, by the way.

SCIUTTO: Of course.

HARWOOD: The thing -- here's the challenge for McConnell and it's similar to the situation with President Biden. Both of them can control what they -- what comes out of their mouth. How much they engage. And they've got jobs -- big jobs to do in Washington. They can't control what Trump does. They can't control what the media covers. The reality, though, is that it's a lot easier for Donald Trump to

carry on conflicts of this kind when he has the presidential pulpit, when he has his Twitter feed, when he is not dealing with some of the legal challenges that he is about to face.

So I think what McConnell, when he looks ahead to 2022, he's got to calculate and is calculating, his team is calculating, is Donald Trump really going to have the energy to engage across a broad front of Senate races?

He's going to have to make a lot of effort, not for himself, but for other people, if he's going to engage in a bunch of Senate races. It's one thing to put out some press releases or even to call into Hannity or do some interviews. It's another thing to really put your shoulder to the wheel, raise money, go out and speak for people. I think the McConnell team is calculating that Donald Trump is not going to be willing or able to do that.

And President Biden, for his part, as he showed in that town hall with Anderson the other day is trying to drain the energy out of that conflict and say I've got a job to do. I'm going to do it. He and Mitch McConnell are on similar grounds in that situation.

SCIUTTO: And in that case, McConnell would be doing what state parties would normally do, right? But state parties moving in a Trumpian direction, McConnell doesn't want that to happen.

CAMEROTA: John, Dana, thank you both very much.

BASH: Good to see you.

CAMEROTA: You, too.

So, officials in Texas still do not know how long the residents -- some residents there will be without heat and water. They knew a huge winter storm was coming, so who is responsible for the lack of preparation? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:28:35]

SCIUTTO: Rolling power outages could last for days in Texas as the state grapples with extreme winter weather. Still there. So many residents want to know simply when the lights and heat will come back on.

Joining me now is former energy secretary, Ernest Moniz. He served under Obama. MR. Moniz is the now founder and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative.

Mr. Secretary, thanks for joining us this morning.

ERNEST MONIZ, FORMER ENERGY SECRETARY: Good morning, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So there's a lot of talk about how, well, no one could see this coming. Once in a generation, you know, weather event. You say, no. Texas saw this before. We saw this before in 2011, which was known as the big chill at the time.

You made a host of recommendations in the wake of that. Were any of them followed?

MONIZ: Well, I think there were a few steps taken, but as we can see, very inadequate. The reality is that it's been predicted for decades, frankly, that as the world warmed up and just about every year is the warmest year on average, that there would be huge fluctuations, big cold spells like now, big hot spells like last summer when California had rolling blackouts, droughts, floods, hurricanes, forest fires.

This has all been expected, and as you said, 2011 was a rehearsal, shall we say, with a big chill. Lots of recommendations made for weatherization, resiliency of the grid, just not.

[08:30:00]