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Texas Opening Warming Centers All Across The State; Nineteen States Have Been Forced To Close Vaccination Sites Due To The Severe Weather; Joe Biden Saying Teachers Should Be On The Priority List For Vaccines; The Biden Administration Pushing For A Path TO Citzenship For Millions Of Immigrants That Are In The U.S. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 18, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. So glad you're with me. I'm Poppy Harlow.

And this is the morning of day four of a crisis on top of a crisis. Millions of people in Texas are facing another brutal day of absolutely freezing temperatures, and hundreds of thousands still have no power to keep them safe and to keep them warm. Nearly 12 million people across the state are facing water disruptions with broken pipes, failing systems, and it has cost 16 lives in Texas so far from the weather.

The governor says this will go on, to expect below freezing temperatures in most of the state until at least Saturday.

Take a look at this. This is the scene in Galveston. Hundreds of people forced to line up to get bottled water.

People turning on their cars just to try to stay warm. Nearly 300 warming centers have been opened up across the state for those without power if they can get there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: We've been without water for 40 or 24 hours plus along with we've been out of power for 28 hours plus.

UNKNOWN: It's stressful, it's very stressful to be in a cold house and if you're in a cold house you definitely not eating any warm food.

UNKNOWN: It's horrible. It's horrible, the shelters are at capacity. There's no hotels anywhere. You either go to the shelter to get warm or you stay home, stay cold and stay away from the pandemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Well right now it is a scramble to try to restore power to the state's electric grid. Officials are asking people in Houston to avoid using water if they can. An effort to keep water pressure up for hospital and of course for first responders. Here is Mark Sloan, Harris County's Emergency Management Coordinator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK SLOAN, HARRIS COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT COORDINATOR: We are working with the state to bring in additional water. We have found additional resources for them when we can. But we are all in this together and our hospitals are - where the judge (ph) mentioned the most vulnerable individuals are that have been impacted by this. And the focus is to get them online as quickly and effectively as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Okay. Let's talk about exactly what's happening, why we got here and what can be done. Matt Egan is with me with more on the controversy over how this situation became so dire. Let's begin though with our colleague Camila Bernal, she's on the ground in Dallas, Texas.

I mean, Camila, this is so far beyond a weather story now. There's so much more to it.

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It really is, Poppy. And people are so upset because, as you mentioned, this is the fourth day where Texans are waking up cold, where they're waking up angry and where they're waking up with a lot of questions. And they still don't have those answers.

I checked about two minutes ago and at the moment about half a million households here in Texas are still without power. So that's an improvement from the numbers that we saw earlier this week. But those numbers do fluctuate a lot especially during the morning hours. Because of course overnight there's less use of power and so once people start waking up and using that power then more people also begin to lose their power again.

And so there are these rolling blackouts that Ircoc (ph) says will continue. And it is interesting to talk to people here especially in this neighborhood. They were telling me that basically they have three hours of electricity, three hours of power and then eight off. So they're three on, eight off, three on, eight off. And that man that I talked to that told me all of this said, he's really thankful for those three hours but nonetheless feels very guilty for having them because of course there's so many people who still have not had any power over the last four days.

And so it is an emotional situation for a lot of Texans who are not used to this weather. You can't forget about the emotional toll and people just are angry. Take a listen to what Steve Adler, the Mayor of Austin, Texas told CNN earlier as to how he is feeling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR STEVE ADLER, AUSTIN, TX.: We started out with COVID, which is obviously as much challenge (ph) as anybody should take. Layer on top of that snow and ice, 18 degrees below zero for a sustained time. No one here is used to that. And then you add on top of that power outages and people going without and now we're adding on top of that water issues.

It is - it is too much to ask of anybody. People are angry and confused and frustrated and I am too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: And the water situation really adds to all of this. I spoke to one family who told they're essentially taking (ph) up the snow and trying to defrost it inside of their homes because they're out of water and a lot of the water is sold out in all of the grocery stores around their neighborhood. So it's one thing after the other and people here are tired they want this to be over and they have a lot of questions, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, rightly so. And they deserve answer and they deserve for this to not happen to them again. Great reporting, Camila, thank you. Matt, there's a blame game going on across the state right now with some pointing fingers. Ever lawmakers, folks that should know the facts here pointing fingers are renewables. You know one even saying we should never build a wind turbine again. You spoke to a Federal Energy Regulator about exactly what's happening in Texas. What are the facts? Why did this happen?

MATTHEW EGAN, CNN BUSINESS LEAD WRITER: Yes, Poppy, you know, clearly this is a life threatening crisis as we just heard. So that's why it was startling to hear. Some politicians be so quick to pin the blame or try to pin the blame on renewable energy. So I went to one of the experts, Neil Chatterjee, he's a Commissioner at FERC, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And he really pushed back on these efforts to blame wind turbines exclusively.

[09:05:00]

He told me "no single fuel source can be blamed for this event...Some wind capacity wasn't available. But neither was gas, neither was coal, neither was nuclear."

And Poppy, it is worth pointing out that even though wind is booming in Texas, this state still relies on fossil fuels for most of its power.

And let's hope, Poppy, that, you know, the politicians get out of the way and they let the scientists, the economists, the experts really go to work to figure out exactly what happened here.

HARLOW: Yes, yeah. And PolitiFact is saying 80% of this was due to coal and gas-fired plants being down. Matt, thank you very much.

Let's talk now with Cliff Kraus, he's the national energy business correspondent for "The New York Times." And Cliff, you're not only reporting on this, you are living this. You have been in your car with a winter coat on trying to charge your phone. You're coming back to try to do your reporting in the house. What is the core issue in Texas right now? CLIFFORD KRAUS, NATIONAL ENERGY BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK

TIMES: Well, first of all, Poppy, thank you for having me. We got our power back last night. And this morning -

HARLOW: Great.

KRAUS: - I was actually able to shave and shower. So I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm one of the lucky ones. Actually, Houston has been very cold, but it's been even colder in a lot of other places. If I may add to this whole question of the wind power, wind power is a very small issue in this problem.

And in my reporting, I have found that actually the main problem has been the fossil fuels. There's been a cascade of problems which has basically been a vicious cycle in the Permian basin where the oil and the gas is.

When this winter storm hit and people started jacking up their heat, they overloaded the system. And then the freezing weather took over and started freezing the circuits, transmission lines and even the oil wells themselves. The natural gas bubbles up with the oil in West Texas, and when the oil wells, and these oil wells have a lot of water in them, water freezes in this extreme cold.

The equipment was not ready to bear the brunt of this storm. And so the oil wells stopped creating even more of an issue with the gas- fired plants relying on that gas. And so you had this vicious cycle of more cold, less gas, more cold, more freezing, and so -

HARLOW: Yes.

KRAUS: - we are where we are right now.

HARLOW: So what fixes it, Cliff, Because on top of all those things you just mentioned, Texas had the belief that it could just be self- sustaining. That it didn't need -

KRAUS: Yes.

HARLOW: - a power grid attached to any other state, and that proved to be completely unworkable, to say the least, in this crisis.

KRAUS: Right, right. Okay. Well, in fairness to Texas, this was really a very, very unusual event. And apparently, Texas has made a deal with the devil. Every ten years or so, we'll have a crisis like this, but the other nine years or nine years and, you know, 500 days or more, we're going to have cheap power. And that's what's happened, this is a deregulated system.

What the system needs to prevent this sort of situation is basically a more muscular grid. But there's another thing that's needed. And that is more storage of natural gas. So they could probably have forestalled some of this issue if they had the gas ready to go, but they didn't.

And so, you know, there are a number of problems, but there are solutions. You could also improve building codes and make the buildings more resistant to the cold so that you would conserve more energy. Of course, that takes - that takes time.

HARLOW: Okay.

KRAUS: Whether all of this will be done, I don't know.

HARLOW: Well, I - right. That's a huge question, and so is the impact of climate change here -

KRAUS: Yes.

HARLOW: - on all of this that can't be ignored. So in that context, I want your response to what former Texas governor and, by the way, former energy secretary Rick Perry said.

KRAUS: Yes.

HARLOW: Let me quote him, "Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business. Try not to let whatever crisis of the day is take your eye off having a resilient grid that keeps America safe personally, economically and strategically."

Does that concern you to hear that perspective, and what -

KRAUS: Well, you know.

HARLOW: - does it actually mean when you're looking at the climate change and it - the fact that this will probably happen again?

KRAUS: Yes, probably he doesn't have sick people at home right now who are shivering, but the fact of the matter is, is we're going to have more events like this over time.

[09:10:00]

This is unusual, like a severe hurricane. But like severe hurricanes, we're likely to have this kind of event more often.

Why? The Gulf Stream is breaking down. Arctic air is seeping down south occasionally during the winter. So we can expect to have more events like this. So I think that with - it may be expensive, but there are things that can be done to avoid this kind of an emergency.

If you have a collapse like this in the middle of, let's say, a massive cyber attack or some other national emergency, such as a pandemic for instance, those are easy words for the former governor to make from his perspective. But there's a lot of suffering going on now, and there may be a lot more suffering to come later.

HARLOW: Cliff Kraus, I'm glad your power is back on.

KRAUS: Thank you.

HARLOW: I'm so glad you're there reporting on this. Thank you - thank you for that. It's invaluable for our listeners and our viewers. Thank you.

KRAUS: Happy to join you any time.

HARLOW: All right, well still to come, you've got at least 19 states forced to close vaccination sites because of this severe weather across America. We'll take you live to one of those locations next.

And President Biden says teachers should be on the priority list for vaccines, but with a limited supply and very high demand, what is the Biden plan to get that done?

And the administration is now pushing this morning for a clear path to citizenship for millions of immigrants that are already in the United States. We'll tell you what they are pushing for in their new bill ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well this really tragic winter weather across a lot of the United States is also disrupting vaccine rollouts in 19 different states for coronavirus. Critical shipping delays are forcing officials right here in New York to delay the opening of several vaccination sites that were set to be opened today.

Let's go to my colleague, Polo Sandoval who joins us for the latest. You're in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, I know well where it is and they've got a capacity to hold and help a lot of folks. But what does this weather mean for it?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What it means, at least here Poppy, is that they're only going to be offering the second doses to people that had previously scheduled them. The Mayor saying that they only had about 30,000 first doses remaining yesterday and it's quite possible that those have already been administered. So they're certainly counting on their supplies to be replenished.

But here's the thing mother nature has very different plans. In fact in Queens, at Citi Field (ph), a massive vaccination site that had been operating there for some time, that was actually shut down today. The city saying that that is actually due to weather related delivery delays or at least with (ph) issues.

And you saw the map a little while ago, well over a dozen and a half states are reporting that they are running into issues in terms of their vaccination supplies and it's all due to weather. We should point out that many states are not going as far as closing their vaccination sites but instead are either rescheduling their appointments or simply not making them available.

In fact here in New York about 35,000 appointments, those are not going to be offered until they know that they do have those supplies. Now in terms of what the White House is telling states is they are certainly hopeful that once this weather begins to clear out and more of those supplies are back in the air and arriving at their destinations that maybe some of those local governments could potentially extend their hours of operations at some of those vaccines locations, Poppy, because they certainly want to keep that momentum going.

But finally I should mention that there was one expert that told CNN yesterday that it's likely that this will only be temporary, about a week or two. But that's still enough to sort of delay those efforts that the White House has continued to push in terms of vaccinating up to 100 (ph) million - 1.5 million people a day.

HARLOW: The weather not given anyone break on any level right now, Polo. Thank you for the reporting.

On top of this reopening schools a huge debate there and children and teachers really caught in the middle of it. Do we need to be vaccinating teachers before most of the schools open? The Biden administration is stopping short of saying we need to. The White House though is in the same breath saying teachers should be prioritized. But in many states teachers are not anywhere near the front of the line for vaccinations.

How does this work with the administration's promise to get our children back in schools fully by the end of April. Our Medical Analyst, Dr. Leana Wen is with me. Also the former Baltimore Health Commissioner and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

Dr. Wen, it's very good to have you. You're a parent, you're a doctor, you were an official running a city health program. You know this from all perspectives. And you said to my colleague, Chris Cuomo last night, we can get every teacher vaccinated within a matter of weeks if we made that a priority. But then what does the Biden administration have to do to actually make it happen?

DR. LEANA WEN, FORMER BALTIMORE CITY HEALTH COMMISSIONER: Well first, Poppy, the Biden administration needs to take that on as their responsibility. Because they've been saying so far that it's not up to the Federal Government, the decision is up to the states. Well we actually can put this - can turn this around and say it's up to the Federal Government. Because the Federal Government already is giving separate allotments to pharmacies and to federally qualified health centers directly.

They can also give allotments to school districts directly and have school health nurses administer the vaccines to teachers if they really wanted to. They can even deploy the National Guard to specifically set up pop-up clinics just to vaccinate teachers and school staff. And so I think this is a matter of will.

If what we really want to do is to have students back and if what's standing in the way is teachers not being vaccinated then let's give that as an incentive to teachers and let's really get our students back. All through the pandemic, Poppy, we have not been prioritizing our students and in-person learning. If we had reduced community transmission last summer we could have had students back in the fall. [09:20:00]

And now I think this is just another sign that to students, and therefore teachers, are not the priority.

HARLOW: Can I - Can I ask you, Dr. Wen, because, you know, you've really been pushing for teacher vaccinations and I understand it. I also understand the science, like the example from Wisconsin with the CDC study, Sanjay Gupta's reporting on their kid's school district in Atlanta.

And repeatedly in these districts, the science shows that the percentage when you look at transmission within schools is multiples lower than the community spread in that - in that same community. So my question to you, based on that data, is does that then really mean that teachers should be at the top of these lists? I wonder what you think the science tells us.

WEN: The science tells us that if we have low enough community transmission, we certainly can bring students and teachers back safely. And if we have a higher level of transmission, then we also need more mitigation measures. The higher the level of transmission, the high - the more mitigation measures we need to have in place.

And I think the science also tells us that kids can be safe, that in many cases it's a lot safer for kids to be back in school than if they were in unstructured day care settings where they don't have all the mitigation measures and mask wearing enforced and so forth.

I think, though, that you cannot tell a teacher that it's just as safe to be at home during - doing remote teaching -

HARLOW: Right.

WEN: - as it is to come back to a cramped classroom surrounded by students. And so that's why vaccinations are so important. We have this extraordinary tool to protect teachers, why not give it to them?

HARLOW: I completely understand that point, and it's a really - it's a really important one. There is new CDC data out this morning that I know you've seen that is really troubling, and what it shows is that, in the first half of last year, 2020, life expectancy for people in the United States dropped by a year.

And that's only the data from the first half of the year. So what does that mean if you couple in what we saw in the back half of last year?

WEN: We're going to see life expectancy drop even more for 2020 and, unfortunately, into 2021 as well. And we also know that this pandemic has not affected everyone equally. We know that it's black and brown Americans who have shouldered the burden, the disproportionate burden, of this pandemic.

And we're going to see, for certain populations that are already the most vulnerable, how much this pandemic has unmasked underlying disparities and that that life expectancy is going to be - the drop in life expectancy will be even higher in these groups.

HARLOW: Wow. It's a sad reality. It shows us the data is just starting to show how tragic this has been on so many levels. Dr. Wen, thank you.

WEN: Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, in Texas, residents are still in this tragic deep freeze, many with no heat, no water, no electricity, and no end in sight. Next, a man is going to join us who is trying to keep his pregnant wife and baby warm. They were just on the side of the road. What's the update from them? That's ahead.

We are also moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Futures pointing lower this morning, just as we get another really devastating American jobs report. Another 861,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week. That is nearly 100,000 more than economists have predicted. We'll see how the market reacts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

HARLOW: Well this morning, the Biden administration is announcing a sweeping new immigration bill. If it got through Congress, it would clear a path to citizenship within eight years for millions of immigrants already living undocumented in the United States. Let's go to Jeremy Diamond at the White House with more.

I mean, I can think back so many administrations who tried to get a comprehensive immigration reform bill through. This is the Biden administration saying, look, after, you know, the Economic Relief Bill, this seems to be their next number one priority. Can you walk us through what's in the bill?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, President Biden came into office and on day one; he announced a framework for this very piece of legislation that we are now seeing unveiled today.

And we now have the details of what is in that bill, and it is expected to be introduced in the House of Representatives today and then next week in the Senate by Democratic allies of President Joe Biden.

Look, this is going to be a tough task in the narrowly divided Congress that we - that Democrats - where Democrats currently have a slim, slim majority. But here is what is in the bill proposed by the president. It is called the U.S. Citizenship Act.

It talks about an eight-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already living here in the United States. Some individuals, like farm workers, those with temporary protected status for human rights reasons, and undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children would have an expedited path, immediately being able to apply for green cards. This is also looking to address some of the root causes of illegal

immigration into the United States with $4 billion in investments for countries in Central America to address some of the economic insecurity that is driving so many migrants up to the United States.

And then there's also some effort to improve legal immigration procedures, remove some caps on family members and children of legal residents in the United States, enhancing technology and border security at border control areas.

But there is not really a lot.