It's also great that they're investing in renewables. But they're also preventing the country as a whole from taking actions that are required to deal with climate change before it becomes a calamity. And the rest of the world isn't eager to shoulder that burden themselves while the US is still one of the largest contributors to the problem.
On the ground level, Texans' views on climate change are middle of the road for America [1].
> politicians with national levels of power
Texan politicians wax lyrical about coal and oil. Do they actually block renewable projects, or is it all talk?
[1] https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/yc...
It's hard to separate out the effects behind the scenes, but it's clear that Texas lawmakers are making promises about it.
So: so far all talk, but there is now some more specific talk.
Texas is an energy state. It has lots of oil. But it also has lots of natural gas [1], solar [2], wind [3] and uranium [4], geographically overlapping and exclusive in a way that's almost preternaturally ideal for extraction and commercialization.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=14431
[2] https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-resource-maps.html
[3] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-is...
[4] https://www.eia.gov/uranium/reserves/reservemap.php