Investigations Update: Texas Energy Crisis, Covid-19 in Poultry Plants, and New Legislation in Missouri
In this email:
* Texas Power Crisis
* Poultry Production Waivers Increased Covid-19 Risk
* Missouri Redistricting and Absentee Voting Measures

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Here’s a look at the investigations our team has been pursuing through public records requests in the last week:

Texas Power Crisis
Millions of Texas residents lost power ([link removed]) last week for multiple days when a severe winter storm wiped out ([link removed]) energy production facilities across the state. The outage resulted in dozens of deaths, left many facing extremely cold temperatures without heat, caused regional drinking water shortages ([link removed]) , and prompted the Biden administration to declare ([link removed]) a major disaster to provide federal aid.

Power has since returned ([link removed]) , but questions remain about Texas’s energy infrastructure and its operations. Lax state regulations on the oil and gas industry in particular have come ([link removed]) under ([link removed]) fresh ([link removed]) scrutiny ([link removed]) . Meanwhile, lawmakers are calling for investigations ([link removed]) into the outage and into Texas’ electric grid operator ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas). On Tuesday, the Public Utility Commission of Texas
announced ([link removed]) that four of ERCOT’s board members would be resigning. We want to learn more about how Texas officials handled the crisis, so we sent records requests to the governor’s office and the Public Utility Commission for assessments ([link removed]) about the reliability of the state’s energy grid, as well as for related communications ([link removed]) sent during the outage.

Poultry Production Waivers Increased Covid-19 Risk
In April 2020, representatives of the National Chicken Council lobbied ([link removed]) the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lift limits on how fast poultry plants could run production lines. That same month, the Food and Drug Administration granted a waiver to 15 plants to allow an increase in line speed, despite serious ([link removed]) concerns ([link removed]) about health and safety risks to workers who are crowded together. (Several of these plants have reported ([link removed]) coronavirus outbreaks). USDA later attempted to make the speed increase permanent
([link removed]) , but the proposal was withdrawn ([link removed]) by the Biden administration. We sent FOIA requests to USDA for assessments ([link removed]) and communications ([link removed]) concerning the waivers and the proposal to implement a permanent rule change.

Unanswered Questions About Operation Warp Speed
Earlier this month, Vanity Fair reported ([link removed]) that Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine development and distribution initiative, had been consumed by internal conflict as it navigated the rollout of vaccines. As part of our ongoing investigation ([link removed]) into the Trump administration’s response to Covid-19, we filed FOIA requests to the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services for OWS organizational charts ([link removed]) and for the emails and communications ([link removed]) of high-ranking officials and their
([link removed]) staffs ([link removed]) .

Missouri Anti-Protest Legislation
In January, Missouri State Rep. Adam Schnelting and State Sen. Rick Brattin introduced legislation that would, under certain circumstances, effectively protect from legal liability drivers who hit demonstrators ([link removed]) with their cars. The legislation ([link removed]) specifically prohibits lawsuits against drivers if the injured party was “participating in a protest or demonstration” while blocking a driver’s right of way. Missouri is one of five states ([link removed]) where conservative lawmakers have recently passed or introduced such legislation. We filed records requests to the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate for Schnelting’s
([link removed]) and Brattin’s ([link removed]) related communications.

Missouri Redistricting and Absentee Voting Measures
Earlier this month, Missouri Sen. Dan Hegeman introduced ([link removed]) a bill that would make the pandemic no longer ([link removed]) a valid reason to be granted an absentee ballot. Hegeman’s bill is only the most recent election-related legislation put forth by conservative Missouri lawmakers, who in November added Amendment 3 ([link removed]) to the ballot. That ballot measure, which narrowly passed, eliminated a nonpartisan redistricting plan known as Clean Missouri, setting the stage for new legislative maps to be drawn by bipartisan commissions or, in the event of deadlock, appellate judges. We want to know more about the creation of Amendment 3 and Hegeman’s recent bill, so we sent records requests
([link removed]) to the Missouri Senate for communications concerning redistricting and absentee voting.
To find out more about our work, you can follow us on Twitter at @WeAreOversight ([link removed]) and @ojocorrupcion ([link removed]) , or like us on Facebook ([link removed]) . If you are able, please consider supporting our work with a contribution here ([link removed]) .

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Thank you again for following our latest news. We are grateful for your support and for helping us hold the administration accountable.

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