they even make note of Texas fairing pretty middle of the pack on a per capita basis. if they normalized for some sort of temperature metric I'm sure Texas is very average - weather in the state is brutal at both ends of the year.
It should be mentioned, though, that the remedy to the brutal summers can be just as brutal. I'm sure that I'm not the only person who expects summer colds because of constant transitions from the sweltering-hot outdoors to the icy-cold air-conditioned tundras that every business maintains.
(Also, I'm sure parts of Texas get severe winters, but I've never seen one in Fort Worth. (Or did you mean something different by 'both ends'?) The main thing that I see here is that houses are built with no effective insulation, so that, during the winter, a perfectly manageable temperature outside can render the inside frigid.)
EDIT: I'm sorry for downvote whining, but, just to be clear, this isn't just a "the weather, amirite?" post; while I agree that living in Texas without AC is probably unbearable, I also think that there's no need to crank ACs to the levels at which businesses (and buses!) set them, and I can't imagine that this aggressive cooling doesn't have a significant energy impact.
I agree with you that homes in Texas are insulated very poorly. Interesting enough Demilic is headquartered in Grand Prairie and is one of that largest suppliers of spray foam in the country. With the heat in the summers and some of the cold spells in the winter you would think they would have a better building code.
It seems the strategy is to find cheaper sources of power while not making an effort to build better buildings to save power.
Mandating better insulation in homes might add a little up-front cost. It'd also do wonders for energy consumption.
Let people choose, they might say--well, housing is a good situation where you might not really have any choice at all (if no one's building houses with proper insulation), or be well-informed enough to make an informed choice, or whatever, and that's exactly the place where regulation is a net benefit for the society in question.
You get summer colds because more people congregate in close quarters when the weather outside is unbearable, making virus transmission easier.
my point being that you have to condition your air pretty much year round if you live north of Galveston, unfortunately.