To make a year end contribution, click here
Posted in Global Warming | Tagged Happy Holidays, Texas, Texas office |
RRE Solar Austin held its groundbreaking ceremony in Pflugerville yesterday. This is the first utility scale solar farm, and one of the largest photovoltaic projects in the country, to be built by the company and the first to break ground in the Austin area. Planned to produce 60Mw of solar energy when completed it will use more than 400,000 solar panels in its construction.
The project is planned to start installing panels by March of 2011 and needs the construction of a local substation to be finished before it can begin sending energy to the grid. If everything goes according to plan, this project should start producing its energy and sending into the Texas grid by the end of 2011. They worked extensively with the local community, school districts, county and the City of Austin to get this project started and will be providing solar panels to the local school districts for their use as part of this effort.
RRE Solar has plans to start developing on a second 60Mw Project located in Big Spring Texas through its subsidiary RRE Big Spring Solar .
While attending the groundbreaking I had an interesting conversation with the construction crew, who were just watching the festivities, and asked them about the project. They were glad for the work and it hadn’t occurred to them that they were part of the “green jobs” that they had heard about. The project should employ around 250 construction jobs and the crew wants to have lots more of these projects to work on in the future.
With the Texas Legislature starting its session soon lets hope our legislators take notice and put policies in place to encourage more of these projects to be built around our state.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Posted in Energy, green jobs, Renewables, solar | Tagged Austin, Business, public citizen texas, renewable, RRE Solar Austin, solar energy, Solar Farm, Texas |
A Texas Sunset Advisory Commission hearing, which was part of the first legislative review of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 12 years, drew hundreds of regular citizens from around the state, with most of them saying the agency had failed to protect them from pollution. Dozens of people, including doctors, school teachers, church-going grandmothers and a rabbi, who were able to stick it out until well after 5pm before the Sunset Commissioners got around to taking their testimony, asked Texas lawmakers to make the state’s environmental agency tougher on polluters.
The Legislature’s Sunset Advisory Commission evaluates and considers potential reforms at state agencies every 12 years, and its findings have the potential to lead to significant changes in the TCEQ’s operations during the legislative session that begins next month, if the Sunset Commissioners so recommends.
The Sunset commission’s staff, in response to complaints that TCEQ is too lenient on polluters, has recommended that the Legislature increase the statutory cap on penalties from $10,000 to $25,000, as well as change the way the agency calculates fines. In fact, TCEQ agreed with the two dozen recommendations made by the Sunset commission’s staff, but TCEQ critics are asking for even more changes. They accused the agency of being too cozy with industry and ignoring public concerns. They expressed frustration over the recent approval of air pollution permits for coal-fired power plants near Abilene and Bay City, about 60 miles southwest of Houston, even though State Office of Administrative Hearings administrative law judges recommended denying both permits.
Texas Sunset Commissioner, State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (D-McAllen) asked TCEQ Chairman Bryan Shaw whether the agency has the authority to deny a permit application. Shaw said yes, and it had done so 14 percent of the time. However, no one pursued how many had been denied in the past four years or if any of them had been for large industrial projects since TCEQ’s permitting process ranges from permits for auto repair and lube service shops to dry cleaning facilities to waste water treatment plants to billion dollar coal-fired electric plants.
Wesley Stafford, an asthma and allergy specialist in Corpus Christi who opposes a proposed petroleum coke-fired plant in Corpus Christi because of the potential public health effects, asked lawmakers to require that one of the TCEQ commissioners be a physician to “bring more balance to the commission than we’ve seen in recent years.” In the face of these criticisms, TCEQ Commissioner Buddy Garcia defended the agency’s performance, saying that it protects public health by “following the law”.
The Sunset staff’s 124-page analysis does not address the heated dispute between the federal government and Texas over the way the state regulates industrial air pollution that resulted in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently rejecting some of the state’s permitting rules, saying they fall short of federal Clean Air Act requirements. Texas has challenged the decision in court, even though the problems were first brought to the TCEQ’s attention shortly after the Texas rules were implemented, as far back as the Bush administration. It is unlikely that the Sunset Commission will address these issues, and they will probably leave it to the courts to sort out that conflict. But the Sunset Commissioners do have the opportunity to address the issues put to them by the citizen’s of Texas who pleaded with them yesterday for change. Their recommendations will be released on January 11th, the day the 82nd legislature convenes.
Cross your fingers and hope they take up that mantle.
- Residents demand TCEQ get tougher on pollution (chron.com)
- Mysa.com: State environmental agency urged to be more transparent (mysanantonio.com)
- Audit of Texas Environmental Agency to Be Released (abcnews.go.com)
Posted in Air Quality, Sunset, TCEQ, Texas Legislature | Tagged clean air act, Sunset Advisory Commission, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, United States Environmental Protection Agency |
It’s well after 10pm and the crowd at the Sunset Advisory Commission hearing has dwindled, including the commisioners. Of the 12 commissioners, I’m only seeing five still on the dias and as the camera periodically pans the audience, one can see that it has thinned considerably since this morning.
Here at Armadillo Christmas Bazaar Jimmy LaFavre is winding down his final set, and so am I. Look for updates from folks who were at the hearing (and could actually hear the testimony) tomorrow.
The Commission will announce their decisions on January 11, 2011, the first day of the Texas 82nd legislature. We will see then what they do with all the input they have received from agency staff, industry, ordinary citizens and the environmental community.
Posted in Air Quality, Sunset, TCEQ | Tagged sunset commission, TCEQ, Texas |
Here I am at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar people watching Christmas shoppers (for those readers not from Austin, the Armadillo Bazaar is an annual artist Christmas venue which has been happening in our fair city for 30+ years and runs every day the two weeks before Christmas – yes they are here until 11pm on Christmas eve for those last minute shoppers). I’m talking to people about workplace giving and Texas environmental organizations while Jimmy LaFavre is performing about 300 feet away from me.
At the same time. I’m streaming the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission hearing, which is finally getting around to TCEQ. I can’t hear anything that is being said (what with that Jimmy Lafavre concert going on in the background), but I keep seeing folks, who showed up at 8:30 this morning ready to testify, finally getting to say their piece. Many of them have a 3 to 8 hour drive home ahead of them. All I can say is “Bless their hearts”, they are, in fact, the stuff of which Texas is made and I admire them greatly.
Posted in Air Quality, Coal, Good Government, Sunset, TCEQ, Texas Legislature | Tagged sunset hearing, TCEQ, Texas |
As the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission’s hearing on TxDOT, TxRRC and TCEQ continues, visiting citizens have been sharing their stories with us. Many of them are here to testify about issues they have had with TCEQ, and we hope the commission will move the hearing along so that those who have traveled 3 to 8 hours to get to the hearing will have the opportunity to have their time at the mic.
One of folks who came in from Victoria, TX was telling us about the impact that the Coleto Creek coal-fired plant’s sulfur dioxide emissions have been having on the trees in their area – including his pecan trees. We have been hearing similar stories from pecan growers in other parts of the state whose pecan groves are located near other coal-fired power plants and showing signs of decline.
This Victorican was kind enough to give us a copy of a letter that he sent to TCEQ last week, detailing his ongoing saga of trying to elicit support, from the agency charged with regulating air quality issues in the state, in protecting his property from pollution. Because this is a public forum, we’ve “redacted” his personal information.
Click here to read Charlie’s letter.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Related Articles
- Chron.com: Sunset hearing could cast shadow over TCEQ (chron.com)
- Texas pecan farmers say pollution is killing trees (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Study: Texas coal plants foul neighbors’ air (chron.com)
Posted in Air Quality, Sunset, TCEQ | Tagged coleto creek, Pecan, sulfur dioxide, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality |
If you want to watch the hearing on streaming video, click here. The hearing is being held at the Texas Capitol, hearing room E1.036 (scroll down to Video Broadcast #8).
The Alliance for a Clean Texas (ACT) is working with numerous concerned citizens who have come in from all over the state – Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Victoria, Abilene, El Paso and other smaller communities – to testify on improvements they think need to be made at the Railroad Commission and the TCEQ.
Thank you to these everyday citizens who have taken time out of their lives to ask the state to do a better job of protecting all Texans from pollution.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Posted in Global Warming | Tagged hearing room, Railroad Commission, TCEQ, Texas, texas capitol |
China and India may increase imports of coal by 78 percent to 337 million metric tons next year, with China buying more than it exports next year. This would further drive up prices from the highest in two years as the imports divert supplies from Europe to Asia.
China added about 51 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity last year, more than half the total capacity of the U.K. China will need 2 billion tons of coal over the next 10 years to fuel the country’s industrial development, and this increased capacity is expected to make them unable to meet their own needs from domestic supplies.
Currently, Texas gets 43% of its electricity from coal-fired plants and imports nearly two-thirds of the coal its power plants burn, sending billions of dollars out of state. In just 40 years, Texas could be importing more than 80 percent of the energy required to meet its needs. Imports will make the state–and the U.S. as a whole– highly vulnerable to price fluctuations and political upheaval.
The state should carefully watch the importation of coal into Asia and Southeast Asia as it makes decisions about its energy future.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Concurrent with Public Citizen‘s release of its report – Drilling for Dollars: How Big Money Has a Big Influence at the Railroad Commission, which details how fundraising by incumbents increased 688 percent between 2000 and 2008 with the biggest driver of the increase donations from individuals associated with the fossil fuel industries – the same industries the commission is charged with regulating – The Texas Observer released an investigative report on the Railroad Commission detailing how decisions by the Railroad Commission have a significant effect on consumers’ monthly gas bills.
An in-depth study of 10 major rate cases to be released on Tuesday by the Atmos Cities Steering Committee, a coalition of North Texas municipalities, shows that the commission has sided with natural gas utilities over consumers and their own impartial hearing examiners in every single case since 1997.
The Observer’s review shows a clear pattern: The Texas Railroad Commission has repeatedly, over the past decade, found ways to boost the bottom line of gas companies to the detriment of Texans’ pocketbooks. The study compares the recommendations of the commission’s hearing examiners, impartial arbiters who often spends weeks reviewing evidence and taking testimony, to the final decision by the three elected commissioners.
Check out the Observer’s story by Forrest Wilder – Overrated: How the Texas Railroad Commission costs Texans millions on their natural gas bills. Then read Andy Wilson’s blog about Public Citizen’s new report – Drilling for Dollars: How Big Money Has a Big Influence at the Railroad Commission
Related Articles
Posted in Sunset | Tagged Public Citizen, Texas, Texas Railroad Commission |
The proposed revisions to the state’s controversial (and according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – illegal) flexible air permitting programs submitted in June in an effort to reach a compromise with the EPA, are scheduled for a formal vote at tomorrow’s hearing of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
Under the proposed revisions, facilities with flexible permits would be subject to stricter record-keeping. In addition, tighter caps would be placed on some emission points within affected facilities.
The EPA has ruled that Texas’ flexible permits do not comply with the U.S. Clean Air Act, and that ruling has touch off a political and legal war between the state and the federal agency. The state’s legal challenge to the EPA is pending in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The program, which has been in place since 1994 without the EPA’s formally approval, even with the proposed revisions to address the EPA’s concerns, still has provisions that the federal agency, during the public comment period, deemed “too broad.”
TENASKA Air Permit
Also on TCEQ’s agenda tomorrow is the air quality application for Tenaska Energy of Omaha’s 600-megawatt plant, Trailblazer Energy Center between Sweetwater and Abilene in Nolan County.
We expect the permit will be approved by the Commissioner, since it is a rubberstamp commission, however, the administrative law judges from the State Office of Administrative Hearings, which heard several days of testimony about Tenaska’s plans, recommended in October that TCEQ should require the plant to meet stricter limits on a range of harmful emissions that the facility would produce.
Under the ALJs’ recommendations, Trailblazer would have to demonstrate that the plant would have lower emissions for nitrogen oxide, or NOX, as measured by 24-hour and 30-day averages and lower volatile organic compound, or VOC, emissions as measured by 30-day and 12-month averages than currently projected.
The judges also asked that a special condition be imposed that would require VOC testing both when the carbon-capturing technology is being used at the plant and when the technology is being bypassed.
Goliad Uranium Mining
Also on this action packed agenda is Uranium Energy Corporation’s (UEC) proposed permit to drill for uranium in Goliad county.
An administrative law judge from the State Office of Administrative Hearings recommended in September that UEC be required to do additional testing on the fault area covered by the permit, which is about 13 miles north of the city of Goliad and nearly a mile east of the intersection of State Highway 183 and Farm-to-Market Road 1961. If granted, the permit would allow uranium drilling in a 423.8-acre area, according to the docket.
The TCEQ hearing starts at 9:30 a.m. at the agency’s headquarters 12100 Park 35 Circle (near Interstate 35 and Yager Lane in North Austin). If you want to watch the streaming video of this hearing, click here. Video is also archived on this site, generally within 24 hours after a hearing and you can get to it from the same link above if you can’t watch it tomorrow while it is happening.
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By promoting cleaner energy, cleaner government, and cleaner air for all Texans, we hope to provide for a healthy place to live and prosper. We are Public Citizen Texas.
Posted in Air Quality, TCEQ | Tagged abilene, goliad, Sunset Advisory Commission, sweetwater, tenaska, Texas, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, United States Environmental Protection Agency, uranium mining |
The delayed smog rule would lower the allowable concentration of airborne ozone to 60 to 70 parts per billion from the current level of 75 parts per billion, putting several hundred cities in violation of air pollution standards. The agency says that the new rule would save thousands of lives per year, but saving lives now seems to have taken a back seat to saving the costs to businesses and municipalities of having to meet those standards.
Posted in Air Quality, Global Warming, Toxics | Tagged air pollution, Air Quality, Air Quality Standards, clean air act, climate change, Global Warming, global warming gases, Texas, United States Environmental Protection Agency |
The planned $15 billion expansion of the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant suffered a critical funding setback in Congress this week when cuts in the House-passed version of the federal spending bill eliminated loan guarantees that Dallas-based Luminant have said were vital to the plan’s viability.
Republicans who pledge even more budget-cutting will take control of the House and most observers expect that efforts to increase spending on such things as nuclear plant expansions will face even greater obstacles.
Under intense public pressure to slash spending, the House cut the level back to $7 billion in the catch-all government spending bill known as a continuing resolution. The U.S. Senate will vote on the spending bill next week, and it is not clear whether lawmakers who support the loan guarantee program will make an effort to boost the funding before Congress adjourns before Christmas.
Posted in Nuclear | Tagged Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, federal loan guarantees, Nuclear, Nuclear Power, Texas |
If you haven’t already pre-registered to celebrate the holidays at the 3rd Annual Austin Green Holiday Party, do so now. It is coming up soon and this year it is hosted by 10 great organizations.
Fiesta Gardens (2100 Jesse E. Segovia St., Austin, TX 78702)
Thursday, December 16th, 2010 from 5:30pm-9:30pm
Registration: Pre-Registration ONLY for this Event (No Cash Accepted at Door)
- Click here for $30 General Admission Pre-Registration
- Click here for $20 for Members of one of the Co-Hosting Organizations
- To join Public Citizen, click here.
Network and learn about the hosting organizations and come together for a unified 2011. Celebrate the holidays with us and enjoy music, great food, beer, wine and other beverages, as well as holiday cheer…
Live Music by: Austin Eco-Musicians (Reed Sternberg, Bill Oliver, Frank Meyer and More!) with Tribal Nation, the Austin reggae band later in the evening.
Food: Barr Mansion (Please help support our event sponsor and friend to the environmental community, the Barr Mansion. They are catering this event, even as their own facility is being rebuilt after the fire.)
- Blue Cheese and Winter Squash Sandwich
- Chicken and Pepperoni Sandwich
- Sundried Tomato White Bean Dip with Crostini
- Basil Hummus and Cracker Shards
- Local Organic Farm Salad Station with assorted dressings
Beverages: Beer, Wine, Sodas, Teas and water will be provided by the following sponsors:
- New Belgium (beer)
- Sesa Tea (hot teas)
- Maine Root (sodas)
- Greater Texas Water Company (water)
The Co-Hosts: Texas Green Network •Public Citizen • SEED Coalition • Sierra Club • Design Build Live • Austin EcoNetwork • Solar Austin • NetImpact • Texas League of Conservation Voters • Austin Physicians for Social Responsibility
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged austin texas, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Texas |






The Texas Progressive Alliance is stocking up on figgy pudding as it brings you this week’s blog roundup.
