Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

Coal Action: Proposed legislation would eliminate public challenges to power plants

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2009 |

On Wednesday, April 8th, the House Committee on Environmental Regulation will hear testimony on a bill to fast-track coal and other power plants. Issues with the HB 4012 include:

  • It would eliminate the contested-case hearing process – the only significant opportunity the public has to challenge a power plant permit
  • It would fast-track the permit application review process, resulting in lower-quality permits
  • It could be deemed illegal by the EPA which mandates that the public have an opportunity to challenge a permit application
  • It would erode public trust of regulatory institutions at a time when that trust is vanishing nationwide

Come testify in Capitol Extension E1.014 on Wednesday at 10:30am. Without the contested-case process, there could have been no public victory against 8 of the 11 proposed TXU coal plants.

Even when a power plant is permitted, it is almost always a better permit for having endured the contested-case hearing process. The process brings out weaknesses in the application and often helps identify opportunities to lower dangerous emissions from these plants.

Two years ago the state showed its disregard for public interest when Governor Perry attempted to grandfather coal plants and protect them from regulation. That attempt was defeated in court, but now the legislature is resurrecting tired arguments in favor of polluting technologies that hurt our health and our economy.

If you can’t make it in person, call in to the Environmental Regulation committee and voice your opposition to HB 4012!

Rep. Byron Cook (Chair) – 512-463-0646, Byron.Cook@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Warren Chisum (Vice-Chair) – 512-463-0736, Warren.Chisum@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Lon Burnam – 512-463-0740, Lon.Burnam@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Jim Dunnam – 512-463-0508, Jim.Dunnam@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Jessica Farrar – 512-463-0620, Jessica.Farrar@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Kelly Hancock – 512-463-0599, Kelly.Hancock@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Ken Legler – 512-463-0460, Ken.Legler@house.state.tx.us
Rep Marc Veasey – 512-463-0716, Marc.Veasey@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Randy Weber – 512-463-0707, Randy.Weber@house.state.tx.us (Rep. Weber authored the bill in question)

evil-eye-babyRemoving contested case hearings, the public’s only opportunity to challenge power plants, without replacing it with some other mechanism to hear public input is completely ridiculous.  Baby does not approve.

Read Full Post »

Stop the Dirty Dozen: Tell the Texas Legislature, Don’t Create Another Generation of Grandfathered Coal Plants

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2009 |

If you live in the Waco, Sweetwater, Corpus Christi, or Victoria area, you may have seen this op-ed run in your local newspaper under a variety of titles such as “Stop the Dirty Dozen”, “New generation of grandfathered polluters?”, and “Don’t create another generation of grandfathered power plants.” If not, you should give it a read.

smitty-mug2In the early 1970s, when it looked like the passage of the federal Clean Air Act was inevitable, power companies in Texas went on a building boom to construct 12 dirty, old-technology power plants before legislation went into effect. It was more than 30 years before the Texas Legislature addressed pollution from these “grandfathered” plants. Today, just as Congress and the Obama administration are poised to pass a series of tougher air pollution laws and cap global warming gasses, a dozen applications for additional coal fired power plants in Texas have been permitted or are pending. If built, this dirty dozen of coal plants would add an astounding 77 million tons a year of global warming gases to our already overheated air, 55,000 tons of acid rain forming gases, 29,000 tons of ozone forming chemicals and 3,800 lbs of brain damaging mercury. Your call to your state senator this week can help stop another generation of coal plants from being built.

Two years ago, 19 new coal plants were proposed for the state of Texas. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when TXU withdrew applications for eight of those plants. But other companies are still building their proposed plants, and the cumulative impacts will make it harder to breathe in the DFW, Houston, Tyler- Longview, Waco, Austin, San Antonio, Victoria and Corpus Christi areas. Seven of the plants have already been permitted, but five more are still in the permitting stages and can be more easily stopped.

Sen. Kip Averitt took a strong stand on this issue by adding a provision in his aggressive air qualtity bill, SB 16, to require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to look at the cumulative impacts of any proposed new plant along with any others that have already been permitted or are being proposed. This amendment would have gone a long way to protect our air and climate.

Unfortunately the electric companies out-lobbied him and took a red pen to that provision of the bill. What’s left is too little and too late. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Houston Area Environmental Film Screening

Posted in Coal, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2009 |

fighting-goliath-texas-coal-warsLive in the Houston area? This Wednesday, April 8, at 11:00 am, Houston Community College will be showing both FIGHTING GOLIATH: TEXAS COAL WARS and FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER as a part “The Reel” Series, a culture film/speaker series of learning enrichments.  Public Citizen’s own Ryan Rittenhouse will be on hand after the screening for a Q&A session and to give an update on the Texas coal fight.

The screening will be held at the Town & Country Center in the “Eagle” room at 1010 W. Sam Houston Parkway N. 77043.  The event will be free and open to all HCC students, faculty, staff, and friends.

APRIL 8 Films & Speaker: “The Public Commons: Access to Water/Clean Air”

  • 11:00 a.m. FILM: (84 min) FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER The World Water Crisis is what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century. “Flow” takes us to Bolivia, South Africa, India, Michigan and beyond, and introduces us to issues of water wars, privatization, pollution and profit and the people who are being harmed by corporate tyrannies that are claiming the water of their land. Award-winning, 2008.
  • 1:00 p.m. FILM & SPEAKER: (30 min) FIGHTING GOLIATH: TEXAS COAL WARS Narrated by Robert Redford, the (2007) film follows the story of Texans fighting high-stakes battle for clean air. Film centers around unlikely partners — mayors, ranchers, lawyers, cities, citizens, green groups, and CEO’s — who came together to oppose the construction of 18 coal-fired power plants in Texas.

Read Full Post »

News from Envirnonmental Organizations around the State – April 6

Posted in Toxics, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2009 |

Happy Monday everybody!  Check out the latest from our friends at Alliance for a Clean Texas.  Original post can be found here.

earthdayhouston1This week, ACT is happy to bring reports from two organizations doing great work on behalf of their local communities. In Houston, the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention (GHASP) is presenting Houston Earth Day – the City of Houston’s official Earth Day celebration – this Saturday, April 11th. This FREE day-long festival focuses on green-living and features hands-on activities for everyone. There will be an Earth Zone (highlighting air, land, water and renewable energy), an Environmental Education Zone, Kids Energy Zone, and Farmers’ Market. Additional information about Houston Earth Day and Mothers for Clean Air’s Earth Day 5k is available here.

Print

The Hill Country Alliance reports that they support HB 3265 which will be heard in House County Affairs on Monday April 6. This bill represents the culmination of 18 months of collaboration between 15 rural Hill Country counties; it provides this sensitive area with a set of tools to handle growth – particularly the stress placed on water resources.

Read Full Post »

Pedernales Public Hearing Tomorrow at Noon: Let ‘Em Hear from Ya

Posted in Efficiency, Energy, Good Government, Renewables, tagged , , , , , on April 3, 2009 |

Do you, Pedernales Electric Coop member, want to save money on your electric bills?  World class energy efficiency programs? Solar Panels on your roof? Shape the future of PEC?

Let your voice be heard!

A public hearing on a proposal to adopt energy efficiency and smart grid policies will be held tomorrow in Johnson City.  If you’re a PEC member, this is your chance to weigh in on the standards PEC will adopt that will guide their energy efficiency and conservation policy in the future.

When: Noon, April 4, 2009

Where: Pedernales E. Babe Smith Headquarters, 201 South Avenue F, Johnson City, TX

What’s all this about anyway:

Congress passed a bill in 2007 (the Energy Independence and Security Security Act, or EISA) that included a requirement for all electric coops to consider adopting standards that would make information sharing, energy efficiency and conservation coop priorities.

If adopted, these standards would make it easier for Pedernales to offer energy efficiency programs and develop a “smart grid” which is crucial to develop small-scale renewables like solar panels on your rooftop.

PEC has a draft proposal on the table which modifies the federal standard. They want the public to comment on it and offer suggestions. So…

Now’s your chance! Show up to the meeting or submit written comments.  Tell PEC you want them to:

  • Develop a plan for meeting the PEC’s 30% renewable and 20% efficiency goals by 2020.
  • Create a sweries of innovative retrofit programs that have a goal of saving 20% or more of the energy used in each structure by 2020.
  • Give builders incentives to make new buildings as efficient as possible, and to add on site renewable energy.
  • Create solar and small wind incentives to help the coop and their customers meet 30% of the energy they consume with renewables by 2020.
  • Create a loan or lease program to help members afford these retrofits.
  • Give members information on the pollution produced by the power they consume.

To find out more visit www.cleanenergyfortexas.org.  There you will find a bunch of information, including our initial comments on all the good stuff above. Here is the link to PEC’s draft proposal too.

A group of like-minded folks will gather outside the building around 11:30.

Read Full Post »

Lying Liars and the Climate Deniers

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 3, 2009 |

And so it begins….

We knew as soon as there was a draft climate bill that it would be falsely attacked and derided disingenuously as “an energy tax.”  But we had no idea to what extent the truth-stretchers would go to make their rhetorical points.

Did I say stretch the truth?  I meant break, beat, spit upon and then toss it into a cesspool to be feasted upon by worms and vermin, for as little as truth means to these lying liars.

Wednesday, Keith Olbermann named John Boehner his “Worst Person in the World” for his exaggeration lie about the costs of tackling carbon.  Watch this video for yourself:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lJWX_xmxco]

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  At least some people are willing to check their facts and talk about climate in a rational manner.  Look, a Press Release! (emphasis added is mine, not in original)

‘Energy Tax’ Rhetoric Ill Serves Debate on Climate Legislation

Republican members of Congress have taken to calling cap-and-trade legislation an “energy tax” or a “light switch tax” on American families and businesses.

Most recently, congressional Republicans misrepresented a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study analyzing cap-and-trade proposals. They distorted the study’s conclusions to exaggerate the costs of cap-and-trade legislation on individual households, by making faulty calculations based on erroneous assumptions and by ignoring a basic principle of economics – the time value of money.

Conservatives, of all people, should not ignore basic principles of economics. (more…)

Read Full Post »

CPS and San Antonio: You can’t both be right…

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2009 |

Greg Harman at the San Antonio Current broke this story a few days back and I just feel like we have to comment:

As Washington strains under the weight of industry and environmental lobbyists seeking to influence the outcome of what would be our first national climate bill, CPS Energy has been quietly working the angles on Capitol Hill to keep the coal power the city has come to rely on cheap for consumers in the short term. So-called “cheap” power is the mandate the utility operates under, after all.

Too bad that mandate is now at odds with the survival of the earth as we know it and, quite possibly, our survival as a city and a nation.

…

Responding to an Open Records request submitted by the Current, a CPS Energy legal staffer wrote that the City-owned utility has spent $91,700 lobbying in the past year “in the attempt to influence U.S. climate policy.”

According to Zandra Pulis, senior legal counsel at CPS, the utility has also spent about $67,657 in membership dues to the Climate Policy Group, an industry group it joined in September of 2006 that lobbies Congress against limiting carbon emissions under cap-and-trade legislation. An effort that, to this point, has been remarkably successful.

…

All told, CPS has spent $2.56 million on lobbyists (since 1999) working the statehouse and the Capitol, according to Pulis.

That’s right — CPS has spent millions of YOUR dollars on lobbying, much of which has gone to try to argue climate change isn’t happening.

Look, I understand that CPS has a mission to produce inexpensive electricity for San Antonio residents and business.  That’s a good thing.  But the facts are these:

1- Climate change is happening.  But even if it wasn’t, everything we need to do to solve it is something that we would want to be to doing anyway.  We need to start living with the fact that political consensus has developed in Washington.  Sooner or later, we’re going to have to  start paying for our greenhouse gas pollution, so we’d better start figuring out how to get our energy from non-polluting sources. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Public Meeting Held on White Stallion Power Plant

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2009 |

Original post found on the Coal Block blog.

white-stallionThis past Monday there was a public meeting to give the local community a chance to voice their opinion about the proposed White Stallion Power Plant near Bay City, Texas. The plant would be approximately a mile south of Bay City off of FM 2668, and construction is scheduled to begin next year.

At the meeting the people of the community took advantage of the opportunity to stand up in opposition to the plant.

“The vast majority of questions and comments were stressing concern about emissions from the plant and the effect it will have on the health of the people, the environment and the wildlife of Matagorda County,” said Public Citizen”s own Ryan Rittenhouse. “Many of the closest folks living near the proposed site were there and all were very concerned at the prospect of the plant.”
The health hazards resulting from burning coal are staggering.

“Old, coal-fired power plants are among the biggest industrial contributors to unhealthful air, especially particle pollution in the eastern United States,” said the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2007 report. “The toll of death, disease and environmental destruction caused by coal-fired power plant pollution continues to mount.”

As of now, nothing will be addressed in regards to the CO2 emissions of the White Stallion plant, which was a top priority of all the opposition at the meeting. The plant would emit approximately 10 million tons of CO2, about 100 pounds of mercury, and about 5,000 tons of sulfur dioxide every year. This undoubtedly would move Matagorda County and Bay City closer to federal air quality non-attainment status, and contribute to the already high levels of mercury in the Gulf Coast region.

Unfortunately though, those concerns were not able to be addressed as thoroughly as we are accustomed to in these public meetings. The questioning was cut short before everyone in the meeting had a chance to have their questions answered. A number of people who gave comments during the official comment period remarked on this and expressed displeasure at not being allowed to ask all their questions.

A request was made by Public Citizen to have another public meeting so that everyone’s questions could be answered. There is no indication as to whether or not this request will be granted.

Read Full Post »

House Democrats Want More!

Posted in Efficiency, Energy, Global Warming, Good Government, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2009 |

President Obama has voiced that two of his top priorities will be climate change and energy.  Earlier this month he picture-5announced an energy plan that would call for 14% reduction in emissions from the 2005 levels by 2020, and an 83% reduction by 2050.

But House Democrats Henry a. Waxman (California) and Edward J. Markey (Massachussettes) want more!  They drafted a bill with even more gusto to capture greenhouse gases—a 20% reduction in emissions by 2020!

Remember that this power team was also responsible for the bill to put a moratorium on coal plants introduced a year ago.   The new Waxman-Markey bill will require every region of the country to produce 25% from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal.  This could be a huge factor to increase the demand for sustainable energy to spur wide-range development and adoption of energy technology.

Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee said regarding his bill:

This legislation will create millions of clean energy jobs, put America on the path to energy independence, and cut global warming pollution.  Our goal is to strengthen our economy by making America the world leader in new clean energy and energy efficiency technologies.

However, the bill also makes some concessions to the states whose economy rests upon coal and energy-related industries, with the hope that it will smooth the transition to cleaner forms of energy.   To read more, check out this press release from Tyson Slocum at our D.C. office.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This bill is a really great start.  Obama started the bid at a 14% cut, the House upped the ante to 20%, but according to the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the real target we should be shooting for is about 35%.  Unfortunately, none of the bills in the House or Senate is shooting for this target.  The good news is, according to an analysis by McKinsey and Company, almost all of that 35% can be achieved at a net cost savings through things like energy efficiency.  And realistically, that’s only 3.5% per year for the next decade. ~~Citizen Andy

Read Full Post »

Good Bills Being Heard in House Environmental Reg

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, Toxics, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2009 |

In addition to Lon Burnam’s HB 3423, there are five other good bills that will be heard in the House Environmental Regulation Committee this Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 10:30 am or upon adjournment of the House in the Capital extension – Hearing room E1.014. We are incouraging everyone who has a few minutes to stop by the committee room and put in cards supporting these six bills. The five bill numbers are listed below, followed by a brief description of the bill and why your support is important. Please send this message along to anyone else you think might be interested!

HB 1450, Rep. Rodriguez. Relating to the disposal and reuse of coal combustion waste.  HB 1450 establishes the disposal and reuse of coal combustion waste as a class I industrial waste and prohibits use as mine backfill. In addition, it requires groundwater and soil monitoring that must be made publically available.   We’ve been over this one before. Texas tops the list of states at risk from toxic coal ash waste, remember?  No bueno.

HB 557, Rep. Hernandez. Relating to the establishment of an air pollutant watch list and associated reports for the purpose of controlling the emissions of air contaminants under the Texas Clean Air Act.  HB 557 establishes an air pollutant watch list and associated reports for the purpose of controlling the emissions of air contaminants under the Texas Clean Air Act to protect against adverse effects related to :

(1) acid deposition;
(2) stratospheric changes, including depletion of ozone; [and]
(3) climatic changes, including global warming; and

(4) air pollution.

HB 769, Rep. Hernandez. Relating to standards for measuring the emission of air contaminants under the Texas Clean Air Act.  HB 769 requires TCEQ to set standards for measuring the emission of air contaminants under the Texas Clean Air Act that takes into consideration acute and chronic health effects on a person resulting from exposure to an air contaminant; the lifetime exposure of a person to the highest concentration of the air contaminant from an emission source; and does not increase the risk of cancer in a person exposed to the air contaminant by greater than one chance in 100,000.

HB 3428, Rep. Hernandez. Relating to measuring, monitoring, and reporting emissions.  HB 3428 requires TCEQ to establish and maintain an air pollutant watch list available online to the public.

HB 3422, Rep. Burnam. Relating to the establishment of a program for the collection, transportation, recycling, and disposal of mercury-containing lights.  HB 3422 establishes a program to safely dispose of and recycle mercury containing lights. It requires manufacturers to provide collection bins, to collect the bulbs and cover the costs of shipping to an appropriate facility. Mercury containing lightbulbs would have to be removed before buildings are demolished. The bill also has an important educational component.

You can register comment on all of these good bills in one fell swoop by visiting the House Environmental Regulation Committee hearing in E1.014 this morning.  Committee hearings are open to the public, and you can put your official stance on the record by just dropping a card.  If you can’t visit the Capitol today, why not give one of the fine legislators on this committee a call?

Read Full Post »

Help Stop Nuke Waste Loophole; Show Support for HB 3423

Posted in Nuclear, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2009 |

Rep. Lon Burnam’s bill, HB 3423, will be heard on Wednesday, April 1st, in the House Committee on Environmental Regulation hearing at 10:30 AM or upon adjournment, in E1.014. If you are able to come, we’re trying to get as many people as possible to register their support of this bill (by filling out a witness affirmation form). That’s right, officially registering your opinion on a bill is as simple as filling out a card.  The bill closes the Compact Loophole, and requires other states who want to send radioactive waste here to get legislative approval first.

The Compact Agreement was originally between Texas, Maine and Vermont.  Maine pulled out of the Compact, and now Texas and Vermont are able to send their radioactive so-called “low-level” waste to be stored at the Andrews County dump in West Texas. A loophole in the Compact Agreement allows any state to send radioactive waste to Texas. We don’t need to be the nation’s nuclear dump!

The license for that dump was recently issued by the TCEQ, and the agency wrongly denied the opportunity for a contested case hearing (read: locals were not allowed to voice their opposition in any formal environment). Three long-term scientists at TCEQ recommended denying the permit — and actually left their jobs for ethical reasons once the permit was approved. The science is NOT solid for the Andrews County radioactive waste dump – and there are concerns that radionuclides could come in contact with underground water. It is possible that contamination could spread to the Ogallala Aquifer, which underlies eight states, including the nation’s wheat growing region.

96% of the radioactive waste slated  for the site would be from nuclear reactors — everything except the fuel rods. Radionuclides in the waste are dangerous today and remain dangerous for thousands of years. A recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruling reclassified depleted uranium from reprocessing, putting it into a less hazardous (Class A) category. Now up to 1.4 million tons of depleted uranium could go to the West Texas site and/or Clive, Utah sites.

If you can’t make it in person, calls to the Environmental Regulation committee in support of Burnam’s bill are needed! If you are a constituent, please let them know that.

Rep. Byron Cook (Chair) – 512-463-0646, Byron.Cook@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Warren Chisum (Vice-Chair) – 512-463-0736, Warren.Chisum@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Lon Burnam – 512-463-0740, (it’s his bill, give him a call to say thanks.)
Rep. Jim Dunnam – 512-463-0508, Jim.Dunnam@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Jessica Farrar – 512-463-0620, Jessica.Farrar@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Kelly Hancock – 512-463-0599, Kelly.Hancock@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Ken Legler – 512-463-0460, Ken.Legler@house.state.tx.us
Rep Marc Veasey – 512-463-0716, Marc.Veasey@house.state.tx.us
Rep. Randy Weber – 512-463-0707, Randy.Weber@house.state.tx.us

For further background on the Andrews County dump, check out Forrest Wilder’s article from the last Texas Observer, Waste Texas: Why Andrews County is so eager to get dumped on. Or if you’re more the auditory type, listen to the podcast.

Check out the press release after the jump.

(more…)

Read Full Post »

Daddy Coal Shakes Finger at Texas Youth

Posted in Coal, Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 30, 2009 |

3400399050_de63905770We’re already getting push-back from coal industry on account of the ReEnergize Texas Rally at the capitol Monday morning.  When the coal industry’s “clean coal” PR machine is running scared and feels the need to release official press releases… you’re doin’ it right.

Original post found at Burnt Orange Report:

This weekend 170+ students from more than 25 colleges and five high schools descended on Austin for the ReEnergize Texas Summit to demand bold clean energy solutions.

The students held a rally at the Texas Capitol Monday morning and followed up with more than 50 visits to their legislators. Students rallied behind calls to end dependence on coal and nuclear power and to create new green jobs with investments in wind, solar and energy efficiency.

While the event went largely unnoticed by the media, the coal industry was apparently watching. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity issued a statement following the event:

“The Re-energize Texas Summit rallies behind laudable goals including the continued development of renewable energy sources and increased energy efficiency measures; however the group’s support of legislation to place a moratorium on new coal plants in Texas is misguided, economically unfeasible and environmentally unnecessary,” said Joe Lucas, Senior Vice President of Communications at ACCCE.

The ACCCE statement appears to come in response to the students’ support of legislation placing a temporary moratorium on coal-fired power plants without carbon capture and sequestration (SB 126, sponsored by state Sen. Rodney Ellis and its companion bill HB 4384, sponsored by Rep. Allen Vaught).

According to the National Wildlife Federation’s Praween Dayananda:

“Halting the construction of proposed coal plants will help curb climate change and protect local communities from dangerous health impacts. Texas has incredible potential to produce renewable energy, clean up its skies, and become a leader in the new energy economy.”

Speakers at the rally that scared the coal industry were Senator Leticia Van de Putte, Representative Tara Rios Ybarra, Doug Lewin from Senator Ellis’ office and Public Citizen’s own Director Tom “Smitty” Smith.

For more information about the summit, visit www.reenergizetexas.org.

Check out more photos from the rally and more from the ReEnergize Texas Flickr photo pool.

Read Full Post »

“Mr. Chairman, as a point of order do we swear in Jack Daniels as a witness?”

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2009 |

This was too funny not to share.

Courtesy of Gardner Selby at the Austin American Statesman’s Postcards blog:

Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, leader of the House Democratic Caucus, stunned observers at a hearing this afternoon by lining up what looked like shots of whiskey on the members’ dais in the hearing room and then gulping down several to buttress a point about the cumulative impact of air pollution.

But rest easy, Temperance League.

Dunnam said after shot three that the brownish liquid in the shot glasses was iced tea.

dunnam

This is such a beautiful analogy.  Chairman Dunnam made this point while explaining HB 2495, “AN ACT relating to the consideration of the cumulative effects of emissions from proposed facilities in actions by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on applications for certain air contaminant emissions permits or permit amendments.”  With a total of 9 lines and less than 200 words, this was very simple.

When permitting new coal-fired power plants, current TCEQ policy does not consider the cumulative effects of the emissions from those plants.  That means that if eight coal stacks were to be built within one county, as they were in McLennan county in 2007, then TCEQ can consider each of the proposals only as an individual entity and its potential to cause harm to health and quality of life.  As Rep. Dunnam illustrated, the effects are cumulative, whether you drink one shot in Waco, one in Houston, one in San Antonio, etc. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Just Kidding: Mountain Top Removal Battle Continues

Posted in Coal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 27, 2009 |

The EPA in the last day or so has assumed the dreaded playground title of “taker backer”. Tuesday, Lisa Jackson announced that they would be putting a moratorium on all mountain top removal mining permits, which could delay 150-200 surface coal mines. Yay for the environment right? Well, not so fast. Later that day the announcement was made that they weren’t actually putting any type of hold on mining permits, and that they were simply reviewing two of them.

Check out the EPA’s official, and somewhat grumpy, statement:

The Environmental Protection Agency is not halting, holding or placing a moratorium on any of the mining permit applications. Plain and simple. EPA has issued comments on two pending permit applications to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers expressing serious concerns about the need to reduce the potential harmful impacts on water quality. EPA will take a close look at other permits that have been held back because of the 4th Circuit litigation. We fully anticipate that the bulk of these pending permit applications will not raise environmental concerns. In cases where a permit does raise environmental concerns, we will work expeditiously with the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how these concerns can be addressed. EPA’s submission of comments to the Corps on draft permits is a well-established procedure under the Clean Water Act to assure that environmental considerations are addressed in the permitting process.

So put away the champagne; the fight’s not over yet. But we are moving forward in the battle. At least they are finally looking at these mining permits permits seriously, as opposed to the flat denial of potential harm we heard from the Bush administration. Additional good news is that last week, in conjunction with a week-long lobbying campaign against mountain top removal, Senators Lamar Alexander and Benjamin Cardin sponsored a ban on the dumping of mine waste into streams.

While it is a little upsetting to have fallen victim to the one of the most severe cases of environmental Taker Backering in history,  there is still hope for the future. We may not be getting the silver bullet we thought, but if the current EPA is even willing to address these types of problems, we’re still in a better place than we were a year ago.

Read Full Post »

Clean Energy Rally and Lobby Day

Posted in Global Warming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2009 |

Sponsored by ReEnergize Texas, the event will feature speeches by leaders in the student climate change movement, as well as a diverse group of Texas Representatives and Senators.

fund_future_rallyWhen: Monday, March 30th
Rally: 9:30am-10:30am
Lobby Appointments: 10:30am-2:30pm
Where: Texas Capitol (north of 11th and Congress)

Register at ReEnergizeTexas.org

Hundreds of youth from all over Texas will converge at a rally and a lobby day at the State Capitol for clean energy and climate justice! We will lobby for:

* Increasing distributed solar to 2,000MW of generation
* Stopping all new coal-fired power plants
* Creating programs that help disadvantaged youth stay on track to complete high school while improving energy efficiency in low-income homes

This promises to be a powerful moment in Texas grassroots politics. Join us 9:30am-10:30am for great speakers from the movement and the State Legislature including Senator Rodney Ellis, Representative Tara Rios Ybarra, and Public Citizen Director Tom “Smitty” Smith.

Lobby Day training will happen on Sunday, March 29th, 3:45pm-6:00pm. This training is crucial for those who want to play speaking roles during lobby visits. We will have materials, Q&A, and role play exercises.

The Texas Legislature only meets every 2 years. If we want a clean and just energy future for Texas, we have to go to the Capitol and make our voices heard. Join us!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »