Environment Texas Blog

Environment Texas played an integral part in delivering a number of important victories for our environment and health in 2007. Here are some of the highlights:

WORKING TO SAVE THE CHRISTMAS MOUNTAINS
On Nov. 6, the School Land Board voted to postpone the sale of the Christmas Mountains to private interests and instead give the National Park Service time to develop a proposal to add the land to Big Bend National Park.

The vote came after an enormous public outcry against the sale led by Environment Texas. We turned out our activists to both major hearings, recruited other conservation and hunting organizations to join with us, secured dozens of media stories, including in the New York Times and NPR's All Things Considered, as well as editorials condemning the sale from every major newspaper in the state.

Our staff of canvassers, callers and internet organizers generated more than 6,300 petition signatures asking Gov. Perry to intervene and direct his appointee on the Board to vote against Land Commissioner Patterson, the leading proponent of selling the land. The strategy worked, with the Dallas Morning News reporting that Perry told his appointee that there was "no sense in being hard-headed and running recklessly into a rushed sale" if the National Park Service had finally decided it was interested.

We still have a lot of work to do to ensure the land is permanently protected as part of Big Bend National Park, including securing Congressional authorization and guarding against new obstacles Commissioner Patterson may put forth. But we can enjoy this holiday season knowing the future is looking very good for the Christmas Mountains.

TRIPLING FUNDING FOR STATE PARKS
Also on Nov. 6, Texas voters approved Proposition 4, a statewide bond that will fund more than $52 million in badly needed repairs to facilities in state parks like Bastrop, Garner and Enchanted Rock. The approval completes the total of $182 million in additional funding for our state and local parks for the 2008-09 biennium. The additional funds will allow the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to rehire laid-off park rangers, re-open campgrounds, repair decaying facilities, and acquire sensitive lands to create a new state park.

Working with a coalition of dozens of organizations, Environment Texas played a significant role in winning the increased appropriations for Texas parks. We wrote and released two reports, Texas Natural Areas At Risk and Creating A World Class Parks System for Texas. We produced a short film narrated by two-time Oscar nominee and Texas native Ethan Hawke and screened it for dozens of groups around the state. Our citizen outreach staff talked to tens of thousands of Texans face to face about the issue, helping generate thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails into lawmakers' offices. We regularly met with legislators, reporters and editorial writers and testified before committees. We also took our message on a road trip around the state in an RV we dubbed the State Parks Express. In each targeted city we hosted "weenie roasts for the parks" outside legislators' offices, running radio ads and generating media coverage to put pressure on wavering lawmakers.

CLEAN ENERGY FOR AMERICA
On December 19, President Bush signed major energy legislation that increases fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks for the first time in over thirty years. This improvement in fuel economy will make real progress on global warming. By making our cars go farther on a gallon of gas, we can cut global warming pollution by more than the total annual emissions of countries like Brazil, France or Spain.

The compromise forged with the auto industry, which ensures that we achieve 35 mpg fleet-wide by 2020, represents an historic breakthrough on energy policy that will benefit the environment, consumers, and our national security. The standard will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 192 million metric tons (CO2 equivalent) and save America 1.1 million barrels per day in 2020, according to analysis conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists. According to our report Driving Towards a New Energy Future, the standards will also save Texas consumers $2 billion per year at the gas pump in 2020.

We are thrilled that this Congress has turned a corner on energy policy by delivering long-overdue oil savings for America, but we are disappointed the President has blocked progress on renewable energy. The original House-passed energy bill contained popular renewable electricity standards now in place in 25 states as well as provisions to close tax loopholes for Big Oil to fund renewable energy projects. White House opposition to the renewable electricity standard and to the tax package helped lead to these provisions being dropped on the Senate floor.

We look forward to taking the next step toward a new energy future by passing renewable energy standards and incentives when Congress returns in 2008, and urge the President to make signing a renewable energy bill a cornerstone of his final year in office.

At the state level, we also made progress for renewable energy and energy efficiency. First, we helped repeal the notorious "section M," which threatened to derail Texas' voluntary renewable energy market. We also played an important role in the passage of HB 3693 (Straus), which doubles the state's goal for utility efficiency programs and allows homeowners with solar panels to get credit from their utility for excess electricity put back on to the grid.

Our work paid off and we won an important victory in the 80th Legislature. But we still have more work to do to save Texas parks. In 2008, Environment Texas will build support for substantial state funding to acquire new parks and open space.

LAYING GROUNDWORK FOR OTHER VICTORIES
In 2007, Environment Texas recruited, trained and placed twenty four college students in internships with organizations in the Houston area, including the Galveston Houston Association for Smog Prevention, the Baylor College of Medicine Environmental Health Section, the Houston Audubon Society, and the office of Houston Mayor Bill White. In addition, dozens of young people got their first experience in environmental activism by working for our citizen outreach program in 2007.

On Oct. 11, Environment Texas marked the 35th anniversary of the Clean Water Act with the release of Troubled Waters: An analysis of Clean Water Act compliance, which found that more than 53 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across Texas discharged more pollution into our waterways than their Clean Water Act permits allow in 2005. Working with state Rep. Mike Villarreal, fishing organizations like Texas Black Bass Unlimited and local environmental organizations, Environment Texas held news conferences in Houston, San Antonio and Austin to alert the media and the public to the findings. We used the report to draw attention to lax enforcement at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and repeated our call for the agency to strengthen its penalty policy.

Building on our success last year in helping convince Congress to reauthorize the Magnusson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, Environment Texas worked this year to ensure the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) adopts strong rules to fight overfishing. We recruited more than twenty marine biologists, legislators, fishing organizations and local businesses in Texas to submit comments to NMFS, published 8 op-eds and letters-to-the-editor in key newspapers, and generated hundreds of public comments.

On July 24, Environment Texas released Feeling the Heat: Global Warming and Rising Temperatures in the United States, a report which analyzed the record-breaking summer heat of 2006. The report, widely covered in the media, found that several Texas cities, including Austin, San Antonio and Wichita Falls led the nation in abnormal numbers of excessive heat days. Environment Texas used the report to call on Congress to pass science-based limits on global warming pollution.

As you can see, it has been a very busy year for Environment Texas -- and for protecting Texas's environment. None of our work would be possible without the support of our donors and activists. We particularly thank our 20,000 members and e-activists for their financial and political support, and Houston Endowment, the Jacob and Therese Hershey Foundation, the Trull Foundation, and the Magnolia Charitable Trust for their generous grants.