Clean Energy In the News

AUSTIN — Standing near the sunlit shore of Lady Bird Lake on Wednesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Hank Gilbert unveiled a nine-page blueprint for improving the environment and combating pollution, including the creation of an agency to consolidate environmental oversight in Texas.

Gilbert, a Whitehouse rancher and the Democratic Party’s nominee for Texas Agriculture Commissioner in 2006, said his "go green" proposal is designed to reverse Texas’ reputation as one of the worst polluters in the nation.

Key provisions would include encouraging development of alternative energy sources, requiring coal plants to adopt cleaner technologies by 2017, and allocating $150 million for the acquisition and development of state parks.

The plan would also take aim at cement kilns in Midlothian, often cited as a major source of pollution in North Texas, by requiring that cement-production plants reduce mercury emissions by 80 percent by 2014. Gilbert also called for stricter standards for injection wells used to dispose of drilling waste, including in the Barnett Shale.

The leaders of two environmental-advocacy groups enthusiastically embraced the plan.

Luke Metzger, director of the 20,000-member Environment Texas, called the recommendations "fantastic," saying Gilbert’s is "the most aggressive plan" for the environment of any candidate in the governor’s race.

"It looks like something we would have written if we had been invited," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of the Texas office of Public Citizen, a consumer and environmental group. "I think it’s absolutely great."

Luke Bellsnyder, executive director of the Texas Association of Manufacturers, said the group "has not had adequate time to review" the plan.

Gilbert’s proposed agency, the Texas Environmental Commission, would absorb the existing Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It would also include environmental regulation and oversight duties now performed by several state agencies. Gilbert called it a "common sense" approach to place environmental and conservation regulation under one umbrella.