Other Issues In the News

Texas Legislature Faces Environmental Challenges

BY NATHAN DIEBENOW ASSOCIATE EDITOR

AUSTIN — Luke Metzger has lived in Texas almost as long as George W. Bush has been President of the United States. During that time, the president has undone almost 30 years of federal law that have sought to protect the nation’s natural environment.

The last time the environment took this kind of pounding was back when President Ronald Reagan and his Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, were in power. It’s been well documented that Reagan thought that plants caused air pollution and Watt believed that destroying the environment was cool since Jesus would be back to terminate it all eventually.

The Bush administration has since taken Reagan’s torch and lit legislative fires such as the Orwellian-titled Clean Air and Clear Water Acts, gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement division and its Superfund clean-up program, and sparked big business’ interests in logging, mining, and drilling millions of acres of wilderness — not to mention inflaming the international community by ignoring the Kyoto Treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Metzger, on the other hand, has been fighting for the health of not only the environment but also the people effected by those changes statewide as director of Environment Texas. Before Texas, Metzger lived in California where he worked with Environment Texas’ sister organization — an environmental consumer group called the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG).

According to Environment Texas’ mission statement: “We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress. That’s the idea behind Environment Texas. We focus exclusively on protecting Texas’ air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST’s Nathan Diebenow recently spoke with Metzger about the environmental issues coming up in the next session of the Texas Legislature and the role of Congressional Democrats in framing green issues nationally,. Here is that interview: .........

ICONOCLAST: Why are you an advocate for the environment in Texas?

LUKE METZGER: I’ve been in Texas for about six years. I was an Army brat so I grew up in Oklahoma, Germany, Alabama, California, and growing up, I was a Boy Scout and had a particular interest in nature and camping. Since coming to Texas, I also have had the opportunity to explore a lot of the beautiful, natural areas of the state, everything from Padre Island and sea turtles down there to canoeing on the Pedernales River. I’ve been able to have great experiences with that, but like with many other people, I’ve noticed the increased environmental problems in the state, everything from air pollution to global warming. I just had a baby boy four-months-ago and now more than ever, I’m really concerned about what are the things that he’s breathing, what am I exposing him to. The science is just overwhelming and you see almost every day there’s a new study coming out showing that we’re already facing huge problems and that things are only going to get worse, so I really worry about what the planet is going to be like both here in Texas and globally if all those things happen. Then also, I’ve just been attracted by the rich history in Texas of populism and activism, everything from 19th century folks fighting the railroads serving as the birthplace of the populist movement to the more recent agitators like Jim Hightower and others that have been really impressed by that rich history and tradition of activism and organizing. I hope to try and step into those huge shoes, and be able to whip up a political firestorm on some of these issues.

ICONOCLAST: Well, why Environment Texas? Can you tell me how you got to work with them?

METZGER: Yeah, after graduating college, I worked with the California Public Interest Research Group or CalPIRG, which is an environmental consumer group. I worked as a campus organizer at UC-Santa Cruz for two years organizing students and getting involved in different campaigns from protecting forests to clean water. After that I moved to Texas to work for the Texas Public Interest Research Group. Just this past February we started new home for TexPIRG’s environmental work. So we basically decided to separate the two organizations to have a better focus on the specific mission. Environment Texas focuses in on things like environment, wilderness, clean air issues, and TexPIRG is focusing on our consumer, democracy agenda.

ICONOCLAST: Where does Environment Texas get its funding?

METZGER: Most of our funding comes from going door-todoor, talking to people about the issues, and raising money at $15 - $25 chunks at a time. We also get some funding from private foundations in the state.

ICONOCLAST: A lot of people have said that the 2006 midterm elections were a referendum on the president’s foreign policy with regard to Iraq. But how well will the environment in Texas fare now that there are more Democrats in state and national legislatures?

METZGER: Well, the climate has certainly improved at the national level, and we’re very excited about the possibilities in Congress. In Texas, we’ve got a huge delegation that’s going to play a key role on some of the issues coming up. For example, Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi has included in her first “100 hours” agenda policies to repeal some of the tax breaks for oil companies, which have been egregious over the last few years, and the Texas delegation is going to play a key role in that, so we’re going to work to make sure our members veer the right way for clean energy, and really, energy has risen to the top environmental concerns in the state. In a lot of the key races around the country, energy was certainly talked about, from gas prices to dependence on foreign oil, also concerns about global warming. It’s definitely become a hotter issue, and legislators are starting to pay attention. In Texas, the Democrats picked up a few seats, so what folks say is that might moderate how Speaker (Tom) Craddick operates the House of Representatives, which could potentially open some doors to pro-environment legislation.

ICONOCLAST: What will be the priorities Environmental Texas will lobby for in the Texas Legislature next session?

METZGER: The big ones are definitely power plants, state parks, and energy policy. These From Previous Page are going to be the ones we’re concerned with. To start with, the state parks during the elections was a hot issue. All the gubernatorial candidates took stances on it including Gov. (Rick) Perry who called for full funding of the state parks. Speaker Craddick also did so, and so in that place, we’re in a pretty good position. This summer there was a blue-ribbon panel that recommended an increase of $85 million a year for the state park system to catch up on some of the huge backlog of maintenance issues, re-hire a lot of the park rangers that were laid off last Christmas, and also to invest in new parkland acquisition to help protect the threat of natural areas and improve access to Texans particularly living in urban areas where they are pretty under- served for parks. I’m pretty optimistic on that. We’ve got a lot of support. I think the time has come. The issue has been burning so much that the crisis has finally gotten to the point where the legislators can’t ignore it anymore. The other big issue, of course, is going to be power plants. Last year, of course, Gov. Perry issued an executive order fasttracking the permitting of new power plants in Texas, specifically new coal facilities proposed by TXU and other utilities, so with that move, it has basically created a short timeline in order for the public to weigh in and have an input. For example, they’re having hearings on the same day at exactly the same time effecting power plants next door to each other, so people living close to both of them weren’t able to weigh in and actually have comments at the hearing because Gov. Perry enforced this ridiculous speed that is shutting out the public. If all these plants are built, that’s a serious problem. You know, we’re locked into 50 more years of pollution that would really wipe out some of the advances that we made in air quality in the state as well as dramatically increase our carbon dioxide emissions which of course will hurt global warming. The good news is that there are legislators that don’t agree with Gov. Perry. There are about 40 legislators, including four Republicans, that signed on to a letter to TCEQ (Texas Commission On Environmental Quality) asking them to slow down the process, so the proper air quality studies can be completed before these plants are built. I think there’s legislation to issue a moratorium on the construction of these plants until that’s done. So I think that’s going to be a really tough fight. TXU has spent tons of money in campaign contributions not only to the governor but to members of the Legislature, and they’re going to have a pretty high-powered lobby team in there spreading their lies. It’s going to be an uphill fight for us.

ICONOCLAST: So basically we can attend state parks, but we just can’t breath the air. (laughs)

METZGER: Right. Unfortunately. Hopefully, the parks are far enough away from the power plants that you can do both.

ICONOCLAST: In your estimation, how green-minded are the average Texans?

METZGER: They are very green. If you look at polls that have been done, just for example if you look at renewable energy. The oil and gas industry did a poll about a year or two ago and asked people, “How much do you support renewables?” And something like 80 percent of Texans supported increased renewables. Other polls show that when they asked, “What should be the main way that we produce our power in the future? Should it be renewables? Should it be coal? Liquified natural gas?” And again, renewables stomped the other ones which were in single digits. Renewables gets 70 percent. There’s strong support in that, and these are just common sense issues. Everybody wants clean air. They want clean water. Unfortunately, because there are these powerful interests that are standing in the way of progress, we don’t get those kinds of environmental protections, but even legislators who routinely vote against the environment at least claim that they care about the environment and recognize that broad public support for it.

ICONOCLAST: What about industries that are in Texas that support clean energy? How do we compare with other states?

METZGER: We’re number one in the nation for wind energy, and so we’ve got a lot of businesses here in the state that have been very actively developing new wind farms, everything from Florida Power and Light to General Electric. Renewables is a big business for the state. Then if you look at parks for example, parks is a billion dollar industry. They are providing lots of the tourism dollars, sporting goods sales, and other things, so there are a lot of businesses that rely on our parks as a funder. And if you look at the issues of quality of life, a lot of major corporations when deciding where to set up their headquarters are looking at issues like, “Am I able to attract employees to a city that ranks number one for smog and has no parks?” Regulators will choose other cities that have those kinds of quality of life measures that will attract high-talented employees which they need in order to compete. Boeing, I believe, was looking at Dallas versus Chicago for a new headquarters, and they went with Chicago because of those kinds of considerations.

ICONOCLAST: What’s been your experience with religious conservatives and their pro-environment activities?

METZGER: Actually, they are pretty active in Texas. For example, the Texas Baptists put out a great position paper on the environment, showing that it’s a moral imperative to protect God’s creation. Groups like the Texas Baptists, Texas Impact, and others — the Houston Dominican Sisters — lots of religious folks around the state have really helped raise the profile of this issue and show that it’s not some lefty, treehugger issue, but a matter of basic moral fairness and concern. That’s been a huge help. A lot of churches are doing things like purchasing renewable energy credits, making their places of worship more energy efficient and other things, so they can do their part to help. Increasingly they are also organizing the congregations to contact legislators in support of different measures.

ICONOCLAST: I also want to ask you about Gaia theorist James Lovelock. He said recently that the earth is going through a natural shed of the human population through climate change. He predicts that a hot earth will sustain 500 million people as opposed to the six billion now currently living here. What are your thoughts on Lovelock’s analysis?

METZGER: Yeah, the predictions are pretty dire. We know that if we don’t take action within the next decade to dramatically reduce emissions, we’re going to, in the words of James Hampton (sic) from NASA, have a “vastly different planet,” in that we’re going to see more extreme weather. We’re going to see more drought. We’re going to have more smog and heat, more infectious diseases. So, yeah, that’s definitely going to have a toll on the human population. I think the World Health Organization already estimates that something like 100,000 deaths a year are linked to climate change. That’s a huge number, and they’re only going to get worse if we don’t do something about it.

ICONOCLAST: Any functions that Environment Texas will be holding in the near future?

METZGER: We’re part of a coalition of groups called the Alliance for a Clean Texas, and we’re having a lobby day on Feb. 26. It’ll be at the capitol. We haven’t determined a time or place, but people can find out details on our website where they can also join our email list.

INFO www.EnvironmentTexas.org