Victory for energy efficiency in Texas Legislature
Texas’ energy needs are growing, and demand could soon outstrip supply. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature has adopted new benchmarks that will help our state meet demand through more efficient energy use.
House Bill 3693 requires utilities to double their energy savings through efficiency measures to offset growth in demand. The bill also tightens building energy codes and creates a sales tax holiday (on Memorial Day) for efficient Energy Star appliances.
“Energy efficiency standards are a win-win-win policy,” said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas. “We can reduce our energy at half the cost of coal plants, in a fraction of the time, and with none of the pollution.”
Wildlife Commission proposes new Gulf protections
On Jan. 23, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission voted to propose new protections for a threatened fish species. The menhaden has been called the most important fish in the sea and plays an extremely important role in the health of the Gulf of Mexico. By filtering algae out of the water, menhaden help reduce algal blooms that have turned some waters into dead zones. Dolphins, pelicans and a host of other sea life also rely on menhaden for food.
Houston-based Omega Protein and other companies catch on average more than 1 billion pounds of menhaden in the Gulf of Mexico each year. The highly industrialized fishery uses planes to spot the fish and large factory boats with vacuums to suck up the fish from large encircling nets deployed by smaller boats. All of these fish are “reduced” into products such as fishmeal and fish oil for animal feed and other industrial uses.
Overfishing has devastated our Gulf Coast ecosystem.
