Walgreens responds to your letters

Written by

wgprotest2TCE Blog
Robin Schneider, Executive Director

It’s good to know that the letters you send to corporate or government decision-makers – hundreds or thousands of letters for each campaign – really do make a difference. One way we know this is true: our letter-writing targets often write back! They respond to you because they are concerned what their customers and voters think about their policies.

In May 2015, thousands of TCE supporters started sending letters to Walgreens calling on the company to get tough on toxic chemicals. We sent Walgreens this organizational letter urging the company to finalize its long-promised safe chemicals policy. Walgreens started writing back to our supporters within one month! Here are excerpts of their response letter and our perspective on the key points.

Walgreens:
“Walgreens has a long history of action involving product safety and working to ensure that our owned-brand products meet federal, state, and local safety regulations and guidelines.”

Our response:
That is all well and good except for the fact that in the U.S. and in Texas, regulations and guidelines are not adequate. If those standards were doing the job, we would not have toxic products on any store shelves. Sadly, the government is asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting Texans from unnecessary dangerous chemicals in consumer products. That’s why we need big retailers like Walgreens to step in and “mind the store.” Even some of Walgreens “owned-brand products” (or house brands) tested high for toxic chemicals, such as Nice! Powdered Vinyl Gloves and Pet Shoppe Tennis Ball Dog Toy.

Walgreens:
“[W]e recognize that many of our customers are concerned about the chemical ingredients of the products they buy and bring into their homes.”

Our response:
It’s great that Walgreens is cares about their customers’ concerns. Every additional letter that our supporters write drives that point home. We hope the company will take action to get harmful chemicals out of products they sell.

Walgreens:
“The [house brand] Ology features a variety of household and personal care products that are free of chemicals of concern.”

Our response:
It’s great that Walgreens has shown that it can work with suppliers to get rid of certain chemicals of concern. This shows that the company has the power to get toxic chemicals out of products on store shelves. We also appreciate that Walgreens lists the chemicals of concern that are not in Ology products on its website. Now they need to take the next step and broaden the list of safer products and the chemicals of concern so that all of its house branded products and brand name products are safer and free of toxic chemicals.

Walgreens:
“We are making it our priority to continue our work with the vendor and retail community to address product ingredients and we recently initiated organizational changes that identify this as a key component of our company’s broader corporate social responsibility program. We are in the process of developing a Chemical Sustainability Program.”

wgprotestOur response:
We congratulate Walgreens for taking these first steps. Now we would like them to finish the job, and make sure their policy is as comprehensive and as protective of the health of our families and pets as possible. It should be transparent so that they can be held accountable to high standards of performance on this journey to safer products. A comprehensive approach by Walgreens should include these essential elements:

  • Disclosure of toxic chemicals (including in fragrances) in private label and brand name products to Walgreens and customers, especially for cosmetics, cleaning products, and other products for infants, children and women of childbearing age, and pet supplies;
  • Development of a comprehensive Restricted Substance List (RSL) for chemicals in private label and brand name products, especially for cosmetics, cleaning products, and other products for infants, children and women of childbearing age, and pet supplies;
  • Encouraging suppliers to reduce, phase out and eliminate chemicals of high concern in private label and brand name products;
  • Avoiding “regrettable substitutes”, to ensure that suppliers don’t transition from one dangerous chemical to another; and
  • Publicly reporting on benchmarks and a time frame for implementing their policy.

Walgreens is a company dedicated to health and wellness, and so it has a responsibility to ensure their products don’t contain toxic chemicals. In the months to come, we will be paying close attention to the chemicals policy they develop and announce. We want Walgreens to do what’s right for our families!

Environmentalists Protest Dollar Stores Toxic Inventory

Written by

fd-protest1KLBJ Newsroom

Austin environmentalists are targeting those Dollar stores you see around town and throughout the state. They protested in front of a Family Dollar store in South Austin. They say low-income families and communities of color are getting sick from toxic products bought there.

According to Texas Campaign for the Environment’s Andrew Dobbs, over 71 percent of the products from the four leading dollar store chains in Texas they had lab tested, contained at least one or more hazardous chemicals. Dobbs says the four big dollar chains, including Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Just 99 Cents Stores, earn an estimated $36 billion dollars annually and will sometimes sell expired, discontinued merchandise and recalled products. Dobbs says the stores also sell products with hazardous plasticizers and hormone disrupters.

Those substances have been linked to learning disabilities, diabetes, cancer and other illnesses that disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color.

“Here at Family Dollar,” Dobbs explains, “they were selling a set of earrings. They could be marketed towards children, but they’re just low-dollar earrings with a cardboard backing. Those had 65 times the safe level of lead in them. according to independent laboratory tests.”

Dobbs claims the dollar stores could clean up their act without wrecking their bottom lines.

“There are safer alternatives to every one of these chemicals that are no more expensive than the ones they’re using today.” Dobbs goes on to say “They might have to be slightly more conscientious, but it shouldn’t cost them any more money.” He points to the actions of other retailers. “Their competitors including Wal-Mart are starting to make moves in the right direction. If Wal-Mart and Target and a variety of other retailers can do this, they can too.”

fd-protest2

What’s the Damage? Fallout from the 84th Texas legislative session

Written by

txlegeAustin Chronicle
Michael King

As in many years, the environmental fights at the 84th Legislature were mostly not to do good things, but to prevent bad things from happening – and at best, it was a split decision.

The headline disaster was House Bill 40, often described as the Legislature’s attempt to stop local bans on oil-and-gas “fracking.” In fact, it’s much broader than that: In language that waxes grandiloquently about the “healthy and economically vibrant communities” produced by the state’s responsible development of oil and gas resources, the statute goes on to “expressly preempt the regulation of oil and gas operations by municipalities and other political subdivisions.”

Any local regulation of any kind – restricted only to surface activities – must be “commercially reasonable.” In other words, hydrocarbon rules.

In Senate Bill 709, the Lege took parallel steps to make it more difficult for citizens to contest permits (to pollute) granted by the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality – unless a Texan is directly and personally affected by the permit, it will be much harder to get a hearing. The law’s only virtue is that it just might provoke Environmental Protection Agency intervention – an outcome not exactly contemplated by its authors.

Defeated were several bad bills – notably several attempts to undermine local bag bans – and there were slight improvements in the regulation of ammonium nitrate storage.

But on the whole, said Robin Schneider of Texas Campaign for the Environment, “The oil-and-gas, chemical industry, electric utilities, and waste industry are big winners this session. Industry said, ‘Jump,’ and most Republican and many Democratic legislators responded, ‘How high?'”

The Sierra Club’s Ken Kramer summed up the session as a “mixed bag” regarding water issues, especially in the wake of the final defeat of what has been nicknamed “Gridzilla” – a “proposed state water ‘grid’ of reservoirs, pipelines, pumping stations, and other infrastructure to move massive volumes of water around Texas” – by an environmental, rural, and fiscally conservative coalition. Kramer said there was some progress on uses of graywater and other secondary water sources, as well as many “water project” bills that will have to be monitored in implementation.

Very late last week, it had appeared that Hays County citizens’ uphill campaign for broader regulation of the Trinity Aquifer (HB 3405) had died on the House floor. Instead, it was magically resurrected by the reversal of a parliamentarian’s ruling, and is on the governor’s desk. Whether it will succeed in saving residential wells from commercial drainage remains to be seen.

Tom “Smitty” Smith of Public Citizen also summarized a mixed report card for the session, saying there had been some progress on residential solar and on water conservation, but also pointing to HB 40 and SB 709 as “limiting local control and citizens’ rights.” “Thwarting ugly bills,” Smitty noted, has its own virtues: Right up to sine die, Gridzilla remained on his watch list.

Abbott Signs Bill to Speed Permits, Limit Protests

Written by

valeroTexas Tribune
Jim Malewitz

Gov. Greg Abbott has signed legislation aiming to quicken regulators’ pace of cranking out permits for major industrial projects by limiting public scrutiny — another victory for a wide range of industries and a blow to consumer and environmental advocates.

Senate Bill 709, which will now become law Sept. 1, is intended to scale back contested-case hearings, a process that allows the public to challenge industrial applications for permits at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), such as those allowing wastewater discharges or air pollution emissions.

Led by state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, and state Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, supporters argued that Texas’ current slow-moving bureaucracy was driving would-be employers into Louisiana and other neighboring states, and that the legislation – signed on Saturday – would give them more certainty here.

“We’re losing a lot of jobs to surrounding states,” Fraser said in April. “This is clearly for economic development.”

But critics are worried that limiting the process would stifle what little voice everyday Texans have when manufacturers, chemical plants, landfills and other high-polluting businesses set up shop in their communities.

“The polluter lobbyists said they want Texas to have regulations weaker than Louisiana’s, and we’ll end up with Louisiana’s problems: cancer, birth defects, developmental disorders in children, and the collapse of agriculture and commercial fishing,” Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, said Sunday in a statement.

Contested-case hearings resemble trials in which companies and their critics present evidence and testimony in front of an administrative law judge in hopes of swaying regulators, who have the final say in granting, denying or modifying a permit application. For particularly complicated industrial projects, the process can yield information that the short-staffed TCEQ did not foresee.

Protesters rarely persuade regulators or a company to withdraw a permit application, but veterans of the process say they often win concessions that shrink a plant or landfill’s effects on the community.

Though less than 1 percent of TCEQ permit applications involve such hearings, industry groups say the process takes too long – sometimes years – and breeds uncertainty that prompts businesses to move elsewhere.

The law, which takes effect Sept. 1, overhauls the hearings process in a variety of ways. It gives the TCEQ sole discretion to determine who is an “affected person” who could ask for a hearing; sets an 180-day time limit for the proceedings (with potential exceptions); narrows the issues the public could argue; and arguably shifts the burden of proof from the company to the public.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has called the changes problematic, and opponents argued that the new rules could prompt the agency to assert its control over the permits Texas currently doles out. As it has in other states over the past four decades, the EPA has given Texas the authority to permit and enforce a variety of air, waste, water and mining programs after lengthy and complex negotiations.

“EPA is concerned that as currently drafted, [the legislation] could be read to impact the applicability of federal requirements to federal permitting programs being implemented by the TCEQ,” David Gray, director of external affairs for the EPA’s Dallas-based regional office, recently wrote to state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, who had asked for input.

Fraser and Morrison have said that they aren’t worried about an EPA review.

New requirements for ingredient that triggered West explosion headed to Gov. Abbott

Written by

west-hb-942Dallas Morning News
Marissa Barnett

AUSTIN—The Senate gave final approval Thursday to new regulations for ammonium nitrate. The changes are in response to a 2013 explosion at a fertilizer plant in West that killed 15 people. Now it’s left to Gov. Greg Abbott to approve the legislation in order for it to become law.

“What we’ve done in the bill were the right steps to swing the pendulum to the middle,” Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, said describing the balance between protecting health and safety and keeping minimal regulation.

In the short debate, Birdwell emphasized that the changes would not be burdensome to business.

In the aftermath of West, authorities and health and safety experts identified myriad ways a lax and disjointed regulatory system contributed to the explosion. The legislation aims to address some of those issues. But it doesn’t require sprinkler systems or other chemical safety measures recommended after West.

Under the approved changes, the state and local fire marshals would have the authority to inspect facilities that store ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in fertilizer, and issue citations for violations in code. It would also require that the chemical be stored separate from combustible materials.

Operators would submit “Tier II reports,” forms about chemicals stored or used at their facilities, to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, instead of the Department of State Health Services. Facilities would still also be required to submit a copy to local fire departments, but the bill also would require that fire departments be given copies by the state.

Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, said she was grateful the new regulations were approved. But the “same lawmakers have gutted other basic protections this year on a variety of other dangerous operations,” she said.

Other legislation approved this session would make it more difficult for Texans to object when chemical plants get permits to build near homes and schools.

“We need lawmakers that are not just motivated to protect their reputations when high profile dangers are shown on TV. We need a commitment to common sense laws which protect human health, public safety, and the environment for all communities in Texas,” Schneider said.

While lawmakers proposed a handful of other bills this session responding to the West blast, the measure approved by the Senate Thursday is the only legislation to make it through the Legislature. Other proposals, including one that would require facilities that store ammonium nitrate to maintain liability insurance stalled in committee. Currently, state law does not require such companies to have insurance.

The West Fertilizer Co. carried $1 million in liability insurance, but the cost of damaged property there has reached up to $240 million, according to testimony from the consumer-protection group Texas Watch.

Dallas’ bag fee is working — let it continue

Written by

dmnbags2

Dallas Morning News Op-Ed
Zac Trahan, Texas Campaign for the Environment
Molly Rooke, Dallas Sierra Club

Love it or hate it, Dallas’ single-use bag ordinance is working.

The evidence is in: The 5-cent fee on disposable shopping bags has vastly reduced the sheer number of bags Dallas retailers and consumers are churning through. There’s been a massive decrease — probably in the tens of millions of single-use bags — in just the first few months of 2015. So let’s pat ourselves on the back a little, Dallas!

Rather than innovate and change to more reusable products, plastic bag manufacturers have responded by filing a lawsuit against the city. They’re clinging to the notion that Texans will always consume billions of single-use bags each year. But the trend shows otherwise, and it should continue. If manufacturers succeed in stopping the bag fee, the Dallas City Council should respond by phasing out single-use bags altogether to keep this progress going.

Let’s start with the hard numbers. Dallas retailers indicated through their fee remittance payments that they distributed roughly 11 million single-use bags at a nickel each during the first three months of 2015. Not all retailers are following the rules, so that may be an underestimate.

However, the expected number of bags used in Dallas during the quarter, based on a national estimate that the average American uses 335 disposable bags each year, would have been about 90 million bags. The ordinance is having an undeniable impact.

Thanks to a recent Dallas Morning News poll, we also know that almost 60 percent of Dallas residents now say they’re bringing their own bags to the store. Anyone can go into any major retailer in Dallas today and see the difference: So many more people have reusable bags. In some stores, reusable bags are the norm and single-use bags are the exception. It was the opposite before the ordinance. And at smaller stores, many people just carry their snacks or soda or other items in their hands.

This new ordinance is already making a visible difference. We’re seeing fewer single-use bags litter our neighborhoods. We’re finding less plastic bag pollution in our waterways. A friend who regularly canoes the Trinity River recently told us, “It’s like someone turned off the spigot.”

As strong proponents for a cleaner, greener city, we think it’s great that Dallas has chosen to be a leader on this issue. That’s having an impact too: The Balch Springs City Council is now considering a single-use bag ordinance as well. Laredo just put its bag ordinance into effect April 30. Port Aransas will put its into effect in January. The list of Texas cities taking action is steadily growing, and that’s what has the bag manufacturers scared.

Rules on disposable shopping bags have initially created some controversy everywhere they’ve been implemented. That’s understandable because it affects our daily lives. Luckily, it’s not that complicated. Just bring your own bags to the grocery store. If you forget and you want to use disposable bags in Dallas, you’ll pay a nominal fee that will serve as a reminder for next time while giving the city some money to educate residents and clean up litter in our communities.

A recent study from the Journal of Environmental Psychology suggests that the simple act of taking a split second to think about paying for single-use bags can deactivate our “autopilot” mode for just long enough to remind us about the connections between our everyday actions and long-term environmental sustainability.

Dallas is ahead of the curve on this particular litter and pollution problem. Rather than struggle against this positive change, we should think about what we can do next. For instance, the city should pass an ordinance so that all apartments and businesses offer recycling programs for their residents and tenants. That’s where most of our waste is coming from.

So how about it, Dallas? We’ve taken a step toward a cleaner environment. Let’s keep going.

Zac Trahan is the statewide program director for Texas Campaign for the Environment. Molly Rooke is a member of the Dallas Sierra Club.

Battery recycling bill on table in Texas

Written by

batteryrecycleE-Scrap News
Jared Paben

The Texas Legislature’s serious consideration of a law mandating take-back and recycling for all household batteries sends a signal to other states considering the same, an advocate for the bill says.

“If conservative Republicans in Texas are advocating for battery recycling, legislatures all across the country have the green light to do this,” Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, told E-Scrap News. “Even if the legislation doesn’t pass the first time around, it provides impetus and some leverage for other legislatures to also get on board with this issue.”

HB 3153 would require the battery industry create a free statewide takeback and recycling program for single-use and rechargeable batteries. Battery makers that refuse to participate would be prohibited from selling batteries in the state.

Manufacturers — or stewardship organizations working on their behalf — would submit plans to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which would approve or require plan modifications. The plans would include participating manufacturers, collection locations, goals, plans for recycling and public outreach activities.

At a May 5 hearing, the House of Representatives Committee on Environmental Regulation decided to hold off approving the bill. The decision came after the author, Rep. Rodney Anderson, a Republican representing Irving/Grand Prairie, asked that it be studied in more depth because only one other state, Vermont, has established a similar program.

Some think the bill goes too far, while others think it fails to go far enough, Anderson told the committee.

“It’s really trying to create a framework for an agreed-upon bill between industry, between the battery manufacturers,” Anderson said.

If it isn’t considered this year, the bill could be approved during the next legislative session, which would take place in 2017.

Schneider said the bill would be the first in the country to cover both single-use and rechargeable batteries.

Industry-funded nonprofit organization Call2Recycle organizes the nationwide collection and recycling of rechargeable batteries. Call2Recycle CEO and President Carl Smith testified at the hearing in favor of mandatory participation, noting that his organization pays to collect and recycle a substantial number of batteries from nonparticipating manufacturers.

In 2007, a GOP representative in the Texas House of Representatives carried a bill to establish extended-producer responsibility for computers, and another Republican authored a similar bill for televisions in 2011. Both were signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Perry.

“What we continue to show in Texas is that producer takeback recycling is not a partisan issue and there’s strong support from conservative Republicans for this policy,” Schneider said.

Schneider: Stop denials on ‘frackquakes’; preserve local ordinances

Written by

azleearthquakeAustin American-Statesman Op-Ed
Robin Schneider, Texas Campaign for the Environment

Scientists have finally begun to confirm what many Texans have long suspected: The oil and gas drilling technology known as “fracking” and the disposal of fracking wastes likely has caused earthquakes across Oklahoma and North Texas. This is hardly a surprise, as Oklahoma has now become the nation’s top state for earthquakes — blowing past California — despite having close to zero quakes on record before fracking boomed there in recent years.

What should be a surprise — but sadly isn’t — is how Texas politicians and regulators have tried to deny these basic facts. They are not only ignoring evidence that industry is literally ripping the ground from beneath our feet, they are doing everything in their power to strip away even the minimal protections we’ve enjoyed to this point. It’s time for Texans to stop them.

If you read the superb April 24 story from the American-Statesman’s Asher Price, you saw that Republican state Rep. Myra Crownover of Denton — home of some of the most aggressive drilling in urban areas — said she would only be convinced by peer-reviewed science, which is an appropriate standard. Unfortunately for Crownover, the most recent evidence comes from the U.S. Geological Survey and researchers at Southern Methodist University (hardly an institution known for its hostility to big oil — Dick Cheney once sat on its Board of Trustees) and was peer-reviewed in the academic journal Nature Communications.

So by her own standards was Crownover convinced? Of course not. She could only bring herself to say that the information is “fascinating.” A Lawrence Wright book is “fascinating.” The fact that Crownover’s own constituents are seeing their homes damaged and possibly even their lives threatened by “frackquakes” is not fascinating — it’s a cause for alarm.

Crownover has received more than $42,000 from oil and gas interests in recent years, according to Texans for Public Justice. Even more in the bag of industry is the very agency charged with regulating oil and gas, the Texas Railroad Commission. Even while Oklahoma acknowledges that earthquakes and fracking are likely related, Railroad Commission officials are doing next to nothing to respond to the new information.

On the contrary, lawmakers are moving quickly to strip some of the only protections Texans have right now. The Texas House passed House Bill 40 on April 20 with the support of a majority of both parties. HB 40 would strip local governments of their ability to protect residents not just from fracking, but from virtually any aspect of the oil and gas industry. Hundreds of local protections are threatened with repeal, including ordinances that keep frack waste injection wells outside of population centers. These communities will face expensive lawsuits from the very industry that is causing earthquakes, air pollution, enormous water consumption and dangerous accidents.

Texas needs these protections, and it is imperative that Texans speak out not only about these risks, but also about politicians rejecting science for the sake of short-sighted industries.

There is one final, important point that needs to be made here. In Price’s Statesman article there was an important sentence in parentheses — “(There is no fracking in the Austin area).” One important word needs to be added to this sentence: “yet.”

While there will likely not be any drilling in the city of Austin, the Eagle Ford Shale that extends into Bastrop County will be ripe for drilling if and when the price of natural gas goes up. For all of the associated industries and their pollution — compressor stations, pipelines, frack sand depots, disposal of the frack water and so on — there is nothing to say that those activities won’t make it into Travis County, Hays County or other nearby areas. If HB 40 or its companion legislation Senate Bill 1165 pass, there will be nothing local governments can do about it. Frackquakes or other pollution could be coming our way too.

We all know that everything is bigger in Texas, but does that have to include our denial? Residents in North Texas have come to realize the risks of fracking and have taken action to protect their health, families and property. Central Texans need to stand up too while we still can. We need our politicians to be more than “fascinated” by the latest facts. We need them to be moved to action. Your voice can help make that happen.

Robin Schneider is executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment.

2 years after West explosion, little regulation proposed

Written by

Andy Pierrotti
KVUE News Austin
Original story here

WEST, Texas — Two years after the West explosion, some watchdog groups say the state has done little to improve safety involving chemical facilities. This session, state lawmakers have filed at least four bills in direct response to the explosion, but advocates say legislation that could create meaningful change stand little chance to becoming law.

HB 2470, drafted by State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin), would require facilities, which carry ammonium nitrate, carry liability insurance That’s the same chemical stored in the fertilizer plant in West. Earlier this month, the House Committee on Environmental Regulation held a hearing on it, but it was left pending.

Another bill, HB 924, would allow smaller municipalities to enact their own fire codes. Right now, state law prevents counties with populations of 250,000 or less from creating their own fire code.

Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso) filed HB 417. It which would give the state fire marshal the power to write his own fire safety rules. Under current law, the fire marshal is required to ask permission to inspect chemical plants and can only offer recommendations to facility owners.

Robin Schneider with Texas Campaign for the Environment said she believes state lawmakers are actually considering legislation that could make it easier for tragedies like West to happen again.

“Two years after the west explosion to the day the Texas house past another bill that takes away local ability to deal with potential health and safety problems that could lead to another catastrophe,” Schneider said.

KVUE_Robin1

Schneider is specifically talking about HB 40, drafted by Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo). If passed, the bill would give the Texas Railroad Commission the authority to over-ride city laws involving oil and gas operations, including hydraulic fracking. Schneider says the consequences of prohibiting local municipalities from regulating oil and gas could cause another West tragedy.

“The legislators don’t understand that you can’t just have businesses regulate themselves. There are some that do the right then, but there are others that take them lightly,” said Schneider.

Messages left at Darby’s officer were not returned.

The Texas Public Interest Research Group wants the federal government to step in.

“Preventing chemical accidents isn’t rocket science,” wrote Sara Smith, director of TexPIRG in a news release on Friday. “Chemical facilities simply need to switch to less dangerous alternatives. Some have done it voluntarily, but the EPA needs to make a rule that requires all facilities to make the switch. We’ve already seen that we can’t rely on the Texas legislature.”

Overnight Vigil Held at Texas Capitol

Written by

Photo: Vanessa RamosMax Anderson Film
Original article here

Austin, TX – A group of about 40 concerned citizens from across the state gathered at the South gate of the Texas Capitol on Monday evening to hold an overnight vigil against a bill which threatens municipal ordinances that protect property, public safety and the environment.

Click here to view all the photos from Monday night’s rally. 

Concerns about House Bill 40 and companion Senate Bill 1165 prompted citizens from across the state to protest what they say is an anti-democratic attack on basic Texas values, like local control.

Protesters from Texas Campaign for the Environment, Texas Sierra Club, Public Citizen Texas, National Nurses United, and Environment Texas held signs, chanted, and erected an 18 foot mock fracking rig with a flare to protest HB 40, which will be up for debate and a vote in the Texas House on Tuesday, April 14. Even with amended language in the bill, it would still take away local governments authority to protect citizens and property from oil and gas development in urban and suburban areas.

HB 40, if passed, would drastically limit the ability of local governments to regulate oil and gas extraction activities, including hydraulic-fracturing or fracking. This comes on the heels of a big win in Denton last November when citizens voted overwhelmingly, 59 to 41, to put a moratorium on the practice of fracking within the city limits.

The state of Texas has challenged Denton’s ban, both through the Texas General Land Office, and the Texas Oil and Gas Association. But, now the Texas Legislature is seeking to preempt local control protections for our health and safety. Ellen Friedman from the Austin Climate Action Network said, “The pro-corporate legislators act against the interests of the state citizens and the common-good.”

The bill, HB 40, would allow cities to regulate surface activities, such as noise, lights and truck traffic. But, if the bill passes, municipalities would no longer be able to regulate subsurface activities or establish a minimum distance between fracking wells and school, hospitals, businesses or homes.

Austin local Krissy O’Brien is against HB 40 because she says local government is best equipped to handle the needs of a city when it comes to health and safety.

“The people of Denton have spoken,” said O’Brien. “They voted to keep fracking out of their city.”

Robin Schneider, the Executive Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, is also concerned about the attack on local control and helped organize the event.

“People have spent years of their lives to protect their communities from real dangers of oil and gas drilling, especially in urban areas,” said Schneider. “And this bill will wipe out those ordinances and make it dicey to amend ordinances, and intimidate cities that haven’t put ordinances in place. It’s a real problem.”

The threat that the protesters worry about is substantial. Just this past weekend in Arlington, Texas a “very serious” mishap caused 115 people to evacuate their homes when pressurized water began to back flow out of a fracked well. Local officials were concerned that natural gas could leak and catch fire. The well took two days and three attempts before it was successfully plugged.

Dallas resident and Program Director at Texas Campaign for the Environment, Zac Trahan, said that if the bill passes it would overturn not just Denton’s fracking ban, but other local control ordinances in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and across the state. Trahan said, “HB 40 gives the industry the tools they need to overturn any ordinance that they deem unreasonable.”

The Program Director for Texas Campaign for the Environment’s Austin office, Andrew Dobbs, said the rally Monday night is about bearing witness to what is happening with this bill, and the implications for communities around the state to protect themselves from harmful activities related to the oil and gas industries.

“It’s about saying we were here,” said Dobbs. “We stood up to this. And five, 10, 20 years down the line when, if this bill passes, the real fruits of it come to bear, and communities are being wrecked left and right, and somebody’s saying, ‘I didn’t know. Who knew? How come nobody said anything?’ We can say, ‘no, that’s not true.’ We did. We spoke up. We spoke the truth. We bore witness, and we’re here today to continue fighting on this.”