AUSTIN (KXAN) — There’s nothing trashy about this competition. Competitors walked the runway Sep. 14 covered head to toe in “trash” for the 9th Annual Trash Makeover Challenge. This year’s theme was Sheroes and Heroes.
Fifteen different teams of creatives, designers and artists competed in the competition at the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs Mansion. Each piece had to be made from 90% recycled materials.
The event is a fundraiser for the Texas Campaign for the Environment and has raised over $375,000 for the organization since the first competition.
Megan Pinto’s design, Elektra, was made out of bubble wrap, a yoga mat, chicken wire and a Mattel car toy play mat and outdoor tarp. It took home first place.
Last year’s winner, Veronica Vivanco, won The People’s Choice Award. A live auction was also a part of the fundraiser.
Kristie West was driving down the highway in rural South Texas when she saw it.
The drive from her ranch to the nearby town of Poth was usually uneventful. But on that day in 2017, West saw something that made her slam on the brakes of her pickup.
A white plastic bag had flitted into a horse pen behind a house where a young palomino was grazing. Someone who doesn’t work with livestock probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But West trained horses, and she knew the colt would treat the bag like a toy.
She quickly pulled into the yard and raced to the front door. A man answered.
“I said, ‘Do you care if I run out to check on your horse?'” West recalled. He said it was fine. “That’s all I said. I ran behind his house just as the horse took off running.”
When West got to the pen, the colt had already swallowed the bag, and she could see that he was suffocating. He then bolted, jumping a barbed wire fence. West ran after him. But she was too late.
“He was dead,” she recalled.
The prevalence of such incidents has prompted states and cities across the country to enact regulations to curtail the use of plastic bags, which can suffocate and cause fatal digestion blockages in livestock and wild animals. But in Texas, the regulation of plastic bags — grocery or otherwise — is all but nonexistent, and recent developments indicate it will remain that way.
Last year, the Texas Supreme Court struck down the city of Laredo’s plastic bag ban, effectively ending about a dozen similar policies in other Texas municipalities.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Eva Guzman agreed with her colleagues but said the state Legislature should clarify whether plastic bags can actually be banned and described the pollution as “an ongoing assault on our delicate ecosystem.” Earlier this year, Democratic state lawmakers attempted to do that, but the legislation they filed never even received public hearings.
Meanwhile, the absence of municipal regulations means many Texans have reverted to using plastic bags once again. And some say the litter is getting worse.
Although retailers like H-E-B still encourage customers to bring reusable bags to the store — the grocery chain also did away with the thin, single-use bags altogether in Austin — the wispy receptacles quickly reappeared at stores that had briefly switched to paper sacks before the court ruling, and the sight of plastic bags wafting down the highway remains a common one.
With little state regulation and a full stop from the state’s highest civil court, what’s a rancher to do?
“I don’t know what they could do,” West said. “The biggest thing is the people — that they just need to quit littering.”
Since the incident with the Palomino colt, West has been doing her part to raise awareness of how lethal plastic bag litter can be. For two years, she’s worked with the Independent Cattlemen’s Association of Texas to distribute bumper stickers that warn people in bold red letters that “plastic bags KILL animals.” For its part, the state’s environmental regulatory agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has its own anti-litter awareness campaign, called “Take Care of Texas.” (The well-known “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign was developed in 1985 by an Austin ad agency for the Texas Department of Transportation).
The TCEQ, which is also responsible for enforcing the state’s litter and dumping laws, does a number of things to combat littering, such as sending $5.49 million every year to councils of government across the state to fund public awareness campaigns, community trash pickups and litter surveillance. Between 2016 and 2017, that funding bankrolled more than 230 such projects across the state.
But environmental groups say it’s not enough.
Andrew Dobbs, legislative director at Texas Campaign for the Environment, said the state needs to ban single-use plastic bags or the problem will continue.
“Picking everything up is not really a solution at all, right?” he said. “You’re much better off unloading the gun than you are trying to wear a bullet-proof vest.”
Texans and environmental groups from across the state filed amicus briefs in support of the Laredo bag ban. One of them was Billy Easter, a rancher who lives near Wichita Falls.
Easter runs 200 head of cattle on 1,400 acres. He owns 2 miles of land along U.S. Highway 281, where he said he is constantly pulling plastic bags off barbed-wire fences. He said he’s lost cattle to plastic bags and that oftentimes ranchers don’t notice their livestock has swallowed one until it’s too late.
“These cows in the pastures, you don’t see them every day,” Easter said.
Although Easter and others urged the court to allow cities to make the bag ban choice for themselves, the state supreme court sided with the merchants. In its ruling, the court said that single-use bags are considered garbage and fall under the state’s solid waste disposal law, which preempts municipal ordinances.
But in her concurring opinion, Guzman urged the Legislature to take “direct ameliorative action” and change the laws to better address environmental concerns.
“Standing idle in the face of an ongoing assault on our delicate ecosystem will not forestall a day of environmental reckoning — it will invite one,” she said.
Two Democratic lawmakers attempted to heed that call earlier this year.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, and Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, filed legislation during this year’s legislative session that would have exempted single-use plastic bags from the Solid Waste Disposal Act, specifying that they do not quality as a “container or package.” That would have freed up municipalities to regulate them again.
Hinojosa argued that the law needed to be clarified because the original intention of the act was to regulate styrofoam and other manufacturing waste that went into landfills, not plastic bags.
“My bill sought to make absolutely clear that the statute is not meant to include single-use plastic bags in order to ensure local plastic bag ordinances are not preempted,” she said in an email.
Last year’s court ruling was the latest in a string of mostly legislative moves that have eaten away at local control. For cities like Brownsville, one of the municipalities that had to stop enforcing its ban on single-use bags after the court ruling, it’s frustrating that the state has not allowed communities to have control over their own environments.
Lawmakers “don’t want the federal government to tell them what to do, but they turn around and want the state to have control over the communities,” said Arturo Rodriguez, Brownsville’s public health and wellness director. “It’s a bit ironic because municipalities need to be able to exercise their due diligence within their domains.”
So why won’t the Texas Legislature take up the single-use plastic issue?
Jose Aliseda, a former Republican state representative, is the district attorney for Bee, Live Oak and McMullen counties, where he also runs cattle. Aliseda said he believes the plastics industry is too large and powerful to be swayed by the concerns of the agricultural community.
“The honest truth is there’s not enough of us,” he says of ranchers. “Yes, we’re a big part of the economy, but as far as the number of people, there’s not that many ranchers and farmers in the whole country.”
Chemical companies spent between $840,000 and $1.4 million on lobbyists during the 2019 legislative session, according to filings from the Texas Ethics Commission. The Texas Chemical Council, which represents the industry, declined to comment.
The Dow Chemical Co., one of the world’s foremost producers of plastic, didn’t respond to requests for comment about its Texas lobbying goals, but public records show the company spent the highest amount of any chemical company — between $275,000 and $459,000.
When asked about plastic lobbying efforts, a Dow spokesperson said the company participates in the political process in compliance with state and federal laws. Dow has several initiatives to end plastic waste, said spokesperson Ashley Mendoza, and promotes “post-use solutions” of plastics.
Some chemical groups take issue with the term “single-use” plastic bags and say they have many secondary uses, such as small trash can liners. Mendoza pointed to a 2019 study from the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management that found carryout bag bans in California resulted in greater numbers of heavy plastic garbage bags.
Some bag ban opponents say it’s up to retailers to prevent litter or that it’s the responsibility of each individual Texan. But the way Aliseda sees it, as governments across the country face mounting pressure to take action on environmental issues, Texas will eventually have to face the problem plastic inflicts on Texas agriculture and make a choice on how to deal with it.
“The state has to decide what’s more costly of the two options,” he said, “forcing the people that use the plastic bags or make plastic bags to change, or continue to basically be a nuisance on agriculture.”
HOUSTON — An internal City of Houston audit confirms what KHOU 11 Investigates uncovered about the handling of curbside recyclables: 2.6 million pounds ended up at the landfill in the first five months of this year.
The 12-page report, drafted by Chenella Queen, Senior Auditor for the Solid Waste Management Department, identified a total of 532 mishandled incidents across every sector of the city from January to June.
The 1,301 mishandled tons were about 11 percent of all recycling properly collected during that time.
The scope of the audit covered more than 11,700 documents related to daily driver work performance as well as landfill disposal data.
It also included interviews with solid waste truck drivers, supervisors, a senior superintendent, deputy assistant directors, deputy directors and Harry Hayes, the Solid Waste Management Department director.
It stated that solid waste drivers did an “excellent job” of documenting their activities in daily work logs, but supervisors failed to react or respond to entries that showed policy violations.
The report never states that management directed employees to haul recyclables off to the dump. One environmental watchdog said that doesn’t add up, given the number of incidents over so many months.
“From my experience, this is not the case of rogue drivers,” said Robin Schneider, Executive Director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment.
“I would put money on the fact that this was some level of supervisor that was directing people to do this,” Schneider said.
The audit suggested in some cases, mixing recycling with garbage was a consequence of sloppy practices rather than intentional rule breaking.
“A process should be put in place and strictly enforced which identifies partial loads remaining on trucks overnight or through the weekend,” Senior Auditor Queen wrote.
“In several instances employees unknowingly used a “parked” truck that contained either garbage or recycling and took that unit to their work route, thereby mixing the load unknowingly” Queen wrote.
But another audit finding pointed to a more deliberate disregard of city policy.
Mayor Sylvester Turner had a memo issued April 24 threatening “immediate disciplinary action” for any employee violating recycling rules.
Despite that directive, the audit found 106 mishandling incidents after the memo was issued.
“I think the mayor needs to seriously look at a change at the top,” Schneider said. “Firing a few truck drivers does not solve the problem at this department.”
In a cover letter to Mayor Turner, Solid Waste Management Director Harry Hayes said he “will administer corrective action per city/department policies.”
Hayes said that discipline will cover employees and members of the management team.
He did not say how many workers would be punished or how high up the discipline would reach.
Dallas County Commissioners passed a resolution Tuesday calling for tougher and faster environmental protection from the Texas Commission on Environment Quality (TCEQ).
The resolution cited three Dallas County problems where commissioners said they believed the TCEQ has failed to properly protect people.
“We are asking TCEQ, please do your job,” Commissioner Elba Garcia said.
The resolution received unanimous support from all five Dallas County Commissioners. Republican J.J. Koch joined the four Democrats in voting for the measure.
“No more excuses. Democrats and Republicans, we all have to work together,” Garcia said.
Corey Troiani with the Texas Campaign for the Environment said his group was lobbying other counties and cities to follow Dallas County’s lead.
“And with support from counties across the state, from officials across the state, we’re going to build that power with TCEQ and show them that they can’t say no to all of us,” he said.
The three cases cited in the Dallas County resolution are Blue Star Recycling Company’s so-called “Shingle Mountain” in southern Dallas, the former Lane Plating and Del Fasco Forge sites.
Resident Davante D. Peters lives near the Lane Plating site on Bonnie View Road in southern Dallas, where a youth baseball field is just downhill from the closed business.
“Me being a resident, I didn’t know about it until I got active,” Peters said. “So a lot of the residents still don’t know what’s going on right in their neighborhood.”
Lane Plating and the former Del Fasco Forge Company site on 28th Street in Grand Prairie have both been designated federal Superfund priority sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup of toxic pollution and ground water contamination.
Del Fasco Forge made practice bombs for the U.S. Navy and Air Force before it closed in 1998. It is surrounded by 100 homes and a middle school. The building has been leased for other businesses since.
The county resolution said the TCEQ did not require cleanup of toxic contamination that it discovered at both sites.
“TCEQ, I’ve said it publicly in our hearings, they are the problem,” County Commissioner John Wiley Price said.
National NAACP Environmental Justice Director Jacqui Patterson visited the Shingle Mountain site off S. Central Expressway Tuesday with neighbor Marsha Jackson.
“I went to Houston this weekend, had a great time. As soon as I got home, as soon as I came home, my head started hurting and I started getting sick, nauseated,” Jackson said.
Patterson said illness was a common complaint of neighbors who live near environmental hazards.
The TCEQ granted Blue Star Recycling a permit to operate the shingle recycling operation, but only for storage of a fraction of the material that wound up there.
“Enforcement is one of the biggest issues. You have rules on the books, but you don’t have the means of them being monitored or enforced. So, companies will often do as little as they can do until they are actually forced to do what they’re supposed to do,” Patterson said.
Last month a judge gave new executives with Blue Star Recycling six more months to complete a cleanup. Jackson said the company never really started to clean up in the three previous months the company was given by the judge to get the job done.
“The judge doesn’t have to live next to Shingle Mountain. Miss Jackson does and her neighbors do,” Dallas NAACP Vice President Kevin Felder said.
Patterson said the NAACP would pursue new legal action.
“We will be talking with our general counsel to get their input on next steps to really make sure that Miss Jackson and her neighbors are no longer in harm’s way,” Patterson said.
A group of activists gathered at Jackson’s home Tuesday for what they said was the start of a new war to remove Shingle Mountain.
AUSTIN — Construction on a San Patricio County plastics manufacturing plant that would bring 600 permanent jobs and up to 6,000 more in construction could begin within weeks after state regulators approved the project Wednesday.
Paul Guilfoyle, the venture executive for the ExxonMobil offshoot Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, said plans are on track for the “ethane cracker” plant to begin operations in 2022. Guilfoyle made the comment after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality unanimously approved the permit application after an hour-long hearing in Austin.
“We’ve spent a lot of time with the community — the schools, colleges, etc.,” Guilfoyle said.
The comment was in response to about a dozen protesters who attended the TCEQ hearing and staged a sign-waving demonstration before and after warning that the plant on 13 acres near Gregory would pose an air-quality threat to the Gulf Coast.
They warned of toxic emissions coming from the plant and had hoped the TCEQ would have required more air-quality monitoring at the facility’s fence line. Even though the commission declined to follow the recommendation, Chairman Jon Niermann urged the plant operators and the community to be “good neighbors to each other.”
Dewey Magee, whose home is about a half-mile from the site, called the suggestion laughable.
“How am I supposed to be good neighbors with all they pulled?” said Magee, who made the trip to Austin to witness the hearing.
He said he worries about the plant’s effects on his grandchildren and complained that work had begun on the site well before the permit was approved.
Guilfoyle called the protesters a “vocal minority” and said the project would comply with all environmental regulations. He said the permanent jobs would pay an average of $100,000 a year. And about 250 workers are already hired and undergoing training, he added.
The construction activity is only “site prep,” he added, which was allowed to commence prior to the permits being approved. Actual construction of the plant, though, could not begin until those permits were in place.
Both Gulf Coast Growth Ventures and attorneys for environmental groups the Sierra Club and the Texas Campaign for the Environment were able to address the commission prior to a vote being taken. The groups asked that the TCEQ require GCGV to incorporate fence line monitoring, as well as release information that was kept confidential during the permit application process.
TCEQ commissioners denied those requests, and also granted a request from GCGV to allow the permit to immediately take effect so they could begin construction as soon as possible. The decision on that accelerated timeline does not prohibit the environmental groups from filing a motion for rehearing, though.
The commission made the permit effective as soon as it is formally signed, but Niermann said the opponents still have the option to seek a “rehearing,” so any construction would come at Gulf Coast Growth Ventures’ own risk.
“We would still carefully and seriously consider any requests for rehearing,” Niermann said, referring to the commission’s decision on Wednesday. “I would also note that the applicant, if they elect to commence construction during this time period, would do that at their own peril.”
“Speaking just to the process, and not to the merits at this point, we very well may grant a request for rehearing,” he added.
Ilan Levin, a lawyer representing the Sierra Club and the Texas Campaign for the Environment, said he plans to seek a rehearing. Guilfoyle, meanwhile, said Gulf Coast Growth Ventures plans to proceed with the project that’s been more than two years in the making.
“We’re willing to accept the risk,” he said.
The multi-billion dollar plant to manufacture what Guilfoyle called “a family of plastic” consumer products from petroleum drilled in West Texas’ Permian Basin would be located near Gregory and is a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp.
Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge celebrated the announcement He said the project would go a long way to restoring the hundreds of jobs lost several years ago when Sherwin Alumina went under and ceased operations.
The GCGV project is the latest multi-billion dollar investment to get the go-ahead in the Coastal Bend, with Cheniere Energy’s LNG facility, Corpus Christi Liquefaction, beginning operations in November and Voelstapine’s iron processing facility starting up in 2016.
Steel Dynamics is considering Sinton as the site for a $1.8 billion flat roll steel mill, but has not made a decision yet, as it is still looking at locations in Texas and Louisiana.
“We fully anticipated the approval of this permit application and we’re excited for the continued progress that the Gulf Coast Growth Ventures project is making,” Strawbridge said. “It’s very rare to lose 600 jobs like we lost with Sherwin Alumina, only to have them come back in just a few short years and more so — better paying jobs — in a safer, cleaner environment that we saw with Gulf Coast Growth Ventures.”
“This community should be proud of these investments here and we’re just excited for the future of the Coastal Bend,” he added.
Two bills (HB 1331 and HB 1435) related to solid waste permitting were passed by the Texas state legislature this session. Each bill has been signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott and will take effect September 1.
HB 1331 raises the application fee for a municipal solid waste permit from $150 to $2,000. SB 1976, which would have increased the application fee to $5,000 plus the cost for public notice, didn’t receive a second hearing this session.
HB 1435 will require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to visit any facilities that will be used to “store, process, or dispose of municipal solid waste” and verify application information before required permits are “issued, amended, extended, or renewed.”
Dive Insight:
Texas is known for being less restrictive than some states when it comes to solid waste permitting — especially for landfills — so the passage of these seemingly minor laws is notable. Legislative records indicate both bills drew support from Waste Management, Republic Services and the Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE). SWANA’s Lone Star Chapter also supported HB 1435. The NWRA confirmed to Waste Dive it did not take a position on either bill.
TCE backed more than a dozen bills aimed at reforming the state’s waste system, but these were the only two that passed this year. Other notable bills that didn’t make it to the governor’s desk include HB 4568, which would have required businesses to use floodplain information from local authorities when making decisions about where to site landfills, and SB 987, which would have restricted the construction of landfills on certain aquifers.
“There’s a lot of bipartisan support for doing something, but unfortunately, most of those bills didn’t even get a hearing,” Andrew Dobbs, a TCE program director, told Waste Dive. “I think it’s because there’s a lot going on there, and some of these committees were slow-playing a lot of things. So that was kind of disappointing.”
Still, Dobbs said TCE is pleased HB 1331 will raise the permit application fee and hopes to see it increased again to cover the “hours and hours of agency time” often required to process submissions, which can be thousands of pages long. He also believes HB 1435 will help avert more potential issues at waste sites. “We’ve had instances in the past of applicants being misleading or lying on applications and dangerous proposals coming close to getting approved,” said Dobbs.
Looking ahead, Dobbs said the bipartisan attention these issues generated during the session is likely to lead to a reopening of permitting and enforcement of solid waste rules. More resistance could be expected if higher stakes proposals are introduced, but it’s also possible the industry may find common cause in bringing more regularity to the process.
“A large number of waste permits become knock-down, drag-out fights, and we believe that’s because the system is so lax that there’s a race to the bottom to get the cheapest, easiest landfill applications out there,” said Dobbs. “If we can tighten these things up, we can make sure bad proposals are never made in the first place. And whenever applications are put forward, everybody can be confident they’re going to move forward in a timely and predictable manner.”
As lawmakers talked this session about the damage and destruction their communities suffered when Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017, environmental advocates said two words were missing from the conversation: climate change.
Lawmakers sent aid to communities recovering from Hurricane Harvey this past session, including passing legislation that would put $1.7 billion toward repairs and flood control projects. But some environmental advocates and climate scientists think more needs to be done to study climate change’s impact and reduce emissions that contribute to extreme weather events.
“We’re not doing the ounce of prevention that’s worth a pound of cure,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, a non-profit that aims to reduce pollution.
The Fourth National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report completed in November that drew on more than 300 experts and 13 federal agencies, found that floods, heat waves, forest fires, and ocean acidification are projected to increase.
Over the last 100 years, sea levels have risen between 5 and 17 inches along the Texas coastline, according to the report.
“Climate change is real, it’s already here, and it’s only growing more intense,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. “Especially in a state where our temperatures are already so high, adding a few more degrees really severely intensifies our heat waves. And so there’s a lot of risks that we face.”
An August Texas General Land Office report that outlined recommendations and lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey downplayed the effects climate change has on Texas’ hurricanes.
“Some scientists argue these storms are a function of climate change, when in fact vulnerability of the state to hurricanes predates the effects of climate change,” the report read. “The simple fact is the geographic location of Texas makes it vulnerable to hurricanes which form in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.”
A report in November from the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas, which Gov. Greg Abbott created shortly after Hurricane Harvey, produced a long list of recommendations to “future-proof” the state, based on the assumption that Texas will face future disasters. The phrase “climate change” appears once in the nearly 200-page report — in the name of a scientific paper cited in a footnote.
Preparing for future disasters is a necessary step, said Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. But without accounting for climate change’s impact, it’s not a complete response, he said.
“It’s great to have a plan to recover after your house burns down, and have insurance and everything,” he said. “But it would be good to keep it from burning down in the first place.
“We’re going to have to adapt to climate change. There’s no world in which that’s not the case. And so it’s good to see them putting money toward that. Without climate studies, though… it’s hard to believe that money will be spent wisely.”
A handful of lawmakers were hoping to do that. They authored bills that would have studied the effects of climate change in Texas. But none reached one of the first steps of the legislative process: a committee hearing.
Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, saw his district pummeled by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. His district office was hit, and the devastation constituents faced left him chilled, he said. At least 68 people were killed in the storm and even more died as an indirect result.
“Some things can be replaced, but lives certainly can’t,” Reynolds said.
To deny that human activities have an effect on Texas’ natural disasters is negligent and irresponsible, Reynolds said, which is why he filed HB 1980. The bill would have established the “Climate Change Impact Assessment Council,” to study climate change’s impact “on the health, safety, and welfare of the residents of this state.”
While the bill was referred to a committee, it never received a hearing.
Reynolds said he plans to ask Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville, the chairman of the House Environmental Regulation Committee, to hold hearings on climate change in the interim now that the session is over.
Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, plans to do the same in the House Committee on International Relations and Economic Development, which he chairs, his chief of staff wrote in an email. Anchia’s bills related to the study of climate were also never heard in committee this past session.
“It only made sense for the Environmental Regulation Committee — even if we didn’t get the bill passed — to at least have a public hearing, so that we can have open dialogue about it,” Reynolds said.
And Texas voters have signaled that they want to see lawmakers taking action on the issue.
A University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll published in March found that 48% of registered voters in Texas said the U.S. government should be doing “a great deal” or “a lot” about climate change, 26% said it should be doing “a moderate amount” or “a little,” and 21% said the government should be doing nothing.
Broken down by party, 83% of Democrats surveyed said “a great deal” or “a lot” should be done, compared to 18% of Republicans and 43% of independents.
But in a Republican-controlled legislature, Reynolds said lawmakers “take their marching orders from the top.”
In December, Abbott deflected when asked whether he believes man-made global warming is contributing to Texas’ natural disasters.
“I’m not a scientist. Impossible for me to answer that question,” Abbott said to reporters at the time, according to The Associated Press.
But other Texas lawmakers have begun to take a more concrete stance on the issue, with Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn telling reporters earlier this month that “there is a growing consensus the days of ignoring this issue are over,” according to the Houston Chronicle.
Abbott’s office could not be immediately reached for comment on whether his stance on global warming has changed.
Abbott’s answer in December prompted a group of climate scientists and experts from across the state to send a letter, offering to brief him on climate science.
“He sure didn’t reach out to me,” said Cohan, who signed the January letter. “The offer stands.”
While the 86th was not a halcyon session for environmental progress – no surprise, alas, in Texas – there was indeed some limited improvement. The Texas Emissions Reduction Program (presuming the governor’s signature pen is in working order) was put on a permanent footing: continuation of the current fund (about $77 million/year, via HB 1) and soon a trust fund (HB 3745) to be administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (meaning more long-term money) for projects to improve air quality, particularly as related to transportation. There’s also new funding for parks and wildlife, and for Railroad Commission inspection of solid waste sites and wellheads.
Although literally years late, under the supplemental appropriations bill (SB 500) money was finally designated for Hurricane Harvey reconstruction ($1.7 billion in rainy day money), and SB 7, addressing infrastructure, was amended to include “nature-based” strategies (e.g., wetland restoration). At the Lege, hindsight rules – rather than acknowledge that changing climate conditions are creating weather disasters, officials are grudgingly funding post-flooding repairs. Nearly a dozen bills were introduced to “study” the effects of climate change – not one received a committee hearing.
The oil and gas industry “own the Capitol building,” said Robin Schneider of Texas Campaign for the Environment, speaking of the lobby’s success in blocking environmental progress. One bill, HB 3557, caused particular anger among activists: It will criminalize even peaceful nonviolent action against industry projects (e.g., pipelines), imposing state jail felonies for “impairing or interrupting” operations. (Opponents have already announced court challenges on First Amendment grounds.) Overall, said Adrian Shelley of Public Citizen, the Lege continues to value “corporate interests over the health and safety of Texans.”
Wikimedia Commons / Becker 1999. Under a new Texas law, protesters such as these people who protested the Dakota Access Pipeline could face felony charges.
In the closing hours of the legislative session, Texas lawmakers voted to approve a controversial measure that would make it a felony for protesters to interrupt the construction of oil pipelines.
Under House Bill 3557, “impairing or interrupting” a pipeline would become a felony punishable by up to two years behind bars. Damaging a pipeline during construction would carry even stiffer penalties, becoming a third-degree felony with up to 10 years in prison time.
Gov. Greg Abbott’s is expected to sign the energy industry-backed bill into law.
“This was a travesty,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, adding that the proposal is an assault on the free-speech rights of landowners, indigenous groups and environmental activists.
Critics say HB 3557 specifically targets environmental groups by allowing the state to fine nonprofits found guilty under the law as much as $500,000. Most would fold if hit with such a stiff financial penalty, they add.
Environmentalists and some lawmakers unsuccessfully argued for softer penalties during debate on the bill. Schneider likened a felony conviction to a “scarlet letter” which would be enough to convince some protestors to stay home.
“It’s a much deeper risk,” Schneider said. “I think a lot fewer people will be willing to stand in front of bulldozers.”
Last week, environmental and civil-liberties groups filed suit in Louisiana, alleging that state’s similar pipeline protest law is unconstitutional. Texas activists pledged to track the outcome of the Louisiana case.
This story was originally published by Grist and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The fight against a Texas pipeline just got a little more challenging. On Monday, the Texas Senate passed legislation that makes interfering with pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure a crime punishable by up to a year in prison and $10,000 in fines. And just the “intent to impair or interrupt” operations could still cost you a $4,000 fine and a year behind bars.
The new legislation raises the risk for landowners hoping to block construction of Kinder Morgan’s $2 billion, 430-mile natural gas pipeline from West Texas’ Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast. The proposed project would cut through the Hill Country, an ecologically sensitive 25-county region in Central Texas that is home to the endangered golden-cheeked warbler.
As oil and gas production booms in the Permian Basin in West Texas, companies have been rushing to build pipelines across the state. Kinder Morgan’s Permian Highway pipeline is currently the most prominent pipeline project in the state and has faced tremendous opposition from landowners who stand to have their property seized due to state law that grants private, for-profit companies the power of eminent domain. Residents are also concerned about groundwater contamination, as the project would come very close to Hill Country aquifers, one of which is the source of 80 percent San Antonio’s drinking water.
“It’s a pity that policymakers are continuing to protect the dirty fossil fuel industry and there are higher fines for chaining yourself to a fence than a company gets for poisoning the water with benzene,” said Jennifer Falcon, campaign manager for the Society of Native Nations. She called the legislation “a fear tactic to dissuade environmental justice movements.”
Since protests at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation against the Dakota Access Pipeline captured national attention in 2016, five states have enacted laws laying out harsh penalties for protesting so-called “critical infrastructure”—facilities such as pipelines, compressor stations, refineries, and wastewater treatment plants. At least seven other states are considering similar legislation. Laws in South Dakota are already being challenged in court and a similar legal pushback appears imminent in Louisiana, where at least 16 people have been arrested under one such law.
Meanwhile, in Texas, the state Senate passed its own anti-pipeline protest legislation 27-4 on Monday, with eight Democrats also supporting it. The House has already passed a version of the bill but will need to vote again on the Senate version, which has lighter penalties than the House bill. From there, it will head to Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s desk, where he is likely to sign it into law.
The bill’s sponsors have claimed the bill will not limit the ability of Texans to protest or picket.
“What this does is similar to what Oklahoma and Louisiana have done, is provide a disincentive to act beyond your First Amendment protest rights and begin damaging [infrastructure],” said Texas Senator Brian Birdwell, a Republican representing Dallas-Fort Worth and a sponsor of the bill on the Senate floor Monday. “If you go past the peaceful protest, then this act is operative.”
The legislation is similar to model bill language published by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative nonprofit backed by the Koch Brothers. The author and sponsor of the bill in both the House and Senate have ties to ALEC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Senator Birdwell and Texas House Representative Chris Paddie attended ALEC conferences in 2012 and 2016, respectively.
The bill has garnered overwhelming support from the oil and gas industry. In an email statement, Todd Staples, president of the industry group Texas Oil and Gas Association, said it is “badly needed because, unfortunately, we have seen too many examples of illegal activity that is costly to Texas businesses and local governments and puts employees of these facilities in danger, as well as endangering local law enforcement who respond.”
But environmental and labor groups oppose the legislation because they say it overly criminalizes regular protest activity. The Senate version of the Texas bill penalizes people who trespass “with the intent to damage or destroy the facility or impair or interrupt the operation of the facility.” The bill also makes organizations that “compensate” protesters liable for damages.
“A company could say, ‘By being on this property you’re interfering or impeding with operations,’ and that would be a misdemeanor,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, a nonprofit group.
Opponents of the Texas legislation succeeded in watering it down: An earlier version of the bill punished trespassers who interfered with oil and gas operations with felony charges on par with indecent exposure to a child. An amendment filed by Democratic Senator Juan Hinojosa downgraded the penalty to a misdemeanor, which is still punishable with up to a year in prison and a heightened penalty of $10,000 in fines.
Falcon from Society of Native Nations said the bill will have a disproportionate impact on indigenous communities and people of color. She cited a recent United Nations report that found extinction patterns in ecosystems protected by indigenous communities were less severe. “The data is there that we have been protecting ecosystems and our Earth while everybody else is turning a blind eye,” she said.
Falcon said her group plans to challenge the law in court. “We’re going to fight this in the higher courts and we will make sure that we protect our constitutional rights,” she said.
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