Texas environmental news roundup

Does radioactivity from oil waste threaten a school in Johnson County? That's the Observer discussing the issue;

The Barbed Wire has something even more in-depth. As both note, there's also a 2,500-home residential development in the area. And, the whistleblower about the situation, Mike Oldham, has credible medical history about how the radioactivity has affected him from his time in burying that waste.

That story notes that the county is actually investigating, with someone who has relevant background.

The piece also notes that people who know, from another fracking state like Pennsylvania, think HOW the waste got there is fucking nuts. 

Will Hawk Dunlap talk more about radioactivity and oilfield waste between now and election day? (Living in a small county, I'll likely be voting the GOP ballot due to contested local elections; assuming I do, I definitely vote him on the RRC election.) 

Downwinders at Risk are among Texas environmental nonprofits kneecapped by EPA grant cuts. 

Hegar, Paxton, sued over "ESG" Senate Bill 13: thoughts

Kenny Boy and the under-the-radar semi-nutter, Comptroller Glenn Hegar, are being sued for the state's law requiring "divestment" from companies that themselves have divested of fossil fuels. The lawsuit by the American Sustainable Business Council (the Trib, to which I'm not linking, said "Coalition") claims this is viewpoint discrimination and violates both First and Fourteenth Amendments. Also, members of the coalition claim, and rightly, that the economic harms of climate change make this a legitimate business decision. It also claims lack of due process and other reasons for hauling in the Fourteenth Amendment.

Odds of success? Per the old cliché, probably "slim," but yet, definitely more than "none."

First, this is a federal lawsuit, not a state one. Right there, that. increases the odds of success.

Related to that? Contra some BlueAnon that want to paint the Fifth Circuit as a monolith on all wingnut issues, many cases over the past few years have shown it's sympathetic to First Amendment cases.

Second, these are folks with deep pockets. They can and will fight.

Related to this? They want to cut off at the pass similar ideas in other states.

Third, they make sound business decision arguments as well as First and Fourteenth Amendment ones.

So, the likely course?

They win the preliminary injunction request at district. State appeals.

They possibly win at Fifth Circuit. Win or lose, somebody appeals.

IF SCOTUS grants the injunction, Hegar and Paxton are before next year's Lege, asking for follow-up legislation, knowing that this trial is going to take a few years.

The on the merits issue?

I think they can win on lack of due process, on that portion. Assuming the suit's various claims can be considered as severable, the First Amendment angle will be harder to fight. Federal law allows lower governments, I think, some leeway on state investments, and certainly, Texas state law does.

Texas Progressives talk state GOP, Uvalde, abortion, lizards

I'm a secularist, so no thoughts and prayers, or tots and pears, for people in Valley View, but yes, sympathy for the families, remembrance of the dead, and finally, recognition of the frailty, and absurdity in a Camus way, of life in general.

==

The Texas GOP has gone even more batshit crazy, per state convention resolutions, plus shown that, more than ever, it's afraid of competition. (Don't be shocked; both duopoly parties are.) Plus, not that it's ever stopped either Tex-ass GOP voters or its leadership before, but, the "win a majority of counties for statewide office" is clearly unconstitutional — until and unless SCOTUS wants to undo Baker et al. More batshitness starts with the election of Abraham George as party leader. That's even as the disarray increases, and the money, other than Wilks and Dunn type drops, slows down.

Meanwhile, everybody there had fun kicking Dade "Dade" Phelan.

After getting a settlement against the city of Uvalde, parents are now suing Daniel Defense, Activision and Facebook's parent. They're also suing the DPS. Good luck on both.

The Monthly casts a sharp eye on the Board of Pardons and Paroles work in getting Daniel Perry off the hook.

Off the Kuff is not surprised that no one likes the guidance on abortion provided by the Texas Medical Board. 

SocraticGadfly salutes the potential, though not environmentally guaranteed, Endangered Species Act listing for the dunes sagebrush lizard.

New Mexico has a state ethics commission that actually works, contra ours here in Tex-ass. 

Liberal American Zionism is dead, dead, dead. Maybe here in Tex-ass, Kuff will write about Zionist repression of pro-Palestinian student protestors. (Nahh, would undercut his BlueAnon tribalism.)

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said that traitors don’t honor brave service & Memorial Day. (Note: Aquino's definition of "traitor" is #BlueAnon tribalist. But, rather than delete, I'm leaving it here with that note.)

Space City Weather explains what a derecho is.

The New Atlantis uses the proposed I-35 expansion in Austin as an illustration of "induced demand".

CultureMap previews an imminent docuseries on the history of the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Texas Monthly interviews Colin Allred, and annotates their interview as they go. (And doesn't push as hard as it could.)

Finally, congratulations to the Harris County Public Library system and the Houston Children's Museum for winning 2024 National Medals for Museum and Library Service.

Environmental briefs: Citizen suit, criminal charges win out

Oxy, one of the big gas drillers even after an overpay merger with Anadarko, agreed to settle a lawsuit without admitting liability over massive gas flaring in the Carlsbad, New Mexico area. The suer was not a state government, nor the feds, but Wild Earth Guardians, using a provision in the federal Clean Air Act. See here for details. WEG is right that oil and gas companies see such flaring as normal, but given the overpay and other costs with that questionable acquisition of Anadarko, one wonders how much extra "pressure" Oxy may see to be cheap.

On the criminal side, just in time to move into his new role as the state's governor, Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro got Coterra Energy, the successor company to Cabot Oil and Gas of "Gasland" documentary fame, to take a nolo on state criminal environmental charges. It includes actual good news for Dimock-area residents: a clean water line to them, and other support for the next 75 years. (I hope Shapiro got something for that escrowed.)

A Black Sunriser learning half the truth about Sunrise Movement

David Bruce Collins retweeted a tweet by Alex O'Keefe of Sunrise Movement talking about how it's still too White as well as too classist and neoliberal.'

.@sunrisemvmt directors terminated me after I sent this letter to our members. https://t.co/Xx6dBCjOcX

As a national leader, I've seen Sunrise grow from a scrappy movement to a giant nonprofit co-opted by mega donors. Seeking only media relevance & proximity to Biden.

— Alex O'Keefe 👌 (@_dotgov) June 8, 2021

Gee, what a shock. 

DBC already knows the truth has been out there for years, as he's seen before this blog post I sent to him, Alex and Sunrise. 

Note I said half the truth. Per that blog post, part of a series telling the truth about Sunrise, it's always been, in essence, the youth wing of Gang Green mega-environmental group Sierra Club, with all that implies. And, that implies it NOT being "scrappy" at one time.

And, Mr. O'Keefe, on classism, may be wanting to partially have it both ways? Calling yourself "Fred Hampton if he went to the Hamptons" is .... "interesting."

It's also naive and misinformed in other ways.

One, O'Keefe seems to have zero consciousness of the theft of the Green New Deal.

Two, in his piece, he touts the Indigenous Deb Haaland as Interior Secretary. That would be the Haaland going along with Status Quo Joe and ignoring Indigenous-led protests against an Embridge pipeline, protestors including former Ralph Nader non-Democrat running mate Winona LaDuke. Protestors buzzed by a Border Patrol helicopter.

Finally, as for O'Keefe's earlier letter being ignored? If you do leave and start a new movement, are you going to tie it to the duopoly as well?

SCOTUS gets halfway pro-environmentalist

And on a Clean Water Act case, no less, and with two conservatives — Roberts and Kavanaugh — joining the four Dems for a 6-3 ruling on County of Maui. This Texas ag lawyer's state Extension site blog has some excellent takes.

Given today's court tenor, especially, this is surely the best that can be expected.

Re the three dissenters, yes, the Supreme Court does sometimes make law.

Contra the three dissenters, this is nothing new. Statutory rules of regulatory agencies can't anticipate in advance every issue and, as the majority notes, if they tried to, they would set themselves up for evasion by loopholes.

The functional equivalent standard sounds reasonable, as long as future courts don't erode it. This court held that a functional equivalent DID exist in this case. (Oh, so much for all of Hawaii being pristine environmentalists, eh?) That said, let's note Roberts' joining the majority on Obamacare to set up a tool for later carve-outs.

Anyway, the case was remanded, presumably back to the district court level. But, with time and distance being the big standards, and given the district court's original ruling, I can't but see that it will hold for the environmental plaintiffs again and that the appeals court would refuse a new appeal.

Suing again to protect the dunes sagebrush lizard

Because of new lies by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about the dunes sagebrush lizard, on top of its old, Obama-era bipartisan lies, the Center for Biological Diversity is again suing USFWS to protect the lizard.

The bipartisan lies were not just USFWS. They were also by Obama's oily original Interior Secretary, Kenny Boy Salazar, who helped drive Dear Leader's "all of the above" hydrocarbons push on BLM and Forest Service land, as seen here.

Per Center for Biological Diversity, the lies, obfuscations and lies by omission ultimately trace back to former Texas Comptroller Susan Combs and her fake protection plan, one that a federal judge initially swallowed in CBD's first suit, as detailed here.

Green New Deal vs Green New Deal, part 2 Cost, affordability and more

My first post comparing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Dems' version of a Green New Deal to the original US political version of that by the Green Party had gotten so many updates, I realized that it was time for a second post.

First, now that AOC has released her own Green New Deal document, it looks highly aspirational. No carbon tax or other sticks to go with carrots. No real estimate of costs. No carbon tariff to increase domestic political feasibility, plus, per the reality of climate change, to force the whole world on the same page. These are going to be questions that need to be answered, issues that need to be addressed. Carl Beijer notes this, in noting AOC's document does discuss "funding" with no talk about real costs. The Green Party has also weighed in, saying it has fossil fuel industry loopholes. And that photo reminds us where, within the political world, the idea first articulated in the US>

Michael Grunwald has another critique. That is that the manifesto is a laundry list grab back. Agreed! Prioritization is important. For example, were I president? Climate change and national healthcare would be the top priorities. A step below that would be a minimum wage hike. Other things fall yet lower.

As for the cost? Contra a Reason claim of $7 trillion, this Stanford study goes much lower, without specific final numbers. Among other things, it says that reduced electric generation costs would offset some of the construction and installation costs. I'm going to say $3 trillion over a time period until 2040 rather than 2030, and scrapping some localization issues of the Stanford study. Still pricey? Yes, but not THAT pricey. At $150 billion/year, less than half of DoD's budget. And, Reason also ignores technology improvements, as well as the possibility of nuclear being part of the renewables mix. The Green Party response to AOC, meanwhile, notes that cutting the defense budget by 50 percent would take care of things. The allegedly libertarian Reason, often a foreign policy imperialist squish, ignores that.

And, it is a squish. That includes, under a No True Scotsman pleading, the claim that capitalism does not almost inexorably lead to imperialism. Small-l libertarians are generally squishes on imperialism. The Libertarian Party is better ... though not perfect. The Koch Bros help fund a Latin American think tank growth project, which is OK with local think tanks that are OK with military-backed authoritarianism, including when it's connected to the US.

European Greens have done some calculations years ago and say 3 percent of GDP per year. In the US?

Showing that the wingnuts are running scared, the Washington Times has also weighed in. There's a fair amount of whataboutism in the piece. Let's just tackle a couple of them.

1. High-speed rail. It talks about the cost of this while ignoring the cost of airport runways, the higher cost of airports vs train stations, the cost of air traffic controllers and many other things.

2. Interstate Highway System? Ike got the money by declaring it the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, as the 1956 act notes. Klein surely knows that and ignores it. The Green Party specifically notes we can cut defense spending by 50 percent. At the same time, speaking of, the Pentagon is repeatedly on the record as noting that climate change is an issue.

3. Apollo? This is silly. The rockets were already being built for the Defense Department at Mercury and Gemini stages. And, the capsule and lander were all contracted out to defense contractors. Apples and oranges.

4. World War II? Well, not silly, since many people have said we need the equivalent of a Manhattan Project funding level and mindset to tackle climate change. Manhattan Project? Refresh me again if that wasn't about national defense and national security.

That said, I'm seeing a trend here. Let's call this the National Defense Green New Deal. Problem solved! (We can also put former, post-abolishment, ICE workers to new use, eh?)

==

Update, Feb. 22: The New Republic, of all places, not a leftist outfit, now asks if some Dems (not necessarily AOC) are deliberately trying to steal Greens' thunder.

TX Progressives tackle various sellouts

The Texas Progressive Alliance knows that weekly blog roundups are not a crime. But, orphaning kids, or engaging in racial, classist, or environmentalist sellouts, and other things, certainly are. Dig in to this week’s roundup.

Texas Monthly discusses how federal judge Dana Sabraw said the Trump Administrastion may be creating permanent orphans from family-separated kids.

At the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze says that Dwaine Caraway’s bid for mayor is probably dead in the water if a corruption lawsuit has any meat. Given that it’s connected to Dallas County Schools, it probably has plenty of meat. (Update, Aug. 9: It and Caraway are both dead in the water; he has now
pled guilty to two federal charges and resigned, the Observer reports.) I have a bit of personal familiarity with Dallas County Schools from it having a bus barn in Lancaster.

SocraticGadfly wonders why 25 House Dems and a Gang Greenish environmentalist group are recycling an old Ryan Zinke idea for new National Parks funding.

Brains and Eggs notes that just when you think national Democrats can’t do worse on 2020 prez candidates, up pops Eric Holder, even as alleged progressives of the Kossack tribe at Netroots Nation let their ballot boxes be stuffed for Terry McAwful, I mean, Terry McAuliffe.

Texas Standard wonders if Pope Francis’ now-total opposition to the death penalty will sway any Texas Catholics, like, you know, Gov. Greg Abbott. (Answer? No. It will just make Rethug Cafeteria Catholics a larger tribe than Doink ones.)

Texas Rural Voices talks about how arming Texas teachers will be dangerous.

Chris Ferguson wonders why some people are afraid to call themselves "feminists".

Very Smart Brothas calls out Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott for his sellout to Jethro Jerry Jones.

Related? Dallas Observer’s Stephen Young reviews Very Smart Brothas calls out Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott for his Dale Hansen’s interview with the WaPost over Jethro Jerry’s “no kneeling” stance.

Off the Kuff analyzed the latest polls in the Senate race.

Keep Austin Wonky looks at the end of CodeNext.

Therese Odell really doesn't like where Trump's war on the press is going.

The TSTA Blog ties everything back to the $5.4 billion cut to public education in 2011.

The Militant talks about the screening of “Santos Vive,” a documentary about how a Dallas cop  killed 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez by Russian roulette in 1973.

 Jade Esteban Estrada profiles State Rep. Ina Minjarez.

 Expat Texan Elise Hu bids farewell to Korea.

David Bruce Collins discusses a bit of mental health.

One Dem sellout of environment for national parks cashwith National Parks Conservation Association whoredom

Raúl Grijalva, big fat hypocrite at the podium, with snake out of the grass Rob Bishop behind his right shoulder./The Hill

Twenty-five House Dems have signed up to co-sponsor a piece of legislation, allegedly moderated in its modifications from an idea floated last year by black-hat cowboy/Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, that would, if the moderations aren't real, rape BLM land for more oil and gas leases to fund the chronic budget shortfall and maintenance backlog in the National Park Service.

Wait, wait, I take that back.

The Senate version of the bill, cosponsored by six Dems, would at least do that. The House version would just dump half of federal energy revenue into some unspecified fund for whatever.

Raul Grivalja theoretically should know better than playing this Whack-A-Mole bullshit, at least as long as the current administration is in power. I mean, most the Democratic sponsors, aside from him, are ConservaDems and establishmentarian hacks. When you're on the same side as the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kyrsten Sinema, you're on the wrong side.

So, too, should the National Parks Conservation Association. That said, NPCA, while not an original Gang Green member, can still act halfway like one, even in its narrow focus on NPS support. It's been selective in the past on how the NPS gets money, including selling out NPS users in favor of BLM and USFS extractors.

That's not new, either. Obama's last Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell, supported "all of the above" on oil and gas extraction from BLM land. And, before she joined the gummint? On the NPCA board of directors.

The NPCA is a whore in other ways. Like when it saluted Rio Tinto as a corporate parks sponsor.

And, it won't tell you on its calendars that most National Recreation Areas, like Lake Mead and Glen Canyon, that are in the National Park Service, directly contravene the 1916 Organic Act.

And, as a commenter there noted, it's late-stage capitalist enough that a decade ago, its CEO made $350 grand a year. (That was up to $367,000 by 2015, plus 258K for Pierno as COO. The next year, per Charity Navigator, she got a raise to $300K as CEO/President, but former head honcho Clark Bunting still hauled down $350K.) Per Wikipedia, if it had about $30 million in revenue in fiscal 2014 and 153 employees, that means the average salary is almost $100K.

Such numbers might not be totally ridiculous, just halfway so, if every employee were at the HQ in the capitalist black hole of DC, but they're not. And I know that most the 27 regional offices are in places not only cheaper but a fair amount cheaper.

Speaking of? You want to find more money to address the Park Service backlog? Start by charging Lake Mead and Lake Powell boaters twice as much.

That compares with totally non-Gang Green Center for Biological Diversity. It ranks higher on financial angles, per Charity Navigator, with CEO Kieran Suckling taking just $200K. Suckling also claims his group has twice as many employees per $1 million revenue than the typical larger enviro group.

And, to loop this together? Most years, the CBD hands out a Rubber Dodo Award for antienvironmentalism. Last year's winner? Utah's turd-brown Congresscritter Rob Bishop, in the quasi-seersucker suit behind Grivalja in that pic.

Here's Grivalja's website with all his contact info. Let him know what you think of this.

#OregonStandoff — Bundy verdict not necessarily wrong, legally

Brokeback Oregon went on trial starting on Sept. 7. And now, just over two and a half months later, seven of them, including leaders Ryan and Ammon Bundy, have been found not guilty. Oregon Public Broadcasting has yet more depth on the verdict, with quotes.

In reality, this isn't THAT surprising. And, per the header, it's not necessarily wrong.

Agree? Disagree? Unsure?
Vote at right!

First, the feds have a long history of charging people with conspiracies without also charging the individuals with specific, individuated crimes.

For example, here in Texas, the conspiracy statute is "engaging in organized criminal activity." Two or more people each must be charged with the same "individuated" crime to also be charged with this. Not so with the feds. (And, especially in the post-9/11 world, fat chance of the federal statute ever being amended like that — even though the Texas one is abused in other ways.)

And this is another clear case of that.

They were charged with a conspiracy to hinder federal employees from doing their jobs, while none was actually charged with actually doing so. This particular conspiracy law, though, has rarely been used, and stems from the Civil War. As the link notes, in modern times, it's been used against environmental and antiwar activists. Liberals, let alone left-liberals, are you really OK with that?

In the future, it could be used against Dakota pipeline protestors. #NoDAPL liberal backers, are you OK with that? If the Bundys had been convicted, would you be OK with that as a precedent of sorts in pipeline cases?

And, with a not guilty on that, the weapons charges were guaranteed to go by the wayside. (Unless the weapon is used for another crime, the charge has a maximum prison time of one year; basically, it's an enhancer for other charges.) Yes, there was clear evidence of that, but, from what I've read of the case, prosecutors chose to focus on the conspiracy, which has a six-year max penalty.

In other words, the prosecution rolled the dice on getting at least six years, with a minimum of concurrent sentences reducing chances for early parole and perhaps hoping for consecutive sentences. And lost, big time.

The gummint's case wasn't helped by the revelation a week ago that there was an FBI informant inside the Ammonites, I'm sure, even if his role was overblown.

I mean, destruction of property (criminal mischief the state statute here in Texas) and other charges (if the Feds have an equivalent of theft of services, which would be kind of like preventing employees from working .. but the actual charge, not a conspiracy to do so) were clearly available in the case. Ryan Bundy was charged with theft, of FBI security cameras, but got a hung jury on that. And that was it, other than the weapons charges.

One has to wonder — and some degree of conspiracy thinking is sometimes valid with federal prosecutors in particular and prosecutors in general — if the particulars of charges were structured to sandbag the case. And, yes, prosecutors do occasionally do stuff like that. They may think a case isn't winnable, and to make sure it isn't, do something like this.

Morally? Totally different issue. But lawyers, and others who also know better, know the law has nothing to do with morals.

But, speaking of ...

High Country News reviews the bad history of the Ammonites. And, it notes that even other defenders of the New Sagebrush Rebellion or whatever we call it are perplexed at the legal strategery of Ryan and Ammon Bundy, above all others in the case. (Maybe they're less perplexed now, but probably not; a lot of the strategery was idiotic.)

(Note: For #BrokebackOregon or #BundyEroticFanFic, go to this blog post with some quite purplish, and turgid, prose.)

Bag it, Ken Paxton

The blog space is being turned over to a guest post this afternoon, in the wake of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton suing the city of Brownsville over its law on charging for plastic grocery bags.

By Robin Schneider
Texas Campaign for the Environment

State and national bag law advocates convened this week to defend bag ordinances in the wake of embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against Texas’ first local law against bag pollution in Brownsville. A range of organizations plan to assist as this issue lands in the lap of the Texas Supreme Court with the City of Laredo appealing a recent decision striking down that city’s bag law.

“The reasons for bag laws are as diverse as Texas,” said Robin Schneider, Executive Director of Texas Campaign for the Environment, who played a leading role in passing the Austin bag ordinance and successfully defeating attempts to pre-empt bag ordinances at the state legislature since 2009. “For the West Texas city of Fort Stockton it was the death of livestock that ingest ‘plastic tumbleweed’ and ruin the desert landscape getting caught on cactus and barbed wire, while on the coast it’s concern over sea turtles, plastic in the food chain and beach pollution.”

The benefits of local ordinances have been obvious. “As a resident of the Rio Grande Valley, I have seen the very positive effects of the Bag Ordinances in Laguna Vista, South Padre Island and especially Brownsville.  One would not recognize Brownsville today compared to 2010 when the city very wisely passed their bag law,” said Rob Nixon, Chairman of the Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter and Surfrider Foundation National Boardmember. “Attorney General Ken Paxton’s claim of the ‘buck a bag’ fee is disingenuous and not true.  If you need a plastic bag at one of only the seven retailers that got exemptions and implemented the fee, it is $1 for as many bags as you require for the purchase. That fee goes to a fund to clean up the bags that are dispersed from the exemptions,” he concluded.

As Texas groups organize into a statewide network, national bag advocates are also assisting. "State pre-emption of local plastic bag laws is an issue that has become much more prevalent nationally the last few years," said Jennie Romer, attorney and founder of plasticbaglaws.org. "What's unique about pre-emption disputes in Texas right now is that they're new fights about old laws: the provision that allegedly pre-empts local bag laws in Brownsville and Laredo has been on the books since 1993 and Brownsville's ordinance was adopted in 2009."

"Single-use plastic bags may seem convenient, but that is far outweighed by their impact—which is far-reaching and ubiquitous.  Every square inch of the planet is affected.  Legislation to reduce or eliminate the consumption of single-use bags has proven to be effective.” said Christopher Chin, Executive Director of the Center for Oceanic Awareness Research and Education (COARE).

Laredo’s bag ordinance came together with the help of students, business owners and city leaders in 2015. The Fourth Court of Appeals, based in San Antonio, overturned the ordinance in August of this year. "Doesn’t the state have anything better to do than to crush the will of the people and its locally elected officials, to suit just a few business interests?”asked Tricia Cortez, director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, and the primary advocate for the ordinance.  “Conservation of our environment, and the protection of local wildlife and precious tax dollars, is at the heart of these plastic bag ordinances.  Why should protecting the wallets of the plastic bag industry be considered more important than protecting the long-term health, financial well-being, and beauty of our cities? It’s a disgrace what is happening behind closed doors in Austin right now on this issue, that attempts to address a pervasive local and global problem in our communities,” Cortez concluded.

Wildlife groups including Sea Turtle Inc. and the Turtle Island Restoration Network are concerned about the impact of bag pollution on these iconic Texas animals. “Turtle Island Restoration Network has been working with Surfrider Foundation, Galveston Chapter for two years to educate our residents and visitors about the impact of single-use plastic bags on the marine environment. With our close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston and West Bay, there is a strong possibility for single-use bags to enter our waterway,” said Joanie Steinhaus, Turtle Island Restoration Network’s Program Director for the Gulf of Mexico.

Additionally, there are many cities that have not yet enacted ordinances but which have been exploring them for some time now. These communities are looking to protect their rights to protect their environment.

"The Greater Fort Worth Sierra Club has campaigned for the last three years for a bag ordinance in Fort Worth,” said Conservation Chair John MacFarlane. “We believe that an ordinance to phase out these single use bags will improve the aesthetic of Fort Worth, help to mitigate storm drain clogging, and will help save aquatic animals and terrestrial wildlife from a slow toxic death. Attorney General Ken Paxton should spend his time solving problems, not attacking good local policies that are protecting wildlife, livestock, water resources and the environment."

Many groups are coming together to support the legal efforts to defend bag pollution and to work at the Legislature in the 2017 session to address state law as well. These new threats have sparked the formation of a new network among advocates from across Texas with the input of national bag ordinance experts.

The Texas communities with bag ordinances on the books include: Brownsville, South Padre Island, Laguna Vista, Fort Stockton, Laredo, Austin, Freer, Sunset Valley, Kermit and Port Aransas.

This is how to recycle! In the face of #freetrade

A new French law is requiring that all disposable picnic-type dinnerware — silverware, plates, cups — be compostable and made of biologically sourced materials.

Per the story, it's yet another clear example of what's wrong with free trade agreements and similar. Opponents argue it violates the European Union's regulations on free movement of goods and services.

It also, per the story, reflects tensions between socialist/social democrat voters (and politicians) and green ones. French Environment Minister Segolene Royal not only originally opposed the measure, but called it elitist, in essence.

I, in turn, would argue that sentiments such as hers are themselves elitist.

As for Eamonn Bates claiming the products won't compost ... let him prove up or shut up.

Senate Dems fail to offer right #KeystoneXL amendment

Yes, one of the two failed amendments to Senate Republicans' pushing of a KeystoneXL pipeline bill were both nice — use of US components only, although I really can't conceive of that much heavy steel being imported from China. The one that got OKed, about boosting energy efficiency, is also nice, but seems fairly toothless. The one about restricting tar sands oil coming through the pipeline to US use only? Meh.

None of these hit the right angle, though.

I've said before that, if nothing else, Alberta tar sands oil is better by pipeline than by rail.

That said, a better amendment would have forced the Department of Transportation to make its push for railroad companies to do a voluntary upgrade of their tanker cars into a mandated replacement with new models.

But, even that's only the second-best option Senate Dems had.

The best?

Link KeystoneXL approval to a carbon tax at home along with a carbon tariff on imports.

First, the domestic tax needs to be linked with the tariff on imports anyway; just a domestic tax is not sensical either environmentally or economically.

Second, to the degree that that Alberta tar sands oil is "dirtier" than US conventional oils, it would have a heavier tariff vs the domestic tax.

Sure, this amendment likely would have had zero chance. It probably would only get 20 Democratic votes.

But, it surely could have gotten at least two.

Hello, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Ed Markey and other real "green" types. That's more than two of you — enough for an amendment's motion and seconding.

Your post- #election2014 week in #environmentalism, #fracking, #Keystone

A roundup of several posts of mine on trending environmental topics.

First, the city of Denton, Texas, north of Dallas, did pass a fracking ban. And faces multiple lawsuits. I look at that, and my estimate of Denton's chance of prevailing. I actually think it's not bad.

Second, the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline from Canada, which President Barack Obama has kicked down the road for months now, can't be kicked down the road any longer with a GOP Senate. I take a look at his options and his likely course of action, and whether it's necessarily the end of the environmentalism world.

Third, many environmentalists, greeting a China-US greenhouse gas emissions accord with huzzahs and handsprings, probably think this indicates Obama will take a hard line on Keystone. Given that my skeptical eye calls the climate deal "toothless," with analysis of why I think that's the case that neither the mainstream media nor Obamiac environmentalist swooners provide, I think it's news for Keystone, but not necessarily as good as others think.

That said, unlike Alberta's tar sands, "tight" oil from shale formations, produced by fracking, seems to have a short, bubbly lifespan. I look at the latest news on that, and budgetary and other implications for the state of Texas.

Texas Public Policy Foundation — hoist by its own petard

This spring, I blogged about the Texas Public Policy Foundation ready to help out my current town of residence on some community improvement issues. Well, TPPF has gotten official approval from the city to set up a city clean-up program with adult and juvenile probationers.

And, that leads to the petard hoisting of itself by TPPF.

This cleanup work was one of the ideas that TPPF’s Jess Fields mentioned to this city in his initial presentation.

That said, what's one of the major components of trash blowing around streets in dirtier communities?

Plastic grocery bags.

And, TPPF already has a  history that shows its inimical to the interests of this county.

Well, TPPF has a “tag” on its blogs called “over-regulation,” and one piece by Fields himself claims that banning plastic grocery bags, as Austin did, may be “deadly” because reusable bags might harbor killer bacteria. 

Yes, canvas grocery bags, like the ones I’ve used for a decade, could kill you. Last I checked, they had done me a lot less harm than Texas’ mountain cedars. Of course, since many of those cedars in the Hill Country provide shelter for Endangered Species Act-listed golden-cheeked warblers, TPPF would probably love to help me and other allergy sufferers by abolishing the ESA, then chopping down cedars. What swell folks, eh?

Note to TPPF: Any canvas bag toter who croaks in front of the North Austin Whole Foods? It's much more likely to be a botox OD than "baggus salmonellicus." Second guess is finding something non-GMO in that bag or something, not the bag itself. Third? Asphyxiation from finding out that a vial of TPPF hot air was detonated inside the bag.

Seriously, I'd love a statewide push by somebody like Public Citizen to get all communities, including this one, to adopt some sort of plastic bag ordinance.

Lesser prairie chicken — Time for more batshit-crazy Rick Perry et al vs. Fish and Wildlife

Lesser prairie chicken/Texas Parks and Wildlife photo

Remember a few years ago, when the dunes sagebrush lizard was listed as environmentally threatened? Little lizard, meet the lesser prairie chicken. (Oh, and lesser prairie chicken, get ready to meet Texas Comptroller Susan Combs and members of the Texas Railroad Commission.)

Because your habitat, like the lizard's, is in oil country. And, because Kenny Boy Salazar, like Dear Leader, has the environmentalism backbone of a chocolate eclair, the dunes sagebrush lizard didn't get an Endangered Species Act listing after all. And Combs bamboozled the feds to make that happen.

Given that the lesser prairie chicken's protection isn't supposed to start until May, I'll not take your bet that it stays protected, even if you give me odds. It's time for Greg Abbott to go to his office and sue Obama again, obviously.

And, the fact that Combs considers Endangered Species Act listings to be like "incoming Scud missiles" says a lot.

#ExxonValdez — remembering 25 years

One dead whale in Prince William Sound, 1989, via Exxon.
AP photo via Houston Chronicle

In the spring of 1989, I was in the first full year of graduate divinity school. I still belonged to, and believed in the tenets of, a fundamentalist Lutheran church. (No, family and friends, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod doesn't fit a narrower definition of Christian fundamentalists, but it does fit nicely in a broader sociology of religion definition.)

Anyway, I digress.

I was also, for the most part, still steeped in my parents' political beliefs, between my dad's Eisenhower-Main Street conservativism (with his twinge of Eisenhower-Main Street racism), and my mom's "None Dare Call It Treason" moving to Art Bell-listening Tea Party progenitorship (as I know with that anecdotal proof positive that the Tea Party idea is nothing new).

Anyway, again I digress.

I was already a bit of an environmentalist, at least in the sense of believing that Christian creationism did imply some sort of "good stewardship." And I was moving a bit beyond that, even.

Then, a seemingly drunken captain, Joseph Hazelwood, sailing a past-its-due-date, environmentally inadequate oil tanker, ran it aground on Alaskan rocks. And caused a massive animal die-off and other problems for which eXXXon (that's the correct spelling, folks) still refuses to admit full responsibility today.

That includes full financial responsibility, getting punitive damages cut to 10 percent of the original award due to "quirks" in maritime common law, per Wikipedia. And, since then? I've not seen either major party make major changes to environmental civil law to increase punitive damages for "takings" of reducing environmental and scenic value.

As for me? I took the next steps toward becoming a real environmentalist. (In the next five years, I took a chunk of steps toward becoming a real secularist [I avoid the Big A label, as much at times due to some Big As as well as Christian fundamentalists] and becoming a real liberal. By the end of the 1990s, I had moved beyond the Democratic Party, in fact and fortunately.) As part of that, I also became even more of an environmentalist, and a more activist one.

Indeed, while I had the pleasure of living in the Dallas area for most of the first decade of this century, I even "visited" a couple of eXXXon's annual shareholder meetings, as you can see. 

And, per the poster, we had even more to protest against eXXXon by 2008, or earlier. Since then, eXXXon has continued to be just as responsible of a corporate citizen on global warming and climate change, and now on oil and gas fracking, as it was on the Exxon Valdez. So eXXXon is the gift that keeps on giving.

And, in more ways than one. Per Wikipedia's story on the disaster, when in the original suit, eXXXon was hit with $5 billion in punitive damages, it got a $4.8 billion line of credit from J.P. Morgan. To insulate itself, Morgan created the first modern credit default swap.

In other words, eXXXon's Alaskan oil slick helped crap on the American economy nearly 20 years later. That said, why would anything about any unholy alliance between Wall Street and Big Oil surprise you? See: "Bros., Koch" for more.

Meanwhile, as High Country News notes, eXXXon's "cleanup" wasn't. There's still officially 21,000 gallons of oil in Prince William Sound and unofficially, much more.

===

And Perry reminds us, in light of the Houston Ship Channel collision over the weekend, that things haven't changed a lot. That includes the damage to wildlife, not just the inconvenience to the modern economy.

No, Obama did NOT create a new national monument

That's despite what the O-bots at Think Progress are trying to claim, where the page header for the link (unless it's later changed) says "Obama creates new national monument."

In reality, he added 2.5 square miles on onshore lands to a previously islands-only national monument that ranged the entire length of the California coast. Don't get me wrong; Point Arena is a nice addition. But, this is NOT all that. And, it's a monument created by Clinton in 2000.

Let's also note that BLM-based and Forest Service-based national monuments are of generally low level in terms of visitor outreach and promotion as natural areas, when compared to National Park Service system national monuments.

That said, that problem traces back to Clinton. Because he wouldn't ask Congress to give the NPS more funding, and it's already underfunded, he created these monuments without shifting them to the better oversight of the NPS. Obama's doing the same thing. (Bush did it, too.)

(And, at least one possible O-bot there has, in replying to my comment, already misinterpreted what I said.)

Besides, we've heard bupkis so far from this administration's plans for the NPS's centennial. Whatever is done will likely be drenched with corporate sponsorship. And I'm definitely concerned about that. I will boycott any centennial event that is, in my opinion, too corporate-heavy.

On the main issue at hand, I don't want any new national monuments created that aren't part of the NPS. And I don't want any new NPS national monuments created until the Park Service gets more money.

LCV announces Texas' greenest Congressmen and dirtiest

Five members of Texas' House delegation got a 90 percent or better rating from the League of Conservation Voters.

On the House GOP side, I'm shocked that Smokey Joe Barton got a 0. Mike Conaway (LCV misspelled), Pete Olson and Blake Farenthold join him. Gohmert Pyle was all the way up to 7 percent, and only one GOP Congresscritter broke 20 percent. Is John Carter in trouble for this?

Actually, Carter, whose district includes north metro Austin, is facing an openly gay general election opponent in Louie Minor. That said, while he gets a "not quite horrible" on green issues, he gets a "totally horrible" on LGBT ones.

On the Senate side, somehow, Ted Cruz out-greened John Cornyn. Guess that shows just how far right Big John is running.