You know what was going on in the Texas Legislature this week? We were! We just capped off our first solo Lobby Day in a long while and… the enthusiasm and positivity of our members were palpable. We haven’t counted how many legislators our volunteers reached, several dozen we suspect, but a few things really stood out to us.
Sierrans had tremendous success getting face-to-face time with lawmakers. Check out or latest tweets as proof. They got the chance to pull their state rep off the House floor to talk to them about bad bills like HB 3557 (anti-protest ALEC bill), HB 2771 (fracking wastewater dumping into our rivers and streams), and HB 2269 (importing more low-level radioactive waste). We also had several Sierrans who were willing to branch out and visit more offices beyond their districts and push hard to get committee hearings for good bills that need to start moving.
What was most inspiring to us, though, were the youth that showed up wanting to talk to their lawmakers. If they were intimidated or afraid, they sure didn’t show it.
We’ll have more to share about the progress that was made because of this awesome band of Sierra Club volunteers soon. Until then, we cannot express enough our gratitude for your commitment and dedication!
On bill movement, it’s that time of the session when we start to get concerned that good bills will die in committee and bad bills are moving to full House or Senate votes.
SB 1021, the companion to HB 2269, which would lower the fees on radioactive waste imported into Texas and increase the volume, could be on the Senate floor as early as Monday.
If you followed the last legislature closely, you may remember that Sen. Rodriguez had a good bill to strengthen enforcement on tire dumping, which was a bi-partisan bill and passed the Lege only to get vetoed by Gov. Abbott. Well, a similar bill, SB 1850, deals with tire dumping and could be voted on in the full Senate on Monday.
The “anti-protestor” ALEC bills are still very concerning. The House version, HB 3557, is out of committee and could be on the House floor soon, while Senate bill, SB 1993, is still pending in committee. If you’ve signed up for our mobile alerts, you may have gotten a text from us about this one. We’ll need to put a lot more pressure on lawmakers if these bills continue to move.
The Senate companion bill to HB 2771 (fracking wastewater), SB 1585, had a committee hearing in the Senate this week. Sierra Club was there to express our concerns (here’s our testimony), even as the oil and gas industry begged the Legislature for the chance to go to TCEQ to get a permit to discharge their waste into our rivers. So stay tuned for more on that too.
Again, thank you to all of our volunteers who made the trek to the Capitol this week to speak up for issues you care about. Your presence was definitely noticed by lawmakers! To all of you who signed up but couldn’t make it, please stay tuned for more ways to get involved. We appreciate you!
