There’s only a few days left until Sine Die, the official end of the 87th Texas Legislative Session. With not much time to waste, let’s get into the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good
Unfortunately, it’s not a long list, but we should give The Good a proper nod. Good things are moving forward. First, HB 2225, the bill that will restore Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Departmentrole in surface water management through the Texas Water Trust, has passed both houses and is on to the Governor’s desk.
Another good water bill, HB 2710, which also sets up a market mechanism to replenish water in rivers and streams is on the calendar for today in the Senate, and is expected to pass.
HB 3973, authored by Sen. Nichols and Rep. Walle, is a critical bill that would promote the study of uncleaned, abandoned oil and gas wells, and has passed both the House and Senate through a few differences in the bill will need go be worked out. HB 3973 will ensure that we work hard to find solutions to get all those orphaned and abandoned wells safely plugged.
Speaking of which, budget discussions are done and the conference committee report will be approved in the coming days. From an environmentalist stand-point, the budget was rosier than expected, since it includes more funding for air quality monitoring, a restoration of funding to plug 1000 wells per year (although this is still not enough), funding for local parks and park acquisition, and funding for the Economically Distressed Areas Program, which were all Sierra Club priorities this session.
The Bad
Where should we start?
The voter suppression bill (SB 7) is not officially done as everyone awaits the conference committee report to work out the version between House (slightly less bad) and Senate (really bad), but permitless carry is done. A bill to prevent cities from promoting alternatives to gas hookups in construction (HB 17) was signed by Gov. Abbott, and a bill on gas and propane appliances (HB 1501) will soon be on its way, despite our efforts. Some minor amendments were added but at the end of the day, local democracy is diminished meaning dreams of all electric codes will not happen anytime soon in Texas. Other bad bills to take away local democracy (SB 10 - cities can’t lobby, and SB 14 - cities cannot offer water breaks to private construction workers or offer protections like non-discrimination) are expected to pass the House today - unless Democrats can run out the clock (UPDATE May 25: Late last night Democrats took their time offering amendments and giving lots of speeches in an effort to “chub” and thus stopped SB 1261, which would have prevented cities from taking action on global warming, SB 10, and an anti-trans bill SB 29. While SB 14 did pass on second reading, amendments by Lucio III, Walle, and Bowers, and even a good amendment by Cain, improved the bill by allowing cities and counties to pass ordinances related to water breaks, criminal history, hair choice and style, and their own employees. While still a bad bill, the House version is less objectionable than the Senate version. To be fair, it still prevents cities from enacting anti-discrimination requirements and labor protections for a wide variety of issues and should be stopped.)
The Complicated/Ugly
It’s complicated, but the House did pass SB 2514, SB 2, and SB 3: the winter storm Uri reform bills. SB 2 and SB 2514 are supported bySierra Club, and make some tweaks to PUC and
ERCOT management which are generally good, while SB 3 is complicated.
An amendment offered by Rep. Lucio IIIA to add the infamous Berkshire Hathaway proposal to build $8 billion worth of gas plants for emergency service was soundly defeated. However, good amendments to SB 3 were also defeated, including those filed by Rep. Reynolds to add demand response and energy efficiency programs. They failed either by not getting enough votes or having “Points of Order” called on them. A potentially bad anti-renewable measure was stripped from SB 3 as well that would have required wind and solar to purchase replacement power, although there is still some concerning language that favors gas plants. A few good amendments were added to involve both the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the State Climatologist in the communications and weatherization process, but efforts to strengthen weatherization requirements for the natural gas supply (and penalties if they didn’t) fell on deaf ears and went down on a largely party line vote. Indeed, the relatively weak weatherization requirement for the natural gas supply along with the lack of attention to the demand side are the biggest problems with the bill. The bill must still go to conference committee and we will still be working to improve the final version of the bill.
Also on the floor of the House today are two bills that would “fix” transmission but in a way that largely favors industrial consumers, but could hurt renewable energy development. Sierra Club is opposed to SB 1282 (Hancock/Paddie) and we’re trying to fix SB 1281 (Hancock/King). Fortunately, a point of order was called on SB 1281 yesterday and last minute negotiations occurred which led to passage of a new and better version of the bill. And in late breaking news, Chairman Paddie admitted defeat on SB 1282 pulling the bill off the calendar.
Finally, there is the ongoing saga of TERP - the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan. An omnibus bill supported by the Sierra Club (HB 4472 by Rep. Landgraf) passed the House but the version -- as rewritten by Senator Birdwell -- that passed the Senate today took out many of the programs we support -- including energy efficiency programs -- and includes a provision that at least 35 percent will go to highway congestion mitigation projects, which is a major problem since these projects do not lead to large reductions in air pollution. We are hopeful that a compromise can be reached in the last days, but it’s complicated!