The executive director of the Sierra Club on the perils of coal ash, why wind is a good thing, the priorities of state environmental-quality officials and how Texas oil companies are working to roll back California’s global warming regulation.
Environment
Coverage of climate, conservation, natural resources, and environmental policy shaping the state, from The Texas Tribune.
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Criminal Justice
TribBlog: AG’s Latest Environmental Lawsuits
Texas has fired off another volley of legal challenges against federal environmental regulators.
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Energy
TribBlog: Fine Lines
Despite opposition from Hill Country landowners, the Texas Public Utility Commission declined to throw out one of the proposed wind-power transmission lines through Hill Country during an open meeting this morning.
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Energy
Slideshow: Galveston Rebuilds
Two years after Hurricane Ike’s surge washed over Galveston, residents here still struggle to rebuild parts of the island, which has lost about 10,000 people from its pre-flood population of about 50,000.
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Energy
Surge Protectors
Two years after Hurricane Ike’s surge crossed Galveston like a speed bump on its way to Houston, planners and academics are staring down multibillion-dollar public policy dilemmas. To describe Ike as a “wake-up call” understates and trivializes the matter. Like other coastal areas around the nation and around the world, the Houston-Galveston region is only now grappling with complex and costly questions of how to protect sprawling seaside development from the combination of subsidence and an expected sea-level rise from global warming.
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Energy
Series Explores Texas’ Transmission Lines for Wind Power
This week, the Tribune put together a three-part series exploring the state’s $5 billion transmission-line build-out to support wind power, which is mostly generated in West Texas but needs to be shipped to cities in Central and East Texas. The project is known as CREZ, short for Competitive Renewable Energy Zones.
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Energy
Battle Lines: Panhandle Power
While West Texas has become the nation’s wind-power hub, the Panhandle’s ferocious winds go largely untapped. That could change with a slew of proposed transmission line projects that could, in turn, enable forests of turbines — if landowners can be soothed. Part three of a three-part series.
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Energy
Battle Lines: Electrifying the Hill Country
The epicenter of the fight over the state’s wind power transmission lines is the Hill Country, where landowners are spending lots of money and time to keep the lines from being built. They’re trotting out every conceivable argument, and they may just succeed. Part two of a three-part series.
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Energy
Battle Lines: Fighting the Power
Texas already harvests more wind power than any state in the nation, bringing the promise of clean energy to millions of homes and businesses. Trouble is, getting that power from remote, windy West Texas to the big cities requires a massive, $5 billion network of transmission lines — which property owners in the Hill County and elsewhere don’t want in their back yards. As construction gets under way on the new lines, an army of lawyers and angry landowners is working to stymie the state’s renewable energy plans. Part one of a three-part series.
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Energy
Sounding Off on EPA Regulation
Texans are being asked to sound off as the Environmental Protection Agency considers regulating the dumping of coal ash. A public hearing on the issue will be held later today in Dallas. David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio reports.