Frank O'Donnell is president of Clean Air Watch, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization aimed at educating the public about clean air and the need for an effective Clean Air Act.
It’s like an old-time Texas shootout. Think of the Texas Rangers in a firefight with cattle rustlers. Only this time the shootout involves smokestacks rather than smoking guns. And the result may tell a lot about whether we as a nation are really going to take global warming seriously.
The modern-day rustlers here are Texas Governor Rick Perry—former lieutenant governor to then-Governor George W. Bush—and TXU Corp., one of the nation’s biggest polluters.
The Rangers are made up of a unique alliance of Texas mayors, environmentalists and cattle ranchers.
The fight involves TXU’s plan, backed by Perry, to build 11 new coal-burning electric power plants during the next several years. Other power companies seek to build a half dozen additional coal plants.
Granted, if you live in Texas, this is bad. But it’s going to be bad for individuals who live outside the Lone Star state as well. Aside from the fact that the new power plants could threaten air quality in some communities—Dallas Mayor Laura Miller predicts a “tsunami of emissions” in parts of the state—collectively these plants in Texas would emit the equivalent of 19 million automobiles' worth of carbon dioxide every year. If all were up and spewing, Texas would emit nearly as much carbon dioxide as California, New York and Florida combined.
In other words, this toxic Texas plan could undermine the efforts of California and other states to reduce global warming emissions. The planned TXU plants alone would emit 2.6 times more carbon dioxide than the gains from California's bold greenhouse gas reduction program for cars and trucks. The plants would emit eight times more than the benefits that would result from the Northeastern States Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to cap power plant emissions.
What has occured that might allow these 11 new plants to come into being? Late last year, Perry signed an executive order to “fast-track” approval of these power plants. Later it was disclosed that TXU donated $5,000 to Perry's re-election campaign just a few weeks after Perry signed an executive order speeding up the permitting process for coal-fired power plants. TXU's retired chairman, Erle Nye, also gave the Perry campaign $2,000 the day the order was signed. He has donated almost $150,000 since Perry took office.
To combat such brazen partisan favors, Dallas mayor Miller and Houston Mayor Bill White have organized a coalition of 17 mayors—the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition—to press for something better. Miller and White argue that they aren’t opposed to coal—just to the quick and dirty way it would be burned under bought-off Perry’s strategy. They say consideration ought to be given to more advanced processes that could trap the greenhouse gas emissions.
But the mayors aren’t the only ones battling to fight Perry’s smokestacks. Two environmental groups threatened last week to sue TXU in federal court, alleging the company would violate the Clean Air Act. In addition, dozens of environmental groups —including Clean Air Watch—led by Environmental Defense have assailed TXU’s “irresponsible proposal” and charged TXU CEO C. John Wilder “with complete disregard for the destructive global warming pollution that will result.”
Environmental Defense has created a web site, www.stoptxu.com, as a rallying point of environmentalist opposition to TXU’s plans. (TomPaine.com readers, by the way, can use this website to send a letter to TXU, because this will affect all of you, not just the Texas-based readers.)
To top it off, several hundred ranchers have formed a group they call T-Power—Texans Protecting Water, Environment and Resources—and are vowing to fight one of the controversial plants.
TXU and Perry aren’t ready to take off the black hats—at least not yet. The company appears to be gambling that if Perry wins re-election in November and bulls ahead with this odious plan, the company would be inoculated against any future attempt in Congress to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (TXU assumes that it Congress put a cap on overall emissions and dished out emission “credits,” their emissions would, in effect, be grandfathered in if they can get the plants built before any legislation takes effect.)
For his part, Perry has snidely claimed that critics of his plan “want to return us to the era of horse and buggy—except they would probably complain about the methane gas from horse manure, too.” The real stench, of course, is coming from Perry and TXU. If their ugly gambit succeeds, other states better remember—and not reward these miscreants in any future global warming legislation.
