Texas political leaders are indifferent, if not hostile, to climate change mitigation

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By Philip Jankowski | Dallas Morning News (TNS)

AUSTIN — Each year, Texas residents, industries and transportation emit more than 800 million tons of greenhouse gases with an impact on climate change that is comparable to Germany, which has a population 2.5 times larger.

Despite the state’s relatively high emissions, according to data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the European Union, Texas has done little to address past and future climate change.

California, the only state that comes close to Texas’ level of planet-warming greenhouse gases, has enacted aggressive policies to reduce emissions. Texas, under’ Republican political leadership for about three decades, remains largely indifferent — or outright hostile — to placing regulations on business and industry to reduce emissions..

As a result, state government agencies responsible for the water supply, roads, electricity, agriculture and the environment are not paying attention to projections that say alarming changes are coming, including severe droughts and increasingly frequent weather-related disasters.

University of Texas environmental professor Jay Banner has seen firsthand how the Texas Legislature has declined to address climate change.

Since 2009, Banner has tracked legislation that would require many of Texas’ largest state agencies to acknowledge and plan for climate-change-fueled severe weather and other potential impacts. The bills have died, often without receiving a committee hearing — the first step toward approval.

“In short, it’s failed every time,” Banner said.

The two-page bill is relatively simple. It would require 14 state agencies to address the increasing frequency of extreme weather by taking into account international benchmarks on climate change — something no state agencies do, an investigation from The Dallas Morning News found.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that the number of major weather-related disasters in Texas that caused $1 billion or more in damage has increased dramatically in recent years. Climatologists believe the increase is driven by man-made climate change.

That a state the size of Texas has no comprehensive plan to address its role in climate change is disheartening to environmentalists. Some cities and counties, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington and Plano, have tried to fill the gap by creating local climate action plans that often include sustainable building practices and other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. State lawmakers, led by Republicans, have worked to hinder those efforts.

“Texas is simply not part of the solution to climate change,” said Cal Jillson, a Southern Methodist University political scientist.

The only law enacted in the past 15 years that uses the term “climate change” was passed in 2023 to shut the door on efforts to implement local climate change mitigation policies after one was attempted in El Paso.

Acceptance of climate change is frequently a partisan issue, though it can be nuanced. Many Republican lawmakers and advocates interviewed for this story would not state plainly when asked whether they believe burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. The state’s top political leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, declined or did not respond to more than a dozen interview requests on the subject.

The Republican Party of Texas’ official stance is to “oppose environmentalism or ‘climate change’ initiatives,” and supports abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

The scientific consensus is that burning fossil fuels is warming the planet, with higher temperatures being felt across Texas. Scientists say additional heating will increase the frequency of weather disasters and worsen droughts in Texas, harming food production, public health and other industries.

Human-caused climate change?

Dallas conservative talk radio host Mark Davis is well acquainted with Republican thinking on climate change. On his daily show, Davis often interviews the state’s top Republican leadership. He said that while climate change is widely accepted among scientists, Republicans are doubtful.

“Differences start to arise when the question is asked about whether that human productivity is changing the temperature of the planet,” Davis said. “Mainstream science has embraced a number of presumptions that it is. A growing number of skeptical scientists is pushing back. Not all conservatives follow that skepticism, but most do.”

Conservatives tend to oppose policies that undermine a free market or hinder the economy, he said.

“Even if we were to learn that humanity may indeed be ticking the global temperature upward, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Green New Deal-style solutions are the answer,” Davis said, referring to progressive plans to address climate change through comprehensive government programs.

That hasn’t stopped some state agencies from seeking cash from the Inflation Reduction Act, touted by former President Joe Biden as “the most significant climate change law ever.”

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, for instance, received roughly $5 million from the Biden administration to create a first-of-its-kind accounting of greenhouse gases emitted in Texas.

The plan was a prerequisite for Texas to seek a half-billion dollars from the Environmental Protection Agency to fund programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA did not select Texas.

The TCEQ did its accounting without approval from the three Abbott-appointed commissioners who lead the agency. The approval was not required, according to an agency spokesperson.

The initial effort created a document that outlined where greenhouse gas emissions are concentrated in Texas. TCEQ’s accounting of greenhouse gas emissions in Texas were 26% higher than federal estimates from the Energy Information Administration. Carbon dioxide emitted by industry, including oil and gas extraction, topped the list, followed by transportation and power generation.

The TCEQ was not the only agency to seek cash under the Inflation Reduction Act. The State Energy Conservation Office, a department within the comptroller’s office, is seeking about $690 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for a program that would provide rebates to homeowners who install energy-efficient appliances.

Comptroller Glenn Hegar said he sees no conflict with seeking the cash. It comes with no strings attached. It’s taxpayer money. It goes to Texas homeowners, or it remains in federal coffers, Hegar said in an interview.

“Texas pays a lot of money to the federal government in taxes,” Hegar said. “We’re a donor state. We don’t receive all of our money back, and this is funding that we can utilize.”

‘Climate has changed on its own’

As comptroller, Hegar’s main role is serving as the state’s accountant. However, the Legislature gave his office influence over environmental policy after it passed a 2021 law banning the state from investing government pension funds with companies that have ESG policies — environmental, social and governance — deemed hostile to the state’s vast fossil fuel industry. Hegar decides which companies are on the ESG blacklist.

Hegar was the only statewide elected official who agreed to be interviewed for this story. When asked whether he believed burning fossil fuels was contributing to climate change, Hegar said it was “pretty arrogant” to believe human actions were the sole cause of climate change.

“If you throw a stone in the water, there’s going to be a ripple,” he said. “However, does that mean there’s going to be a tidal wave or a flood? No, there’s not. The bottom line is, as long as humans have been on this earth — and way before then — the fact is, the climate has changed on its own.”

Banner, the UT climatologist, said the scientific consensus that climate change is manmade is “very strong” and that current warming and severe weather trends cannot be simulated without considering the measured increase in greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.

“We can’t account for the changes we’re seeing unless we consider the increase in greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels,” he said. “That’s the kind of data one needs to look at if we’re going to have discussions around this.”

Abbott has worked to counteract federal climate mandates as governor and while he was Texas attorney general from 2002-15. Abbott has signed executive orders to bolster the greenhouse gas-emitting oil and gas industry and sued the Obama administration multiple times while attorney general, taking aim at Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

The governor has repeatedly eschewed using the term “climate change” during his three terms leading the state. In a report his office commissioned after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in 2017 — the most devastating hurricane to hit the Texas Gulf Coast in the modern era — Abbott’s office called for the Gulf Coast to be prepared for weather uncertainty. When reporters asked him if he would acknowledge climate change, the governor deflected.

“Of course, over a long period of time, there are different climatic challenges we deal with,” he said, according to an Austin American-Statesman news report on the Hurricane Harvey study.

It’s a common argument among many Republicans in Texas — acknowledge the climate is changing but avoid saying the words “climate change” and reject the burning of fossil fuels as a cause.

Three years after Harvey, Abbott would not say climate change was a factor when asked about the increasing frequency of severe weather during a news conference in which he signed a state disaster declaration alongside Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson.

While a Democratic state House member, Johnson authored a climate change planning bill in 2017. Johnson switched to Republican affiliation in 2023. His office did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, said while campaigning in 2014 that he’d leave the climate “in the hands of God.” On multiple occasions, Patrick said federal climate-sensitive proposals would destroy the Texas economy.

Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the federal government multiple times, successfully undoing climate-focused executive orders from the Biden administration, such as overturning a federal moratorium on new liquefied natural gas export licenses in July.

Climate is ‘still a little bit touchy’

In the Texas House, the Texas Energy and Climate Caucus shows climate initiatives do not have to fall strictly along party lines.

Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, helped create the caucus early in the 2021 legislative session. Soon after, a polar vortex blanketed Texas in freezing temperatures, ice, sleet and snow, triggering widespread blackouts that left more than 200 Texans dead.

“The blackout implicated every issue we worked on, and so we ended up growing and doing a lot of informational work much more quickly,” Zwiener said.

The group has grown to 55 members, including nine Republicans, with two in leadership positions. But even the bipartisan group that works on climate issues tends to avoid using the phrase “climate change,” Zwiener said.

“Climate specifically is obviously still a little bit touchy,” she said. “But you know, we can talk about water availability, we can talk about severe natural disasters. We can talk about how that’s affecting all sorts of corners of Texas life, and where we have a lot of commonality is supporting innovative energy technology coming into Texas that can both meet climate objectives and can meet economic objectives and reliability objectives.”

“What’s important to me is not the terms people use,” Zwiener said. “What’s important to me is if we can take steps to address the issues Texans are seeing in front of each other.”

To that end, the Texas Energy and Climate Caucus aims to decouple partisanship from environmental policy by focusing on power generation goals supported by both parties. If those goals happen to support clean energy, all the better.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have found common ground in opposing several legislative proposals in 2023 to limit wind and solar power and battery storage facilities in Texas.

“Those attacks did not make it across the finish line,” Zweiner said. “That is due to the relationships that have been made in this caucus.”

The Energy and Climate Caucus’ Republican vice-chair — 10-term Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo – has authored laws that encourage local gas utilities to offer conservation programs, study hydrogen energy development and monitor earthquakes associated with fracking.

Darby said he felt comfortable joining the caucus because he has been involved with West Texas energy for nearly his entire career.

Part of his district is in the oil-rich Permian Basin, which has seen a major turnaround in fossil fuel production since the fracking revolution began in 2008. But his district has also seen a proliferation of wind- and solar-power projects. Many electric battery storage projects are also in the works.

In an interview, Darby said the geographic concentration of oil and gas professionals in the Permian Basin has helped to build newer industries. Just north of his district, at Abilene Christian University, oil professionals last year led an effort to get federal approval for the nation’s first nuclear research reactor in more than 40 years.

Nuclear energy is another clean energy source that has fostered support across the political aisle. It is also favored among some lawmakers because, unlike wind and solar, it is not dependent on the weather.

Darby said his involvement in the caucus is a tacit acknowledgement that climate and energy are related, but he admitted to equivocating when asked more specifically if he believes burning fossil fuels is causing climate change.

“This caucus recognizes that everyone has a stake here in Texas, and there are policy solutions that I think can meet all of those goals,” he said, adding that abandoning the oil and gas industry is unrealistic.

“We’re going to have a robust oil and gas industry, and we need a robust oil and gas industry,” Darby said. “But what we also need is a responsible oil and gas industry that recognizes that what they do has an effect on landowners and clean water, clean air, and act responsibly to mitigate those.”

As for climate change planning efforts at the Legislature, state Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, filed a similar bill this year in the Texas House. At a recent public hearing, Anchía said that it would go far to shift the state from being reactive to severe weather disasters to a proactive stance.

“I think it is really important,” he said, “that, in being responsive to our constituents, making sure that they are safe, making sure we can stand up state services to them after extreme weather, that we plan, plan, plan.”

That said, there is a two-word phrase never mentioned in the bill: climate change.

Reporting for this story was supported by the MIT Environmental Solutions Journalism Fellowship.

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