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The Texas Blue
Advancing Progressive Ideas

Environment Texas

We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress. That's the idea behind Environment Texas. We focus exclusively on protecting Texas' air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

Founded last year as the new home of TexPIRG’s environmental work, Environment Texas uses the same result-oriented advocacy that made TexPIRG so successful. The new focus of the two organizations is helping Environment Texas and TexPIRG launch a new era of action and advocacy.

Oil companies, utilities, big developers…their voices are always heard. Environment Texas’ mission is to offer Texans an equally strong and effective voice for our environment.

Standing up to Powerful Interests
Texans overwhelmingly support strong protections for our environment. Yet decisions about the quality of our air and water and the fate of our natural areas are all too often shaped by, and for the benefit of, a small number of industry insiders.

Consider the plight of Texas parks. Public opinion supports declaring these special places off-limits to development, mining and drilling and giving them the resources to survive and thrive. Yet, our government is failing to protect millions of acres of our remaining wild places from powerful interests.

For too long the Legislature has neglected our state parks. While the overall state budget increased by 68 per cent between 1990 and 2003, the
Legislature slashed spending on parks by 34 percent. Today, Texas is ranked 49th in the nation for spending on state parks.

Budget cuts in recent years forced the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to lay off dozens of park rangers, close campgrounds, cancel plans to acquire environmentally sensitive lands and provide grants to local parks. Two years ago, the agency even considered selling part of Big Bend Ranch State Park to a private developer in order to raise additional funds.

That was unfortunately not an isolated incident of the state selling public land to private interests. In 2006, they proposed selling theEagle Mountain Lake State Parkin Fort Worth to developers to build condos. Now, the General Land Office is trying to auction off the Christmas Mountains to private interests. GLO is also pursuing an irresponsible investment strategy, buying up ecologically important open space and selling it to developers (e.g. theFort Worth prairie andHays county land on the Blanco river).

Thanks to an enormous public outcry, the tides are shifting on public land protection. The sales of Big Bend Ranch and Eagle Mountain Lake State Parks to private interests were stopped. And this spring Environment Texas and our allies convinced the Legislature to triple funding for our state parks, appropriating an additional $180 million over two years. The additional funds will allow the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to rehire laid off park rangers, re-open campgrounds, repair decaying facilities, and acquire sensitive lands to create a new state park.

Working with a coalition of dozens of organizations, Environment Texas played a significant role in drawing attention to the plight of Texas parks. Environment Texas wrote and released two reports, Texas Natural Areas At Risk and Creating A World Class Parks System for Texas. We produced a short film narrated by two-time Oscar nominee and Texas native Ethan Hawke and screened it for dozens of groups around the state. By setting up information tables in busy public places, our citizen outreach staff talked to tens of thousands of Texans face to face about the issue, helping generate thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails into lawmakers’ offices. We regularly met with legislators, reporters and editorial writers and testified before committees. We also took our message on a road trip around the state in an RV we dubbed the State Parks Express. In each targeted city we hosted “weenie roasts for the parks” outside legislators’ offices, running radio ads and generating media coverage to put pressure on wavering lawmakers.

Our work paid off and we won an important victory in the 80th Legislature. But we still have more work to do to save Texas parks.

Tough-minded Advocacy
To overcome the opposition of powerful special interests, Environment Texas relies on independent research and tough-minded advocacy. For example, with power plants churning out more pollution each year and oil and gas interests pressing to drill in our wild areas, our research illuminated Texas’ tremendous potential for clean, renewable energy – and the economic benefits of tapping that potential. In 2005, we helped win the nation’s second strongest renewable energy law, ensuring that by 2015, Texas generates enough clean energy to power 1.6 million homes. This legislation is already showing results. In 2006, Texas surpassed California in installed wind energy generation to become the national leader in wind energy.

Our Threatened Environment
With factories dumping waste into our waterways, coal-fired power plants pumping pollution into our air, and developers ruining natural areas, hasn’t Texas’ environment had enough? And what about the toll all this is taking on our health?

Let’s look at just one example, cited by Environment Texas researchers: As a result of soot - tiny, invisible particles – generated by power plants, more than 1000 Texans lose their lives each year.

Environment Texas and our allies have fought plans to more than double the number of dirty coal-fired power plants in Texas, and have helped stop some and slow down the progress of others. We are now working to pass federal global warming legislation that will make sure it doesn’t make
financial sense to ever build a single new coal plant in the US.

A Focus on Results
We all share the hope that we can restore our environment to health with clean air to breathe, safe drinking water and well-protected parks,
wetlands and coastal areas. But getting there means making tangible progress, one victory at a time, for Texas’ environment.

On issue after issue, Environment Texas (a 501c4 lobby organization) stands up against powerful interests and conducts the kind of research and advocacy that wins real results for our environment. We’ve won funding to protect threatened land in the Barton Springs watershed, helped win
tough new standards against overfishing in the Gulf of Mexico, and new standards for diesel buses and trucks.

Environment Texas uses a combination of strategies to advance our agenda. By refusing corporate or government money, we are able to do independent research to investigate problems and identify solutions that are best for our environment and public health, not just for a narrow special interest. Next, we meet with lawmakers and present our ideas and ask for their support. Unfortunately, all too often just having a good idea isn’t enough. So we take our ideas to the public, sending canvassers door to door and to stand in busy public places to mobilize their support through petitions, phone calls and letters to their elected officials. We work to train leaders, recruiting students and the public to learn the skills of grassroots organizing. We hold regular news conferences to get our message out to the media and sometimes purchase advertisements in the newspaper and on the radio. We work to build alliances with other important constituencies in Texas politics, from hunting organizations to wind energy developers. And when it’s all said and done, we hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, releasing regular scorecards to the public showing how legislators voted on key environmental issues.

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