Environment: Finding Common Ground

State parks all across Texas face budget cuts.

Photo by Jana Birchum

• Less Is Still Less

  A session budgetary snapshot reflects some progress, dim prospects

  BY MICHAEL KING

• Show Your Work

  How Texas ended up $27 billion short

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• Schools: Under Seige

  School districts around the state remember the Alamo

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• The Alamo Schools Letter

  Superintendent's letter remembers the Alamo

• Higher Ed: Lower Priority

  College coffers feel the squeeze

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• > Environment: Finding Common Ground

• Health Care: Flirting With Armageddon

  Choosing between a 'firing squad' and 'death by starvation'

  BY MICHAEL KING

• Criminal Justice: Cutting the Three Ps

  BY JORDAN SMITH

• The Arts: The Way the Culture Crumbles

  Cuts run deep for arts, historic preservation, and libraries

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

• Transportation: Spinning in Place

  Thinking local on transpo taxes

  BY LEE NICHOLS

• Perry's Magic Wand: Disappearing Mandates

  Texas puts its money far from where its mouth is

  BY RICHARD WHITTAKER

The environment has never been a front-burner issue for the Texas Legislature, and when the mantra this session is "cut, cut, cut," there's no reason to expect progressive initiatives. Environmentalists' best hopes are on pushing initiatives that can be packaged as pro-business. Hence groups like Environment Texas issue position papers stating, "Texas has what it takes to become the national leader in solar power. ... But Texas hasn't capitalized on our natural advantages and, as a result, other states are luring solar manufacturers away. Environment Texas ... [s]upports creating a statewide incentive program to install solar on a million rooftops in the next decade."

It will be interesting to see if groups like ET and its compatriots in the Sierra Club can convince conservative lawmakers to go against the suburbs on issues like solar installations. Some homeowners associations ban solar panels on rooftops (because aesthetics are more important than clean air), but the enviros are wisely choosing conservative rhetoric: Not allowing solar installations, they say, is an infringement on property rights by quasi-governmental bodies. One such bill that would stop HOAs from enforcing such bans is even authored by veteran GOP Sen. Troy Fraser.

Of course, like everyone else, enviros are fighting cuts. The same statement from ET says the group "[o]pposes appropriating revenues generated by the Sporting Goods Sales Tax for purposes other than the parks system." Unfortunately, legislators this session are scrambling to find green, not be green.