CEC ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS UPDATE 3/26/04 - HOUSTON

CEC NOTES

CEC PARTNERS WITH KEEP FOR EDUCATION CONFERENCE

The 2004 Environment in Education Conference is sponsored by several local groups, including the CEC. It is presented by the Kids' Environmental Education Project, which provides resources for teachers, administrators, and parents. These resources include information about how to organize environmental day trips and after-school clubs providing service projects and learning opportunities. The weekend will feature a kid's environmental fair with science, arts and service projects and a tour in the afternoon with several CEC members, including the Katy Prairie Conservancy. The conference begins with a reception and dinner, Thursday, April 1, and registration on Friday and Saturday, April 2 & 3, at the University of Houston Downtown. Events include breakout sessions, along with exhibit booths and an environmental fair. For more information and to register, contact Duncan Ragsdale, (281) 759-8343 or duncanrags@ev1.net.

COALITION NOTES

LECTURE NEXT WEEK ON "OUR TOWN" EXHIBIT"

A gallery lecture on the exhibition "Our Town: Houston Past Present Future" will be given on Friday, April 2 at noon at the Joan Wich & Co. Gallery, downtown at Preston and Main. David Crossley, curator of the exhibition and president of the Gulf Coast Institute, will discuss the show using PowerPoint slides. The event is free and open to the public, and attendees are welcome to bring their lunches. Information about the gallery is at http://www.joanwich.com. RSVP either by phone to (713) 227-2480 or by email to crossley@gulfcoastideas.org.

KEEP HOUSTON BEAUTIFUL HOLDS CITY-WIDE CLEANUP

Keep Houston Beautiful Day is an annual citywide event to help clean up Houston. KHB staff works every spring with representatives from the mayor's office to organize the clean-up actives. Past efforts included cleaning up streets, removing litter, raking leaves, and planting flowers. Volunteers are encouraged to participate Saturday, April 3. For more information, contact Trina at Keep Houston Beautiful (713) 839-8855 or Tfinley@houstonbeautiful.org.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR GLOBAL FORUM ON WATER

The Global Forum on Water, sponsored by FotoFest and Rice University, will bring together leading scientists, policymakers, activists, religious leaders and creative thinkers. They will consider the state of the world's water and its future. Volunteers are needed on Friday, April 2, and Saturday, April 3, between 7:30 am and 5 pm. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Megan Wilde at cses@rice.edu or (713) 348-5736.

LOCAL

FORMER CLINTON DOE STAFFERS URGE ACTION ON RENEWABLES
by Erika McDonald

Last month, the Dow chemical facility in Freeport became the first plant in the country to run on a hydrogen fuel cell. While large corporations such as General Motors are pouring money into research and development for this emerging technology, some experts are calling for more immediate action to reduce emissions from fossil fuels that cause global warming.

At an event hosted Monday by the Citizens' League for Environmental Action Now, Joseph Romm, acting secretary of energy under Bill Clinton, urged political and individual action to help prevent rising temperatures. Romm said that, with an aggressive plan to cool the city, Houston could lead the way on green building technologies.

“Houston is a very polluted, very hot city, in part because people have cut down trees and replaced the vegetation with black highways and asphalt roofs that heat at up the city and increase (the need for) air conditioning, and heat directly creates smog,” he said.

In his new book, The Hype about Hydrogen, Romm argues that fuel cell technology provides a distant answer to the immediate problem of global warming. The energy it takes to create hydrogen, and the added expense, lead Romm to call for more focus on renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar power.

“In the transportation sector (hydrogen) cars are not ready for prime time,” he said. “I don’t think people are going to get excited about paying more for the luxury of avoiding imported oil by using hydrogen made from imported natural gas.”

Romm said industries are using the promise of hydrogen as an excuse to avoid regulatory wrath aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming.

“They’re using hydrogen sort of like this silver bullet but, in reality, I think the technology is another 20 years down the road and, in the case of global warming, we just can’t afford to wait that long,” he said. “Meanwhile we have technology to reduce emissions now.”

At the Houston Advanced Research Center, engineers like David Hitchcock are working to fine tune renewable energy technologies that minimize environmental impact. Impeding the progress of turning this research into consumer options are what Hitchcock called political barriers.

“ Sometimes people don’t support ideas because they don’t understand them,” he said. “Part of our job is educating decision makers and helping them make the information more accessible to their constituencies.”

Educating consumers and architects about ways to reduce urban the heat island effect is now a city priority, according to mayor Bill White. White, who worked with Romm in the Department of Energy, said he helped create city funding for pamphlets for consumers and businesses about using green building materials. Though he did not commit to specific policies the city could adopt to restrict irresponsible development, White described some possibilities.

“We need to come up with some consensus-based standards on how we want to build out the city in the future so that we reflect the heat rather than absorb it,” he said. White said the city could provide incentives for green roofing materials and credits on emissions reductions.

Cool Houston is a city initiative to promote environmentally responsible development. But both former DOE staffers said all cities would benefit from a national policy that curbs greenhouse gas emissions, provides incentives for renewable energy development and reduces American dependence on foreign sources of oil. Joseph Romm called the congressional energy bill, currently on its last legs, an embarrassment.

While waiting for political will and technological advancements to catch up with environmental needs, there are measures consumers can take to reduce their own contributions to global warming. Romm recommended purchasing hybrid cars and looking for the Energy Star label when buying home appliances

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ENDORSES INDEPENDENT FOR DELAY SEAT
by Renee Feltz

At a press conference in Houston this week, the political action arm of DC-based environmental group, Friends of the Earth, backed independent candidate Micheal Fjetland for the seat currently held by Tom Delay in the US House.

FOE president, Brent Blackwelder said he wants voters to have an alternative to Delay, describing the representative as a partisan bully who betrayed his constituents’ trust.

“We know that Houston has some of smoggiest air in the nation and here you’ve got a representative and House majority leader, and who wants to repeal the entire Clean Air Act,” he said. “That’s not a family value, to make people want to breathe dirty air to make them sicker.

Blackwelder said the 22nd district's Democratic candidate, attorney Richard Morrison, has a good environmental record, and that the group usually endorses Democrats.

Fjetland, also a local attorney, is a registered Republican who touts his experience in foreign affairs and national security. He won 20 percent of the vote against Sugarland congressman Tom Delay in the 2002 GOP primary and says he’s confident he can expand that percentage this November.

“I think a lot of moderate Republicans are put off by his arrogance and hyper-partisanship,” Fjetland said. “There are apparently moral issues that Republicans are having with him, and I think they are ready to see a candidate who will build some bridges instead of tearing them down.”

Fjetland bases his campaign strategy on the results of the March 9 republican primary. In Fort Bend County, of the 13,000 voters who voted George W. Bush for president, 8,000 voted Delay in the congressional race.

“That’s a 40 percent drop-off of republicans who could have voted for their own congressman,” he said. “So potentially, if I could pull those 40 percent of Republicans, combined with moderate Democrats, that’s a majority.”

For two decades, DeLay has represented the 22nd district, which covers Fort Bend County, Brazoria County, and parts of Harris and Galveston counties. As an independent, Fjetland needs 500 signatures gain a spot on the ballot opposite Delay.

THREE-MILE ANNIVERSARY DRAWS ATTENTION TO LOCAL CONCERNS ABOUT NUCLEAR POWER
by Erika McDonald

Twenty-five years ago Wednesday, a meltdown at the nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania exposed roughly 600,000 people to radiation resulting in hundreds of cases of cancer and radiation burns. A nationwide coalition of community and environmental groups held events across the country to commemorate the worst nuclear disaster in American history and to call on political leaders to take precautions against nuclear hazards that exist today.

At a press conference in Austin, Texas Public Interest Research Group's Luke Metzger raised safety concerns about nuclear power plants operating across the state.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission details widespread safety problems at Texas nuclear plants. A leak was discovered last year at the South Texas Project reactor southwest of Houston in Bay City. The plant is owned by Houston’s Reliant and Centerpoint Energy. The Comanche Peak plant south of Fort Worth is currently failing federal standards for fire safety hazards, according to the commission.

Metzger also criticized the state legislature, which voted last year to allow Waste Control Specialists, a Dallas-based company, to dump radioactive waste, including nuclear weapons waste, in Andrews County. During the legislative session, environmental lobbyists raised health and safety concerns for communities in Houston and other Texas cities through which the waste is expected to be hauled. A major point of contention was a provision that allows Waste Control to profit from the dump while leaving Texas taxpayers liable for cleanup in the event of a leak or spill.

"You would think, with all that collective knowledge (about the dangers of nuclear waste, the Texas legislature would have made a better decision last year," Metzger said.

Federal laws that subsidize nuclear power also place a burden on taxpayers. The high risk of catastrophic accident associated with nuclear power keeps insurance companies from fully covering nuclear plants. The Price-Anderson Act of 1957 caps the industry’s liability in the event of an accident and places responsibility for cleanup on the federal government. Metzger said the industry is financially dependent upon the law, which shields them from market forces.

“Without that law, nuclear power wouldn’t be economically viable for the industry and they’d shut it down immediately,” he said. “It’s one of the worst energy boondoggles our country supports right now.”

The congressional energy bill currently stalled in the senate would extend the Price-Anderson Act for another 20 years.

“Nuclear power is dangerous and unnecessary,” Metzger said. “Texas has alternatives that are safer and better for the economy.”

TexPIRG joined other Austin-based groups, including the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, the Lone Star Sierra Club and Public Citizen in asking Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to fulfill his campaign promise to require Texas utilities to derive 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

A report by Public Citizen and the SEED Coalition found that increasing the renewable standard could generate 18,000 jobs for the state and raise $200 million for Texas schools and hospitals.

An opportunity to amend state law to raise the standard exists now with the Texas Public Utility Commission, which regulates the state's renewable energy policy, currently under legislative review.

THIS WEEK’S EVENTS

ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION

CEC Environmental News Update is a weekly publication by the Citizens' Environmental Coalition, a 501(c)3 dedicated to fostering dialogue, education and collaboration about environmental issues in the Houston-Gulf Coast Region. Visit the CEC online at www.cechouston.org.

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