Even The Tiniest Climate Bills - i.e. Planning Recs - Face Almost Certain Death In TX Legislature
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None of the 2019 climate bills has been scheduled for a committee hearing, the first of many steps needed for passage. With the legislative session more than half over, their prospects don’t look good. Being denied a hearing – it’s the call of a committee chair – is the leading cause of bill deaths. That’s been the fate of virtually every bill related to climate change in Texas.
For years, Democratic legislators have pushed for climate adaptation and mitigation plans, advisory commissions, scientific studies and other steps. Johnson has tried versions of his bill before. Rep. Rafael Anchia, of Dallas, and former Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, now a Harris County commissioner, are veteran authors of many failed climate bills. A review of legislative records by Texas Climate News found that since 2009, at least 11 climate bills have died without hearings in committees. Others received hearings but committees never voted on them. A few got out of committees without being voted on by the full House or Senate. One – Johnson’s 2015 bill to require 20- to 50-year climate forecasts by the state climatologist, and to require state agencies to listen to him – got a House vote but failed, 84-47.
Some bills that nibbled at climate’s edges have succeeded – bills dealing with energy efficiency, for example. But of 21 bills from 2009-2017 that directly addressed climate change, only one became law: then-Sen. Troy Fraser’s 2011 effort to protect industries from lawsuits over their greenhouse-gas emissions. It was signed by then-Gov. Rick Perry, now President Donald Trump’s energy secretary.
John Nielsen-Gammon’s name isn’t in Johnson’s bill, but his title is. In addition to being regents professor in Texas A&M’s atmospheric sciences department, he’s also the Texas state climatologist. In that role, he reports on Texas weather and climate to help identify risks from, among other things, droughts and floods. The Legislature has repeatedly rejected bills that would have ordered or encouraged Texas agencies to tap the state climatologist’s expertise when they write policies and plans.
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http://texasclimatenews.org/?p=16174