Environment Texas, Environmental Defense Fund and Public Citizen have joined forces to broadcast this ad for solar energy in Dallas-Fort Worth, Abilene, Wichita Falls and Tyler-Longview. Take a look – it’s terrific!

Here are three of the renewable energy bills ACT supports:

SB 545 – Senator Fraser: relating to the creation of a distributed solar generation incentive program.
This bill creates a five-year incentive program, administered by electric utilities, for commercial and residential customers to increase the amount of distributed solar generation installed.  The incentive program would be funded by a nominal monthly fee on residential, commercial and industrial customers. The program would generate an estimated $50 million per year and lead to ap-
proximately 70 MWs of on-site renewables by 2015.

HB278 – Representative Anchia: relating to energy demand and incentives for distributed renewable generation.
This bill creates incentive programs, administered by electric utilities, for commercial customers, residential customers, and homebuilders to build on-site solar and geothermal generation. It also sets the goal of an additional 2,000 MWs of generating capacity from distributed renewable energy sources to be installed by the state by 2020, and at least 1,000 MWs by 2015.

SB 541 – Senator Watson: relating to incentives for Texas renewable energy jobs and manufacturing.
Seeks to create renewable energy manufacturing jobs in Texas by giving extra credit for electricity produced by equipment that is made in Texas.  The bill increases the goal for renewable energy and seeks to expand on Texas’ success with wind power, by setting a 3,000 megawatt goal for non- wind renewable generation in Texas

It’s a big week coming up. Wednesday’s Earth Day. The Senate’s going to vote on SB 545. Time to go solar, Texas!

All last week, ACT-supported legislation received hearings in Senate and House committees. As we said earlier in the month, that might not seem like much of a big deal, but in light of the past three sessions, it really is. Moreover, the tone of the hearings has changed markedly.

One good example last week was in the House Committee on Environmental Regulation: three bills that address the wet cement kilns in Midlothian (in the Dallas-Fort Worth area) were heard together (HB 2174, HB 2355, and HB 3424). These kilns are major contributors to nitrogen oxide emissions in the Dallas-Fort Worth non-attainment area; at issue are locally-enacted laws for municipalities to adopt “green cement” purchasing plans as a NOx reduction strategy (and part of the regional State Implementation Plan with the EPA). The committee spent three hours on these three bills. Three hours on how the Dallas-Fort Worth area is working to improve air quality. And while not every question could be called friendly, the committee heard the testimony of two Dallas city council members who said their duty as “locally elected public officials” is to protect the well-being of all their citizens – especially their health.