How did the 81st Session go?  After all the planning, meetings, hearings, email, office visits, phone calls, amendments, amendments to the amendment, how did things go for the ACT agenda this session?

The bottomline: we didn’t make the kind of progress on clean energy and clean air issues we had hoped to make. ACT bills faced two hurdles that could not be overcome this session. The first was strong industry opposition that both slowed the process (especially getting bills voted out of committee) and undermined the bipartisan support these measures had going into the session. The second was a legislative session that was behind from the beginning and ultimately derailed by a partisan stalemate in the House.

It’s important to note that bills did indeed pass that will continue to move Texas toward a cleaner, healthier future. Over the coming weeks, we’ll take a look at each of the 2009 issue areas in-depth and publish an assessment of how we fared on each. By the end of the month, ACT plans to publish a 2009 Legislative wrap-up.

Today, it’s worth taking a look at where ACT’s high priority bills ended up. First, the good news. Two of the ACT’s nine high priority bills are headed to the governor’s desk. HB 821 (TV producer takeback recycling) and SB 184 (greenhouse gas registry study) passed to engrossment in both chambers. ACT would like to thank everyone who worked on these bills – both this year and in years past laying the foundation for their success.

As for the other seven bills: frankly, last Friday, three more high priority bills seemed poised to make it: SB 546, SB 545 (as an amendment) and HB 300 (TXDoT sunset). However, SB 546 failed in the conference process, taking SB 545 with it. HB 300 died when the Senate chair of the Transportation Committee threatened to filiabuster it. Obviously, members of the ACT issue teams did everything possible to keep these bills alive – particularly SB 545. But Sine Die came without a solar bill headed for Gov Perry’s desk, without the increase in energy efficiency goal recommended by the PUC’s Itron Study, and without needed improvements to make TXDoT a more environmentally-sound agency.

SB 16 became ensnared in a tremendous amount of industry push back, particularly against future air permits requiring ozone impact analysis and cumulative impact studies. After a considerable delay in voting the bill out of House Environmental Regulation, the House Calendar committee finally placed SB 16 on the House Major State calendar on May 23. But by that point, the House had ground to a halt and SB 16 failed to be passed by the midnight deadline on May 26. Eventually, parts of SB 16 were amended onto other legislation, but between the stripping of non-germane amendments and the abrupt adjourning of the Senate last night, most of them died as well.

HB 280 was made the companion for SB 546 by the House on May 14th, so it essentially shared the fate of SB 546. And HB 1553 – the climate adaptation plan bill – was voted out of House Envirnonmental Regulation but was not placed on the House calendar.

After a weekend-long roller coaster ride, the dust is beginning to settle around the renewable energy bills. And as we get off the ride, it’s fair to say that “whiplashed” is the only word for what we’re feeling.

The disappointing news: SB 545 and HB 1243 have failed to gain final passage in the House. They will not go to the governor’s office. They will not be passed into law.

SB 545 was the solar rebate bill that would have pumped up to $500 million into rooftop solar and other “distributed generation” renewable energy. It passed through the Senate and the House Committee on Energy Resources. It failed to be taken up by the full House even though it was placed on the Major State calendar (the high priority calendar). The slow start to the session, significant industry resistance (this time from the Texas Association of Manufacturers) and the five-day stalemate over Voter ID each contributed to SB 545 failure to pass the House.

When SB 545 failed to pass the House, there was one more chance for it to continue on – as an amendment to a House bill already waiting passage in the Senate. While not what you set out to do when you’re drafting legislation, this is a standard path to take. So when Sen Fraser attached SB 545 (his solar bill) to HB 1243 (Rep Gallego’s net metering bill which he was sponsoring in the Senate) late Wednesday night, our hopes for solar legislation in 2009 were restored.

But at 11:58 on Friday night, with two minutes to go, a point of order was called on HB 1243 questioning whether its amendments were germane. (A second amendment on electric co-operatives had also been attached by Sen Fraser.) This point of order by Rep Turner had the effect of running out the clock, and midnight, the sun seemed to set on solar.

However, several of solar energy’s strongest advocates in the House worked all weekend trying to find a way to save solar. Unfortunately, they were unable to resolve differences over the goals for solar and efficiency that the amended bill would set. The doubly disappointing news: as a result of these failed negotiations, SB 546 failed to be reported from conference committee.

It’s very disappointing that we came so close to passing this legislation. However, while the news is bad on these three bills, we are heartened by the success of bills such as HB 821 (TV recycling), SB 184 ( the “no regrets” greenhouse gas strategy), and the green jobs training bill (included as an amendment to another workers’ training bill and as a rider to the budget).

But we’ll