We are proud to introduce the Sierra Club’s 2019 Texas Legislative Scorecard. In a session dominated by public education funding, flood control and budget battles, there was also a lot of work to be done on Sierra Club’s priority issues. It’s no secret that polluting special interests have overwhelming influence in the Texas Capitol, making it hard to pass good bills to reduce pollution that goes into our air, water, land, and bodies. We’ve gotten used to fighting tooth and nail for even common sense solutions that the overwhelming majority of Texans support, such as developing standards for aboveground petrochemical storage tanks. While there were still too many instances where there weren’t enough lawmakers to stop bad bills, or pass good bills, there were more areas of bipartisanship and slightly better margins on losses than in sessions past.
The reasons for optimism are as follows:
First Termers
First-term legislators whom the Sierra Club endorsed in 2018 were excellent on environmental bills, for the most part. Reps. Goodwin, Ramos, Zwiener, and Rosenthal received perfect scores of 100%. The average score for all first-term Reps was 80.8%. The average score for non-Sierra Club endorsed legislators from 2018 was 30.5%. The average score for the entire House was still pretty pathetic at 47.3%.
The average score of the Senators we endorsed in 2018 was 85.6%, with first-term Sen. Nathan Johnson receiving a 100%. The average score for the entire 31-member Senate was 53.3%.
Standouts
We cannot say enough good things about State Rep. Erin Zwiener’s first term. Her Hill Country constituents should remember her incredible efforts going to bat for them fighting against HB 3557, and - though it failed ultimately - writing a great amendment to HB 3557 intended to protect residents protesting pipelines that go through their own land. She also is credited with killing HB 3750, a bill that would have limited cities’ ability to preserve water quality, on a point of order. When it comes to protecting the environment and its people, Rep. Zwiener gets it. There’s no fear from us she will succumb to fossil fuel special interests.
We’re also incredibly appreciative of the work of new members like Sen. Johnson, who attempted to get better standards on storage tanks like the ones that failed during Hurricane Harvey. We’d also like to acknowledge the efforts of Rep. John Turner, and some stalwarts like Sen. Rodriguez, who recently announced he will not return in 2021, Sen. Watson, as well as Reps. Anchia and Howard, who continued to fight for air quality and protection of public health.
Bipartisanship Still Exists… A Little
Perhaps it was the diminished power of the radical Texas Freedom Caucus, but there were signs of bipartisanship on a few key environmental issues, and we want to celebrate that when it happens. The Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP) has consistently had to fight to survive previous sessions, but thankfully, HB 3745, led by Rep. Cecil Bell, Jr., passed both chambers easily, after some last-minute negotiations between the House and Senate.
Members of the House and Senate on both sides of the aisle also worked cooperatively to pass major legislation — and funding — on flood control. In particular, the Sierra Club worked with our allies and Sens. Perry and Creighton, and Rep. Phelan, to ensure that both structural and non-structural flood control strategies would be eligible for funding. The Sierra Club appreciated the bipartisan efforts to ensure that natural systems are part of the solution to flood control.
Similarly, ensuring that revenue collected from the Sporting Goods Sales Tax actually gets appropriated for its intended uses (Texas Parks & Wildlife and the Texas Historical Commission), was something almost all lawmakers could get behind through SJR 24, which was carried by Rep. John Cyrier and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst.
The reasons to hold your cheers (and beers) are as follows:
Oil and Gas Still Saturates the #txlege
Where were the big bills on better regulations on oil and gas? New goals for energy efficiency and renewable energy? A climate bill? Standards on methane pollution or even a study of such standards? These issues were still non-starters because there is still too much influence from polluters at the legislature. This influence comes in two big ways: campaign contributions and oil and gas revenue. Texans who vote, or who follow politics at least casually, should recognize the first influence. Big polluter special interests contribute to political campaigns and get special access to, and preferential treatment from, lawmakers. There’s also the presence of dark money, which is harder to trace because of Citizens United, but has an incredibly negative effect on democratic values and representative government.
The second major area of influence is oil and gas revenue. The environmental community does not pay enough attention to this reality. If it does, it’s usually in the context of a statement about how the Texas economy is too tied to the boom-and-bust cycle of the fracked gas industry, and how Texas needs to ensure more sustainable revenue streams so that state-funded programs can stay healthy even when drilling rig counts go down. However, if one industry pays so much in taxes ($14 billion in 2018 according to the Texas Oil & Gas Association), that translates into a massive political influence imbalance. An “I pay the bills so you do what I say” dynamic between polluters and the Texas Legislature. While it may seem marginal when you consider how big the budget is ($250 billion over two years), and it doesn’t come close to the total revenue from our sales tax, the influence it gives Big Oil & Gas distorts the influence that should come from the people of Texas.
If we want our state’s leaders to take the climate crisis more seriously, if we want them to protect communities that are most affected by pollution, if we want to truly transform our electric grid to one based on renewable energy, energy storage, and energy efficiency, we need to address these two undemocratic areas of influence.
The place to start is to hold lawmakers accountable, and ensure the good ones who we know act in the best interest of their constituents become the leaders. If you thought it took a lot of effort to elect the first-term champions, buckle up for 2020.
Methodology
This year, we decided to weight each vote based on two criteria: 1) how high were the stakes of the vote, and 2) how difficult was it to get votes? For example, in the case of HB 3557 (anti-protestor ALEC bill), the stakes were very high (9/10) because of the impact it would have on our First Amendment rights and its draconian punishments. It was also very difficult (9/10) to get votes because special interests like the Texas Oil & Gas Association were exerting their considerable influence to get the bill passed. For HB 3745 (TERP extension), the stakes were high (9/10) because TERP is a great program that needed to be extended, but because there was bi-partisan support for it, getting the votes for it was relatively easier (2/10).
In addition, we wanted to make adjustments of raw scores to account for the special effort made by some lawmakers in other areas. For example, Rep. John Turner voted against the Sierra Club position on HB 2771. However, we wanted to recognize the special effort he made to amend the bad bill to get a delay in implementation, so we credited him back the value of a No vote on that specific bill. We also tried to recognize some “partial credit” efforts. For example, Rep. Bill Zedler made a good effort to amend HB 2726. For that, we credited him half the value of the correct vote on that bill.
We also tried to recognize special circumstances, such as Rep. Donna Howard’s absence during part of the session because of her husband’s health. Rep. Howard has been an environmental champion for years and there’s no reason to think she would have voted against the Sierra Club position if she were present for the votes she missed.
Otherwise, absences were generally counted against a lawmaker’s final score. This may seem harsh for some stalwart pro-environment lawmakers, but at the end of the day, these were the Sierra Club’s priorities and we need them to show up to vote. There are no doubt some scores that could be further adjusted. It is difficult to track circumstances related to each individual vote on 28 recorded votes across two chambers (181 members in all). We’re open to hear requests for corrections!
Acknowledgements
We could not have produced this scorecard without the help of the following individuals: Matt Johnson, Cyrus Reed, Eric Krueger, Jen Hensley, Taylor Becker, Ken Kramer, Evelyn Merz, Courtney Naquin, and Brittany VanCuran. We wouldn’t have anything to report without the passion and commitment of our volunteer lobbyists, either. Thank you to all the Sierra Club members and supporters who stepped up and called, emailed, wrote, and met with their legislators face to face this year. We appreciate you and your drive to make Texas a better place to live.