The Texas state flag flies above workers at Latshaw oil drilling rig #43 in the Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. More than 5,000 new well-drilling permits were issued in the Texas portion of the Permian in 2021, as demand for fossil fuels rebounded after a COVID-era slump in demand. Numbers from the first quarter of 2022 show the industry on pace to eclipse that figure. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
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Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter
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Sustainability
Sustainability
The Big Story
Texas legislature could strip cities of local authority
The Texas legislature is debating a pair of bills that would strip cities and counties of the right to set policy on a wide array of environmental, safety and discrimination issues.
These two state bills — House Bill 2127 and Senate Bill 814 — would bar municipalities from passing or enforcing local rules in several critical areas “unless explicitly authorized by statute.”
Seizing power: This means that unless the Texas legislature has given cities specific right to pass rules and ordinances pertaining to natural resources, agriculture or labor, such rules are null and void as soon as they are passed.
Potential nullified laws could range from new anti-discrimination rules to bans on certain kinds of pollution or industrial practices.
A bigger fight: The proposed legislation builds on nearly a decade of state Republican attacks on the autonomy of Texas cities — like Austin’s attempted ban on single-use plastic bags or Denton’s failed attempt to keep fracking out of city limits.
Going on defense against progressives: The House bill’s sponsor framed the new legislation as defensive.
“Progressive urban centers are beginning to pass all sorts of things they historically have never touched before,” House sponsor Dustin Burrows (R) told the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Burrows pointed to “the Green New Deal, or Dallas trying to ban gas-powered lawn mowers, or fracking bans out of Denton, or labor union bills in the city of Houston.”
In all these cases, “progressive activists who can’t get their agenda through the state house now go down to our city councils to pass rules, which are hurting business.”
Business lobby approves: The Texas business lobby applauded the bill, which would allow state-wide businesses to negotiate environmental and labor issues exclusively with the Republican-dominated state government — rather than the comparatively liberal cities. The bills would spare those business owners from “the whims of rogue regulators,” state director Annie Spilman of the National Federation of Independent Business said in a statement.
Unions push back: Advocates of the new legislation “complain about a patchwork of local regulation,” Rick Levy, president of the Texas branch of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, said in a statement.
Those ‘rogue regulators’ are elected representatives of their cities’ citizens, Levy noted.
“I think Texas is a beautiful quilt of vibrant communities that are so vibrant and unique. We see that as a strength, not something we want to crush,” he added.
Focus on heat: The legislation would nullify rules that Austin and Dallas have passed to protect workers against dangerous summer heat, Levy said.
Those workers “have the right to a 10-minute rest break every 4 hours to have water in the heat of day,” according to Levy.
“This bill would strip that right, because somehow it is so hard for businesses to give workers this basic right,” he added.
Welcome to The Hill’s Sustainability newsletter, we’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin — every week we follow the latest moves in the growing battle over sustainability in the U.S. and around the world.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to part with a massive amount of water to help replenish the dwindling Great Salt Lake. The Salt Lake City-based institution, one of the wealthiest organizations in Utah, will be donating more than 5,700 water shares that it holds in the North Point Consolidated Irrigation Company to the state. The donated water, which was historically used for agricultural purposes, …
The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed the first-ever nationwide drinking limits for toxic substances known as “forever chemicals” that have become pervasive in U.S waterways. The chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been found to cause kidney and testicular cancer, as well as thyroid disease. They are sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they linger in the …
Monkeys in modern-day Thai forests create stone artifacts uncannily similar to those crafted by early humans — challenging the established narrative of human cultural evolution. A new study published on Friday in Science Advances suggests the possibility that a critical hallmark of human tool use happened by accident — potentially blurring the line between tool use by early humans and our primate relatives. The Thai …
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and state officials have filed a lawsuit accusing the city of Huntington Beach of violating state housing laws. Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the move at a virtual press conference Thursday, saying they were seeking a preliminary injunction against the city. Bonta said state laws exist “to give more families the ability to help themselves, while helping our state combat …
Transitioning to electric vehicle (EV) usage will be critical to achieve national climate targets, but this shift may also require costly new power plants, a new study has found.
But such an investment could be avoided with some strategic moves regarding charging station location and use time according to the study, published on Wednesday in Cell Reports Physical Science.
Wasting resources: With additional EVs on the road, additional and expensive power plants could be necessary to meet peak loads in the evening, when cars are usually charging, the authors warned.
If left unmitigated, evening peaks in EV charging demand could require about 20 percent more power-generation capacity, they found.
Meanwhile, the overproduction of power from solar energy during the day could end up wasting valuable resources.
Strategic charging: But it may be possible to mitigate or eliminate these problems in a cost-friendly manner — by encouraging the strategic placement of EV charging stations, the researchers found.
“There’s a lot of public money going into expanding charging infrastructure,” senior author Jessika Trancik, a professor at MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems and Society, said in a statement.
“How do you incentivize the location such that this is going to be efficiently and effectively integrated into the power grid without requiring a lot of additional capacity expansion?” Trancik asked.
Where and when people charge: Trancik and her colleagues conducted their research in New York and Dallas, using anonymized records from onboard vehicle devices, as well as population surveys about travel behaviors.
They looked at the times of day cars are used, as well as the amount of time the vehicles were parked at different locations.
Rethinking routines: The researchers determined that better availability of charging stations at workplaces could help take advantage of peak power being produced midday by solar energy facilities.
Such generation might otherwise go to waste, as building ample battery storage would not be economical.
This shift in routine would then reduce evening peak loads from EV charging.
Incentivizing efficiency: Another way to shave off usage at peak hours would be to incentivize “delayed home charging,” according to the study.
“It’s basically incentivizing people to begin charging later,” Trancik said.
“You incentivize people to delay the onset of charging by a bit, so that not everyone is charging at the same time, and that smooths out the peak,” she added.
On Our Radar
Upcoming news themes and events we’re watching:
The United Nations 2023 Water Conference will take place March 22-24 in New York. The meeting aims to achieve “a bold Water Action Agenda that gives our world’s lifeblood the commitment it deserves,” according to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres.
In the Senate, the Agriculture Committee will hear testimony from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday, and the Appropriations Committee will grill Forest Service representatives on March 22 about the agency’s budget plan for next year.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) on Tuesday introduced legislation that would make higher-ethanol fuel blends available year-round, a top priority among midwestern lawmakers in particular.
Story at a glance Southern states grew by more than 1.3 million people in 2022. Meanwhile, Northeastern states lost about 219,000 residents and the Midwest lost about 49,000. The declines in both areas are due to people moving elsewhere in the country. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) — While the Northeast and Midwest are losing residents, Southern states grew by more than 1.3 million people in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Food brands struggling to weather the ‘polycrisis‘ unleashed by war and climate change (Reuters)
Climate change adaptation measures conflicted with the recreational demands on city forests during COVID-19 pandemic (Nature: npj Urban Sustainability)
Story at a glance Restaurant sales platform Toast released a new report on tipping. The average tip in San Francisco is 17 percent. The average tip in Cleveland is 20.6 percent. Out of 12 cities analyzed, San Francisco restaurant-goers gave the worst tips, according to a new report from the restaurant sales platform Toast, with a number … Read more
