AUSTIN -- Despite the public health and environmental issues caused by fossil fuel extraction, and in the midst of a public health emergency that has the public’s attention focused elsewhere, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) hosted its biannual oil and gas drilling lease sale on Wednesday. Twenty-two companies bid on 71 tracts, covering more than 390,000 acres of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, including off the Texas coast.
AUSTIN – As the Austin ISD Board of Trustees approved a new Facilities Master Plan last night, the board directed the district to consider adding solar panels as they “modernize all school buildings over the next 25 years.”
AUSTIN - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today finalized a rule that leaves half the nation’s wetlands and thousands of streams -- which help provide millions of Americans with drinking water -- without the federal protection of the Clean Water Act.
“From wildfires in Australia to extreme flooding during Hurricane Harvey, this report adds to a mounting pile of evidence that we need to move aggressively to eliminate our dependence on oil and gas,” said Emma Pabst, Global Warming Associate with Environment Texas. “Instead, Texas is embarking on a fool's errand, building infrastructure that will lock us into decades of polluting fossil fuels, and impairing our ability to achieve what our climate reality requires.”
Environment Texas Research and Policy Center is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to social change.