Yesterday was sunny day for ReEnergize Texas. All in all, it was a stellar episode, because we hit many bases and heard some interesting arguments while meeting with 15 different offices.  Jeff Guidry, an RTXer, UT Austin senior, led a team of 4 RTXers including myself to lobby several congressional offices for 3 important solar bills.  I found out that Texas actually has an emissions reduction program – TERP, run by the TCEQ.  Why haven’t we (Texans) heard about this? 

 

HB 278 / SB 427, by Rep. Anchia and Senator Shapiro: This bill calls for 2,000 MW of electricity by 2020 from “distributed renewable generation”.  Essentially, this means that the renewable generators, in this case solar panels, will be decentralized, that is, distributed.  It will provide homeowners and businesses with incentives and educational material to build integrated solar and geothermal in new homes and buildings.  The idea is to have photovoltaic panels on 500,000 rooftops.

 

HB1391 is authored by Strama, Miklos, Villarreal, Pena.  “An Act relating to the creation and authority of certain special districts to promote the use of renewable energy systems and energyefficiency improvements; authorizing the issuance of bonds.” It will allow local governments to create new “emission management districts” to provide funding for “non-attainment” area.

Local governments will create “emission management district” boards to conduct “emissions management projects” which are “renewable energy systems” or “energy efficiency improvements” programs.  It will allow these districts to apply for grants or other funding under the Texas emissions reduction plan.  TERP provides grants to assess emissions and create management target contracts to reduce energy consumption in governmental, residential and commercial buildings through installation and modification.  It will also promote energy and emissions education through the Texas emissions reduction plan.

 

 I called the TERP agency to find out more about it, and spoke with Mark Sims.  It was established in 2002.  TERP originally only operated in districts with extremely poor air quality, but this bill makes TERP funds available to more counties of the state who previously didn’t qualify.  

www.terpgrants.org/

 

In other news, we have a new lobbyist working with us, James Doyle, who I met recently through my Environmental Ethics course, and who also went to PowerShift 2009 in Washington DC (2/27/09-3/2/09).

We will be back in the Capitol next Wednesday.

 

Patrick Meaney

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