ReEnergize Texas is excited about a new campaign called “Why don’t we trust the TCEQ?” which questions the effectiveness of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

To give some background…for over a decade the TCEQ has been allowing big industries in Texas to pollute the air and water at levels above what the federal government allows. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set regulations on polluting facilities to monitor their air emissions and to make sure they are at levels that will not harm the public or surrounding community, but the TCEQ has not complied. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA requires caps on all sources of pollution, even individual units in a facility; however, TCEQ only sets caps on the overall facility. This “flex permitting” may not seem like much of a difference, but in studying this issue EPA has found that the TCEQ program is difficult to enforce and creates loopholes which result in significantly higher pollution.

The TCEQ is now under Sunset review which analyzes the need for an agency and can even abolish the agency altogether. In addition to the review, the EPA has threatened to take over some air permits if TCEQ doesn’t change their requirements for permitting.

In the midst of all of this, ReEnergize Texas is interviewing people with different perspectives and outlooks on why they don’t trust the TCEQ. Most recently, interns Mary Vo and Kim Doan interviewed 4 citizens from Montgomery County who started a grassroots movement fighting TexCom. This company is asking for permits from the TCEQ to allow the construction of injection wells that could pollute nearby drinking water.  You can learn more about the people and their fight at StopTheToxicWells.com.

ReEnergize Texas, along with other organizations who got together to form the Alliance for a Clean Texas, believe that TCEQ’s main priority should be to protect public health. With EPA taking over air permits, Texas industries claim this will harm jobs but environmentalists believe it’ll promote a green economy in Texas and create jobs. For more information, come to ACT’s event on July 27^th! Stay tuned for more on that soon!

- Posted by Meghana Menon

This past Tuesday (June 22^nd), eight members of Austin Green Art gathered for a four-hour afternoon training in which leadership development was assessed, and helpful ways to create a campaign matrix for success were outlined. The first hour of training covered delegation and commitment in an organizing group, which helped participants and trainers become acclimated with one another through collaborative brainstorming and positive discussion.

Austin Green Art founder and director, Randy Jewart, encouraged his group to participate and take key components of the training into consideration when thinking about projects that they have completed or are currently working on as an organization.

“We wouldn’t know what to work on throughout the day if Randy didn’t delegate our duties properly,” said one of the Resolution Gardens workers who actively participated during the training. “Aside from doing what we usually do, delegation is important so that the organization stays productive,” he went on to say.

After debriefing a lengthy group activity that was meant to test organizational campaign skills, the participants were fed eight key components of a matrix that pretty much guarantee success, in different shapes and forms.

Want to learn more about these eight key components and how they might change the direction of your organizing group? If the answer is yes or maybe, feel free to contact us at sos.atx@gmail.com for more information.

You can have as great of a training as Austin Green Art did, or even better!