Dennis The Menace Needs a New Job
May 16th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Dennis “The Menace” Bonnen had another bravo performance today at the Capitol. He postponed one of the few major air quality bills of the session, his own SB 12, because Rep. Jessica Farrar (D-Houston ) had the audacity to offer an amendment to set health standards for air toxics. He complained that the amendment, which he said didn’t have enough votes to pass, would just turn into election-year fodder and grist for the Houston Chronicle editorial board. Of course Farrar wouldn’t be peddling amendments from the House floor if Bonnen had given the roughly dozen air toxics bills so much as a public airing in committee.
Today’s fun followed Bonnen’s comedy act last night at his House Committee on Environmental Regulation where he acts as chief undertaker, burying mountains of environmental bills with gleeful abandon. Last night, Bonnen graciously allowed, at this late hour in the session, the weakest toxics-related bill, SB 1924 by Sen. Mario Gallegos, to come up for a hearing. But first he wanted everyone to appreciate how nice he was being.
“For those organizations that have for whatever reason chosen to attack this committee, specifically myself, for not hearing some of these [toxics] bills, Sen. Gallegos… stands behind the fact that I was kind enough to work with him and allow him the opportunity to bring this bill to us,” Bonnen lectured.
(SB 1924 does little to curb toxic air pollution. In fact it mostly codifies into law what the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is already doing about air toxics - i.e. not much. The bill does add a requirement that the agency hold annual public meetings in the 17 communities the TCEQ has designated as watch areas. This language has also been included in SB 12 in the form of an amendment Bonnen accepted from Rep. Senfronia Thompson.)
The Menace, who is rumored to want to run for Kyle Janek’s seat if the senator retires, has taken on a paranoid aspect lately as his reputation for bullying and green-bashing has made its way back to his district in Brazoria County.
He recently quit his job with Wells Fargo Bank following an exchange of “harsh words” with John Hofmeister, Shell Oil President and Chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership, a business organization that wants the state of Texas to adopt California’s low-emission vehicles program. Bonnen has blocked legislation that would do so, which upset Hofmeister. Apparently The Menace’s behavior towards Hofmeister didn’t sit well with Bonnen’s boss at Wells Fargo, Chip Carlisle, who later called Bonnen to tell him he was “out of line,” according to the Texas Politics blog. After a “heated conversation,” Bonnen apparently quit.
And then last night, during testimony on SB 1924, he accused Public Citizen’s Beth O’Brien of telling the Brazosport Facts that Bonnen refused a meeting with her.
“I saw Beth in here earlier,” Bonnen said at the committee hearing. “I hope she doesn’t go and tell the local paper we didn’t let her testify.”
O’Brien said she never asked Bonnen for a meeting and certainly didn’t tell the newspaper that he refused a tete-a-tete. Melanie Oldham, a clean air advocate from Brazoria County, who was present for the meeting with the Brazosport Facts, confirmed O’Brien’s account and added that is was she who was refused a meeting with Bonnen. “I’ve tried for two sessions to meet with Mr. Bonnen,” she told the Observer.
O’Brien and Oldham recently held public workshops in Bonnen’s district where they discussed Brazoria County’s dubious status as the fourth worst county in the U.S. in terms of carcinogenic air toxic emissions. That’s thanks primarily to just six polluters (see map below), including Dow Chemical and the Gulf Chemical and Metallurgical Corp, the latter of which Bonnen called a “recycler” because the company recovers nickel, vanadium, and other substances for industry. True in a way, but in the process the facility emits enormous quantities of that nickel and vanadium as well as arsenic and cobalt into air, contaminating thenearby neighborhoods.
“Bonnen represents the Texas Chemical Council and industry and not us constituents and the constituents of Texas really,” said Oldham. “We can’t convince Mr. Bonnen that you can have a balance of economic development and jobs and a good quality of life and health.”
At the end of the committee hearing, Bonnen left SB 1924 pending. But the committee did pass SB 1317 on a 5-2 vote. This legislation, authored by Sen. Mike Jackson (R-La Porte), blocks the City of Houston from regulating air toxics blown in from - you guessed it - petrochemical polluters in Bonnen’s and Jackson’s district.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
What you fail to mention is how the Chairman and other committee members praised Cyrus Reed of the Lone Star Sierra Club for his hardwork and dedication in truly working with the members. Why I enjoy reading the Observer, this is so blatantly one sided it hurts.