White Out
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
As for as advocacy campaigns go, the one by several Texas environmental groups to get rid of Kathleen Hartnett White, chairwoman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, couldn’t have worked much quicker. The campaign that began recently at GetWhiteOut.com was actually successful before it even started. White’s decision not to seek reelection to a second term at TCEQ was made months ago, a spokesman confirmed.
“I guess we could applaud this group for getting out in front of something that was going to happen anyway,” snarked Robert Black, a spokesman for the governor. Not that there was any official announcement of White’s leaving TCEQ, so I guess environmental types were just supposed to smell it in the wind — just wait for that sweet coal stench.
A little sampling from the Observer of White’s record last session, when she helped approve the permits for the nasty Oak Grove power plants:
At the hearing, a long line of elected officials warned commissioners that ozone-forming emissions from Oak Grove would further complicate plans for the Dallas-Fort Worth area to attain federal ozone standards, and would erase virtually all the Austin area’s expensive efforts to avoid a similar federal crackdown. The judges concluded in August, after hearing months of expert testimony and reviewing oceans of evidence, that TXU had failed to prove its technology could meet pollution goals specified in the permit application.
The 1,600-megawatt power plant will burn lignite, the dirtiest form of coal. …
“I think this is actually—and I know full well the intensity of the differing opinions—this is good news for Texas,” said commission Chair Kathleen Hartnett White. …
Commissioner Larry Soward, who cast the dissenting vote, repeatedly expressed exasperation at White during the hearing. “I’d like the record to reflect that I respectfully disagree with everything you just read,” Soward said after White, a West Texas rancher, read her pre-written legal justification for approving the Oak Grove permit.
The folks behind Get White Out have shifted their focus to influencing Perry’s appointment of White’s replacement. They’re calling for someone who, basically, takes this stuff seriously, not like it’s just some bureaucratic charade. Optimistically, they’re asking for Perry to appoint someone who won’t reflexively side with industry. Too bad that’s about as unlikely to happen as a CEO taking a pay cut.
