Democrats’ historic sweep of Texas on Tuesday raises new possibilities of environmental reform after more than 30 years of Republican rule in the home of the nation’s oil and gas industry.
That includes opportunities to cement safeguards for data center development, lower energy costs and, over time, appoint new commissioners to the state’s regulatory agencies and boost environmentally protective standards.
“We have a generational shift in leadership here,” said Adrian Shelley, state director of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. “I think there’s going to be a real appetite for reform.”
Both the U.S. Senate and governor races were called before midnight Central Time, quickly crushing the longheld skepticism of the potential of a Democrat-led Texas. Democrats also took the House in the state Legislature.
We deliver climate news to your inbox like nobody else. Every day or once a week, our original stories and digest of the web’s top headlines deliver the full story, for free.
Our #1 newsletter delivers the week’s climate and energy news – our original stories and top headlines from around the web.
Dan Gearino’s habit-forming weekly take on how to understand the energy transformation reshaping our world.
A once-a-week digest of the most pressing climate-related news, written by Kate Waxman and released every Tuesday.
Don’t miss a beat. Get a daily email of our original, groundbreaking stories written by our national network of award-winning reporters.
A digest of stories on the inequalities that worsen the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities.
The blue wave in Texas resulted, in part, from an upswell of public outrage over the state’s booming buildout of data centers for artificial intelligence that are gobbling massive amounts of electricity and failing to disclose their water use, experts said Wednesday.
Source link
