Date: May 3, 2014

As the state of petroleum industry, Texas, unlike California, contrarily has a passive attitude towards climate change. Aside from climate change legislation and policies, according to the research in Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in 2013, Texas citizens are under-performance in the aspects of knowledge and attitudes toward climate change issues, in comparison with California citizens. Categories such as “likely to believe that global warming is caused by human factors” and “America should reduce carbon emission despite other nations’ actions” are of the largest gaps.

Ever since the case of Massachusetts v. EPA in 2007, Federal Supreme Court held that according to Clean Air Act, U.S Environmental Protection Agency is obligated to establish a regulatory GHG standard. Since then, EPA has required all states to regulate permission verification on subjects such as new established and altered fixed contaminant source and integrate such regulations with GHG emission control. Since Texas has not been following EPA’s execute projects, EPA interfered by replacing Texas state government by establishing federal projects. However, Texas thought EPA has violated against state’s quasi-sovereign, and as a result, Texas, united with the State of Wyoming and other industry groups, filed a lawsuit against EPA. In 2013, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that plaintiff does not have a standing in filing a lawsuit. Currently, this case is still in the trial process in Federal Supreme Court. In this case, we can see clearly that Texas has an opposing attitude towards climate change issues, even as to holding the federal government’s back.

But after this case, the Texas State Senate has passed House Bill (HB) 788 authorizes TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) establishing greenhouse gas emissions regulation standards. Even though TCEQ announced the regulations in March, 2014, however, it hasn’t been approved by Federal EPA nor did EPA withdraw its federal projects. Besides, Texas Climate Change responses are regulated mainly through State Energy Conservation Office, with its main materials regarding subsidizing energy-saving equipments and renewing energy sources (e.g. LoneSTAR Environmental Services), education and training, and soft strategies such as legislation amendment on architecture law in boosting energy efficiency requirements. Overall, Texas’ climate change strategy performance is more outstanding in the fields of establishing goals and timeline in renewable energy generation ratio, encouraging and subsidizing the development of renewable energy in Bill 7, passed by the State Senate of restructuring the electricity industry in 1999. With legislative incentives, and appropriate geographical conditions, Texas stands in the leading position in carbon capture and storage techniques in the United States, and has established this measure as the main climate change mitigation strategy.