How Texas is responding to global warming

Also, two Texas sites, Jewett and Odessa, are finalists for the Energy Department's FutureGen project, a $1.5 billion coal plant that employs cutting-edge technology with the goal of producing energy while emitting nearly no pollutants. And nationally, experts view Texas and the Gulf Coast as one of the areas with great potential to battle global warming with carbon sequestration.

1 law out of 12 bills

In some ways, this was a historic year for global warming measures at the state capital.

"It's a huge step forward," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office. "What you now have are members of the Legislature openly acknowledging that global warming is of concern to them."

A dozen bills were filed this year to specifically address global warming. That compares, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis, to only one in the 10 legislative sessions before.

The numbers are telling, Smith said. But the "huge step," he admits, signals more of an emerging shift in thought than in political action.

Of the 12 bills filed, only one became law, and that was significantly diluted. The bill requires water planners in West Texas to consider the effects of climate change when developing water-supply strategies. When Sen. Eliot Shapleigh introduced the bill, he envisioned it affecting statewide water decisions. But the El Paso Democrat had to limit the impact to West Texas to pass the legislation.

Rep. Lon Burnam filed four bills, the most by any legislator, to deal with the issue. None passed. The Fort Worth Democrat did manage to get a piece of one bill — one that created a committee on energy generation and its environmental impact — attached to a bill that passed.

But the governor ultimately vetoed the committee, saying it would only duplicate the efforts of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.