Editorial Roundup: Texas

Austin American-Statesman. February XX, 2022.

Editorial: O’Rourke is Democrats’ best bet to beat Abbott

When Beto O’Rourke ran for U.S. Senate against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz four years ago, he generated fawning national headlines, comparisons to JFK, and the adoration of Texas Democrats who saw him as the potential savior their party desperately needed.

After two failed election campaigns, including the hard-fought Senate contest and an aborted run for president in 2020, O’Rourke’s once-shining star has noticeably dimmed, though the former three-term congressman from El Paso remains highly popular among state Democrats. A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll last week showed overwhelming Democratic support for O’Rourke in this primary, with 93% of verified primary voters backing him over former journalist Joy Diaz, auto executive Michael Cooper, former public utility consultant Rich Wakeland and Inocencio “Inno” Barrientez.

O’Rourke’s platform addresses core Democratic values — reducing obstacles to voting, expanding Medicaid and high-paying union jobs, improving health care and housing for veterans, and enforcing pollution laws, for example. This should appeal to Texans who feel they’ve been left behind by Abbott’s more divisive, highly partisan policies. While some might question the strength of the Democratic field in the governor’s race, O’Rourke is the best-positioned candidate and we recommend Democrats vote for him in the March 1 primary.

O’Rourke has also called for legalizing marijuana and expunging marijuana convictions, and strengthening Texas’ position as a national leader in clean energy.

But you might not know this from O’Rourke’s rather one-dimensional campaign and his fierce criticism of Abbott’s inept response to Winter Storm Uri, which left at least 246 Texans dead and much of the state without power and water for days and, in some cases, weeks.

O’Rourke is right to question Abbott’s role in the state’s failure to protect its power grid — it’s a stain on the governor’s record. But while questions persist about the grid’s reliability, Texas dodged another electricity blackout during a freeze last month. O’Rourke should expand his message or risk being perceived as a one-note candidate.

And then there’s the gun issue. After a madman massacred 23 people and injured 23 others in El Paso in 2019, a distraught O’Rourke pleaded for more restrictive gun laws, and declared: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

Plenty of Texans appreciated the pledge. But others, including independents whose support O’Rourke needs, heard it as a threat to their Second Amendment rights.

A firearm owner himself, O’Rourke has since tried to soften his rhetoric, insisting that he doesn’t support banning guns, but would try to restrict access to people with a record of violence or mental illness. Still, O’Rourke owes all Texans a more detailed outline of his plan to restrict AR-15s and AK-47s.

O’Rourke might not have the same mass appeal he once did, but he remains a galvanizing figure in Democratic politics. Democrats should put him on the ballot for governor in November.

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Dallas Morning News. February 20, 2022.

Editorial: Don’t turn against wind power, Texas conservatives

We should be proud of and build on this success.

We’re a long way from 2015, when, in his farewell address, Gov. Rick Perry told legislators that they “can be proud that Texas produces more energy from wind turbines than all but five countries.”

Today, this crucial source of energy is more robust in Texas than it ever has been. But — forgive us — the political hot air is blowing even stronger.

Gov. Greg Abbott got us started down this road when he decided, incorrectly, to blame wind and solar energy for the electricity supply problem during the 2021 winter storm.

Since then, Texas Republicans have piled on, seizing on various versions of a “reliables not renewables” slogan that sound great in a stump speech and fit just fine on a bumper sticker but that will fail to lead us to serious policy that actually addresses the state’s energy needs in the future.

It’s a shame because Texas conservatives have every reason to be proud of the way our state unlocked this natural resource to provide huge amounts of cheap energy and create thousands of jobs. No other state is close to Texas in wind production. We have installed capacity for three times the wind energy of Iowa, which is No. 2 in the country. Texans can thank George W. Bush for getting us really rolling with wind energy and Perry for nurturing it along.

In today’s age of Twitter politics, that’s all but forgotten now, and wind is this election season’s whipping boy.

Candidates aren’t just calling for the state to eliminate resources to support the wind energy industry, some want to take steps that would all but disable it. We’ve even heard calls to prohibit private landowners from leasing property to wind operators. Talk about government interference.

There are smart reasons to be concerned about the role that renewable energy — and in Texas that means wind — plays in the broader energy landscape. As the Dallas Federal Reserve noted in an August 2021 paper, renewable energy now accounts for a quarter of all energy consumption in the state, with almost all of that being wind-generated power. That is up from just 8% in 2010, a clear indication of how quickly the industry has grown and how valuable it is to providing the state with clean, cheap electricity.

All of that production has an impact on the sources of supply. As wind generation has increased, the incentive to invest in other sources of production has decreased. That would be fine if the wind always blew or if we didn’t have extreme weather that spikes demand.

But the wind doesn’t always blow, and it doesn’t always blow at the right time — during the heat of the day, for example. Meanwhile, we are experiencing not only more extreme weather that spikes demand but also population growth that is going to keep demand high for a long time to come.

None of this is a good reason to punish the wind industry.

Yet that is exactly how it is being treated on the campaign trail and very likely will be treated in the coming legislative session if we aren’t careful. That will not help Texas address its long-term energy needs, and smart conservatives better figure out how to avoid letting the political rhetoric turn into actual policy in Austin.

In the last legislative session, a poorly considered effort from state Sen. George Schwertner, R-Georgetown, would have larded new fees on solar and wind energy producers for ancillary grid service costs traditionally borne by consumers, not generators.

A consortium of major businesses, from GE to Amazon to Bank of America, implored the state not to enact that provision of a major energy reform bill. Cooler heads prevailed, and the provision was not in the final bill, although the bill did empower the Public Utility Commission to allocate ancillary services costs “in a manner consistent with cost-causation principles.” You can read that as potentially assigning them to renewable energy producers.

A smarter approach for conservatives is to recognize the enormous value the wind industry provides to Texas and then turn to addressing the lack of investment in thermal production — especially natural gas power plants. Given our growth and the likelihood that more extreme weather is on the way, Texas is going to need both.

We should also work toward becoming a leader in power storage solutions. Even as we are an international leader in wind power, the state is also set to substantially increase solar capacity, which today is a fraction of the total power supply. But without better power storage, the problem renewables present will be hard to address even as supply of renewable energy increases.

There’s a role for the Legislature to play in helping Texas get to a secure energy future faster.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what Texas Republican candidates are selling to voters now. Let’s hope the bad politics doesn’t spoil a Texas triumph.

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Fort Worth Star-Telegram. February 20, 2022.

Editorial: Texas is going slow on medical marijuana, recreational use. Here’s why that’s smart

When it comes to marijuana policy, Texas has gone slow, far too slow for some.

But the pace is just right. Each step toward legalization should be modest and deliberate. Effects should be studied. Tradeoffs need examination. Robust debate on whether to go further should be informed by data and results, not speculation.

On major policy changes, the law of unintended consequences demands respect. Marijuana reform advocates often cite Colorado, where voters approved full legalization in 2012, as a model. Arrests for driving under the influence of marijuana increased, state researchers found. Usage was up dramatically, particularly among young men. But some opponents’ predictions of a surge in violent crime didn’t pan out.

Then, there’s the problems posed by the fact that whatever states do, marijuana remains a controlled substance under federal law. That creates dangerous situations for pot dispensers when it comes to banking. And the potency of contemporary marijuana has Colorado putting some limits on the drug even post-legalization.

Careless legislating can causes problems. Oklahoma allows, in theory, only medical usage, but there are few restrictions on getting access to marijuana. The state also has no limits on dispensaries, and as a result, they’ve popped up in greater numbers than in states with full legalization.

The Texas Legislature, operating part-time and working in a fury on complicated issues, is certainly prone to such mistakes. In 2019, lawmakers authorized hemp but didn’t heed warnings that crime labs weren’t equipped to distinguish between it and intoxicating forms of cannabis. As a result, marijuana prosecutors were compromised for months.

Texas has taken small steps so far, allowing medical marijuana only for a specific list of conditions, and then only in a form that’s low in THC, the chemical in the drug that causes a high. The next logical step would be to expand the conditions for which cannabis is authorized. But it shouldn’t be thrown open to any doctor’s wink-and-nod prescription, especially at first.

Decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana makes sense before full-blown legalization. Consensus is building that it makes no sense to clog up jails and courts over small amounts of pot that can be handled with misdemeanor citations.

Tarrant County police departments have recently had discretion to not arrest suspects in small-possession cases. It’s been less than a year, but there’s no evidence the policy leads to more use or other complications. Austin has gone further for longer, not even issuing citations in many cases.

How far to go and how fast remains up for debate. The point is that there are policy experiments underway that should be studied before sweeping changes are made.

Full legalization in Texas is a long way off — as it should be. Before recreational use is allowed, we need to consider society-wide implications. Is easy access to another intoxicant wise in an era when depression and listlessness seem on the rise? How much human potential can we afford to lose to legal drug use?

Marijuana is an issue in which Texas’ slow-grinding government processes can be to our benefit. By taking deliberate steps, measuring consequences and learning the lessons of other states and localities, Texas can chart its course the safest, smartest way.

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San Antonio Express-News. February 16, 2022.

Editorial: Grid reform still lacking a year after deadly freeze

Even now, the memory of Winter Storm Uri’s first snowfall remains fresh and pristine.

We can close our eyes and think of the sense of joy and magic that so often accompanies the arrival of snow in San Antonio. We even felt it the first morning of the storm.

Quickly, though, that sense of wonder and exhilaration a year ago gave way to unease, confusion and stress amid rolling blackouts and poor communication from state officials and CPS Energy. Millions of Texans froze in the dark for days. Hundreds of people died. Pipes burst. It was a week from hell. Texans will pay for the grid failure for years.

The one-year anniversary of Winter Storm Uri is a time to reflect on the many layers of failed leadership that not only allowed the widespread outages to occur but also exacerbated the suffering of millions of Texans.

This failure in leadership goes back to February 2011 when a winter storm left some 3 million Texans without power. At that time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued recommendations that will sound awfully familiar to Texans: Power plants and natural gas producers failed to adequately weatherize.

Yet weatherization didn’t happen after that warning.

When Winter Storm Uri arrived and about 4.5 million Texans lost power, the initial reactions of some of Texas’ most prominent leaders only seemed to make the situation more frigid.

Gov. Greg Abbott went on national TV and initially falsely blamed the outages on the Green New Deal and renewable energy. Sen. Ted Cruz sought to warm up in Cancún. Former Gov. and Energy Secretary Rick Perry claimed, “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.”

From there, the Legislature responded by passing zero bills requiring facilities to regulate. Meanwhile, CPS Energy ratepayers, including those who went without power, will be paying a $1.26 monthly charge for the next 25 years to pay for $418 million in storm-related expenses.

And, of course, experts continue to insist on the need for grid reform.

Now, it is true the Texas grid survived the most recent stress test during this month’s freeze. But consider a few points: First, Texans shouldn’t have to wonder if the grid will function during a freeze. Second, this most recent storm wasn’t nearly on par with Winter Storm Uri.

“Maybe Uri is a level five test and this is level three, and this shows we can pass level three,” Caitlin Smith, an ERCOT expert and a senior director at Jupiter Power, told the Texas Tribune.

This is echoed in an analysis from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which says:

“Assuming that the ERCOT Region experiences typical winter grid conditions, ERCOT anticipates that there will be sufficient installed generating capacity available to serve the system-wide forecasted peak demand for the upcoming winter season, December 2021-February 2022. The forecasted peak demand is 62,001 MW and is based on the average weather conditions at the time of the winter peak demand. As part of our aggressive grid management planning, we have also included additional low-probability, high-impact scenarios.”

In other words, the most recent storm was typical, but Uri was not. It was very much a low-probability, high-impact storm. And the ERCOT analysis goes on to show that 4 out of 5 extreme weather scenarios could lead to outages.

It remains an open question as to whether the Texas grid can truly handle this type of extreme cold weather, which, of course, is exactly why lawmakers should be prioritizing reforms.

There is no reason for Texas to be so caught off guard. Grid reform is the best way to remember Winter Storm Uri.

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Houston Chronicle. February 20, 2022.

Editorial: Rice University is right to move its namesake

On a spring day in 1958, Philip Johnson had Frank Lloyd Wright over for a cocktail party at his famous glass house in New Canaan, Conn. A photographer later recalled the meeting of the two great 20th century architects. Apparently, in the middle of lecturing the other guests on the history of architecture from caves to skyscrapers, Wright got up to refresh his glass of scotch and also took the liberty to move a sculpture from the center of the room over to the side.

When Wright resumed his talk, Johnson got up and put the statue back in the center of the room. Once Wright realized this he blew up, saying, “Philip, leave perfect symmetry to God!”

This month, Rice University finally caught up with Wright and decided to move the statue of William Marsh Rice, its namesake and founding benefactor, over to the side within the main quadrangle. For 91 years, the bronze statue has sat atop nearly eight feet of pink Texas granite and Rice’s cremated remains. It occupies the middle of the central quad where the main paths intersect — right at the point of symmetry.

William Marsh Rice, however, was far from infallible. He was a man from Massachusetts who moved to Houston in 1838 and made a fortune. He enslaved at least 15 people and specified in his bequest an institute for “white inhabitants.” That institution is rightly struggling to reconcile its towering achievements with its racist origins.

Its decision to relocate the statue, rather than to remove it as many students and others have demanded, is the right choice for now and navigates the competing currents in our ongoing culture wars.

One side wants to tear down all monuments that have any association with slavery. Another side says we should not “cancel” or “erase” history. Others call for new statues and monuments that reflect a more diverse time in America or credit contributions long overlooked in standard histories. At Rice, student Shifa Rahman led daily protests for months calling for permanent removal of the statue while former Secretary of State James Baker, for whom the Baker Institute is named, told attendees at a Heritage Society luncheon that he opposed removal of Rice’s statue and “None of those kids would have an education without him.”

The university’s plan should be more than a compromise. It should invite not just the Rice community but the entire city into a conversation about our difficult history — a conversation that is uncomfortable and that can make us more free. If the plan is executed well, the result could also be a campus that is more beautiful and more vital.

But if the plan is to have lasting value, Rice will have to go far beyond simply relocating a statue. Rice must continue to use the controversy over the statue as an impetus to do long-neglected research on their own entanglement with slavery.

It began that work in 2019, when Rice announced a task force on slavery, segregation and racial injustice chaired by two of its foremost historians, Alexander X. Byrd and Caleb McDaniel. The group organized 11 panel discussions, 23 webinars and hosted a research collective that unearthed primary documents. It found that Rice not only enslaved people, he played an active role in recapturing those who tried to escape and that he built his fortune, in part, by financing plantations that used slave labor. It also found the motivation behind commissioning and installing the statue was to honor Rice’s philanthropy. The speeches at the dedication did not mention or glorify the Confederacy, though they also maintained silence on slavery, Jim Crow segregation and the exclusion of Black people from the school.

Last June, the task force recommended that Rice make a “bold change.” At the end of last month, the board of trustees announced the plan to relocate the statue within the quad with historical context including his ownership of enslaved people as part of a redesign of the entire quad with a new monument of similar prominence commemorating the beginning of the university’s integration in the 1960s, well after many leading schools.

Byrd, who grew up in the Northside and graduated from Jack Yates High School, told the editorial board, “I am hopeful that something powerful will result.” McDaniel told us that the quadrangle receives visitors from around the state and from around the world. The new design should better educate all visitors about the significance of slavery in the history of Texas and the origins of Houston.

Statues erected after the Civil War to glorify those who fought to defend slavery, or to celebrate a distorted view of our history, have rightly been removed all over America. Rice’s statue falls into another category. He was celebrated merely because he founded a great university.

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