Blue skies, all of them gone

Bear with me, I’m mad.

On Tuesday, I listened in on the bill hearing for HB 1382 Virdell | et al. - Relating to a prohibition on weather modification and control; creating a criminal offense. It was a frustrating example of how the Texas legislature takes conspiracy theories seriously. This is evident in this session’s bills advocating for “medical freedom” (vaccines cause autism) “parental choice” (teachers are turning your kids trans/showing them porn) and “election integrity” (Mexican murderers are voting in your local city council race) throughout this session. And though I have come to expect the Fox News-ification of Texas politics, there are bills that still baffle me, that feel like tin-foil hat territory that’s actively moving the Overton Window.

Like this one: Texas telling the federal government to stop controlling our weather because our kids are getting sick from all of the chemicals they’re putting in the air. Here is Rep. Wes Virdell, laying out his bill:

And here’s a queue of concerned citizens testifying on behalf of this bill because they’ve “done their research.”

And here’s Rep. Cody Joe Harris, who represents Palestine, Texas, offering up conspiracy theories from his cousin:

This is frustrating to me in particular because I grew up in the Pasadena/Deer Park area, where the oil and gas industry owns and funds everything from the parks to the schools to the city council meetings and then creates hazardous working conditions for its workers and pollutes the air and water without impunity. These companies pay most of the area families’ salaries, which then funds ancillary industries in the town. These towns are addicted to oil and gas money because the alternative is unemployment, which has created a loyalty to these companies and a defensiveness when you try to talk to residents about how unsustainable and harmful this whole ecosystem is. These corporations also heavily fund Texas Republican candidates (though Texas Democrats aren’t completely blameless), and in return they enjoy a nearly non-existent regulatory burden.

The pollution these communities live with is unhealthy and unsafe. And that air doesn’t stay where it’s released, it pollutes all of Houston. Houston led the state in the number of ozone action days in 2024 with 49. We have the seventh-worst air quality in the entire country. Fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) is 30 times thinner than a human hair. It can be inhaled deeply into lung tissue and contribute to serious health problems. PM 2.5 accounts for most health effects due to air pollution in the U.S.

Research by the National Cancer Institute showed that “of the more than 800,000 cancer patients living in Texas between 2001 through 2014, 34 percent lived in close proximity to an oil refinery. Patients living within 10 miles of refineries were most likely to have an advanced cancer diagnosis, compared to those who lived 21 to 30 miles away.”

I worked for the Environmental Defense Fund’s One Breath Partnership from 2021-2023, and during that time House Speaker Dade Phelan — who oversees this little licensing House committee you’re watching after his fall from grace in last year’s Republican-on-Republican bloodbath — promised his constituents that things would change after the 2019 TPC explosion in Port Neches, which he represents, that injured workers, damaged thousands of homes and required a mass evacuation during Thanksgiving weekend of that year:

“From Houston to Baton Rouge, major chemical and refining incidents are occurring more frequently,” the two-term lawmaker said in a strongly worded statement. “In addition, elevated benzene levels have been reported in Southeast Texas and Houston over the last year. This is unacceptable.”

YEAH, IT IS UNACCEPTABLE. AND THEN YOU ACCEPTED IT.

House Bill 1820, by Rep. Erin Zwiener and negotiated carefully with Republicans, would have created stronger consequences for the worst environmental offenders in Texas. But Phelan allowed the legislation to be scheduled dead last for floor debate, all but assuring it would die — and it did.

No matter what, oil and gas interests in this state will win. No matter how many people are harmed. No matter how much foul air they have to breathe, how toxic the waterways and soil are, how sick the children get.

The cancer mortality rate for Black residents in Jefferson County, including the predominantly Black community of Port Arthur, is about 40 percent higher than Texas overall, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. The American Lung Association gives our county a failing grade for air quality. Asthma rates for children here are more than twice the national average.

I watched in the 2021 and 2023 sessions the busloads of Black and Hispanic Houstonians who traveled to the capitol to testify that their health and their children’s and grandchildren’s health was being affected by real polluters in their communities — the giant corporations that were also bankrolling the campaigns of the very people creating policy. And again, nothing changes.

So you can imagine how insane it was to watch this hearing about weather manipulation and sky grids, with a parade of white people from exurban communities complaining that the government is polluting their air and making their children sick, because anytime you can blame the “federal government” for something, the Texas legislature is going to take it seriously.

To be clear: weather manipulation is not happening beyond research projects that are attempting to further climate change research and possible responses to extreme weather. The grids in the sky these people are talking about aren’t real, or are the same old chemtrails that people have been conspiring about for decades.

The air in Texas IS killing people. Contamination IS killing communities. But none of the Republican representatives in the lege want to admit that or that it’s oil and gas and large industries doing the polluting that is making Texans sick and killing them.

Instead, our representatives take this lady more seriously than a parade of Black and Hispanic grandmothers crying about the cancer deaths they’ve seen due to contamination in their communities:

How much you wanna bet this woman doesn’t vaccinate her kids?

In related news, Gov. Abbott signed into law the first piece of legislation of this session: creating a Texas DOGE.

“The fewer regulations we have, the more efficient they are, the easier they are to understand — is going to help Texas business and economy continue to boom, which is why I'm excited this is the first bill that is being signed,” Burrows said.

I don’t have the energy for anything good today.