AUSTIN, Texas -- When it comes to air pollution, it's hard to beat Texas. To many people in this oil state, a breeze with a whiff of sulfur in it is the smell of economic success. And cars are sacred.
So it shocked almost everyone this spring when Gov. George W. Bush teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund and a green-leaning Democrat in the state legislature to force a 50% emissions cut by the state's worst air polluters: 136 power plants that had been legally "grandfathered" or protected from tighter state regulations since 1971. As one of the governor's admiring aides put it: "It was like Nixon going to China."
As Gov. Bush arms himself for a potential presidential race against Vice President Al Gore -- a man who, at times, seems almost preoccupied with environmental issues -- the GOP governor's record on such matters will come under increasing scrutiny. Gov. Bush declared on a recent swing through New Hampshire: "I'm for clean air and clean water, and have a record in Texas to prove it."
Suspicious Environmentalists
Many Texas environmentalists, who have seen many of their best hopes gunned down in the legislature, remain suspicious. Some see an ulterior motive in Mr. Bush's move against the "grandfathered" polluters. "It seemed real clear to us that the governor was reading the polls that said it is important to Republican voters to have environmental credentials," says Tom Smith, who directs the Texas office of Public Citizen, an activist group. "This man is famous here for jumping in front of a parade just before it comes to the reviewing stand."
But Mark MacLeod, director of Texas's Environmental Defense Fund chapter who was in the thick of the fight, thinks the parade might not have started without Gov. Bush. "You couldn't see any visible fingerprints, but at some point he just called in some of the utility representatives and said, 'I want you to reduce your emissions by 50%.'"
Indeed, a number of outside experts are impressed with what Gov. Bush has done about Texas's noxious air, compared with what his predecessors did. "Crashing through the sound barrier on the grandfather issue is significant," says Armand Cohen, director of the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit group that monitors air pollution. "No congressional leader, or for that matter, no one in the Clinton administration, has been willing to face this issue squarely."
'I'll Take Care of It'
Texas Democratic state Rep. Steve Wolens, who put the tough emission controls in a 212-page bill that restructured the state's electricity industry, recalls warning Gov. Bush that the industry would bury the bill if the governor didn't protect it. "He was supportive. He said, 'I hear you. You're right, and I'll take care of it,' or words to that effect."
Mr. Bush's record on other environmental issues shows that victories often haven't been so easy to come by for greens in Texas. The governor has had problems with animal lovers since his first campaign, when he took some reporters on a dove-hunting expedition and shot a killdeer, a protected bird, by mistake. Last month, a group of environmental protesters filed a freedom-of-speech suit against Mr. Bush after some were arrested while picketing in front of the governor's mansion. The state said they were blocking the sidewalks.
Teri Shore, who heads the Marine Reserve Campaign, which worries about endangered sea turtles, notes that Mr. Bush's sensitivity to that subject has suddenly risen under pressure. On June 23, her group bought a full-page ad in the New York Times. "If Governor Bush doesn't save Texas sea turtles, maybe President Gore will," it said. Two days later, Texas deputized 70 state game wardens to help federal game wardens police shrimp boats, which sometimes illegally kill sea turtles in their nets.
Dead Turtles
"It was the first time Texas has ever shown the slightest interest in this," says Ms. Shore, who contends that Gov. Bush "always goes with industry against the environment." She thinks the spasm of enforcement didn't work. In July, the bodies of 30 Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, an endangered species, washed ashore on Padre Island, more than she has counted there since 1994.
Andrew Sansom, director of the state's Department of Parks and Wildlife, whose wardens were thrown into the turtle crisis, says his men found few violations on shrimp boats. He attributes the rise in turtle deaths to an increase in the turtle population. Gov. Bush, he insists, has worked hard to promote a $1.5 million state program that pays landowners who volunteer to care for endangered species. "There is no coercion," he says of the program.
Texas also has major problems with toxic chemicals in its rivers and lakes, but Dwayne Anderson, who heads an environmental group called Clean Water Action, says he has had trouble getting the governor's attention. "Big chemical companies have big sticks in Texas," he says.
But last year, Mr. Anderson found a way to get Mr. Bush's support. Concerned that local water authorities were spraying large amounts of pesticides on 85 lakes to kill hydrilla, a troublesome underwater weed, he recruited Ray Scott, the founder of the 600,000-member Bass Anglers Sportsmen Society to approach Gov. Bush.
Listening to a Fishing Buddy
Mr. Scott is a fishing buddy of Gov. Bush, a passionate bass fisherman. The BASS leader recalls raising the spraying issue with the governor cautiously. "I said, 'You may have problems with the chemical industry. You may be getting big contributions.' He said, 'I don't give a damn about the chemical industry. If it [spraying] is not right, I don't want it.'"
A few days later, Gov. Bush staged a news conference at a lake, driving a water-borne weed mowing machine as an alternative to the chemicals. "This is a funny alliance," concedes Mr. Scott, "the hairy-legged bass fishermen and the guys that wear funny glasses [from environmental groups]. We all want the same thing: clean water."
They won't get it, at least not anytime soon. A bill the group pushed through the legislature that would make the $80,000 weed harvesters a state-sanctioned alternative to spraying had its funding deleted before it was passed.
While Texas has all the environmental problems that most states have, it has a few more that are peculiar. Taking advantage of Texas's lax zoning laws and building codes, Mexican immigrants have built 1,500 ramshackle towns, mostly along the Mexican border, called "colonias." Because they often have no sewer service, no water and no electricity, many of them pose severe environmental and health problems, says R.B. Marquez, a Bush-appointed commissioner of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, or TNRCC.
Mr. Marquez spearheaded an effort by Gov. Bush to bring services to the 300,000 to 400,000 people who live in the colonias. "It's probably one of the things I'll remember forever," Mr. Marquez says. Financed by federal grants and $250 million from the Texas legislature, the program has worked, he says, because of Gov. Bush's insistence that "writing checks will not solve the problems." The governor's policy, he said, was to create jobs by encouraging many of the colonia residents to take on as much of the upgrade work as they could.
How environmental solutions are approached is important in Texas, says Barry McBee, a former chairman of the TNRCC. He adds that the views of Texans might make some environmental issues, such as Vice President Gore's urban-sprawl mantra, politically dangerous to fling about in a presidential campaign: "Are we as sensitive to this in Texas as other states are? Probably not. It's a big place. People are not going to tell us we're running out of land."
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