Public Citizen Testimony Against SB 819 — Regulations Against Renewable Energy
Public Citizen Testimony Against SB 819 -- Regulations Against Renewable Energy
To: Chairman Charles Schwertner and the Members of the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce.
CC: Sen. Phil King, Sen. César Blanco, Sen. Donna Campbell, Sen. Brandon Creighton, Sen. Nathan Johnson, Sen. Lois W. Kolkhorst, Sen. José Menéndez, Sen. Mayes Middleton, Sen. Robert Nichols, Sen. Judith Zaffirini
Via hand delivery and by email.
From: Adrian Shelley, Public Citizen, ashelley@citizen.org, 512-477-1155
Re: SB 819, renewable energy permitting – Public Citizen testimony in opposition
Dear Chairman Schwertner and Members of the Committee:
On behalf of 30,000 members and supporters in Texas, Public Citizen appreciates the opportunity to testify against SB 819, relating to renewable energy generation facilities; authorizing fees.
We oppose this bill because it is weaponizing regulations against renewable energy. Since Winter Storm Uri, 92 percent of new energy installations have been clean, renewable energy—solar, wind, and battery storage.1 Regulations should be used to protect public health and the environment, not to favor one energy source over another.
Regulations should address the health and environmental impacts of all energy generation.
This bill imposes many new regulations on the renewable energy industry specifically. In other contexts, we might support some of these regulations. In this bill, their intent seems to be to handicap renewable energy against other energy sources.
Fossil fuel energy sources release more air pollution, more water pollution, use more water, consume more fuels, and present more decommissioning challenges than renewable energy. SB 819 ignores this reality and targets sources of energy that do not release air or water pollution and present minimal environmental challenges.
To be sure, there are some environmental controls that could be applied to renewable energy sources that would benefit the public. These include, for example, strong decommissioning and recycling requirements for wind and solar facilities, and reasonable setbacks.
The public health and environmental challenges presented by fossil fuel energy sources are in more urgent need of regulatory attention. If this bill is actually intended to protect communities from the negative health and environmental impacts of energy generation, it should apply to all energy sources. We would support SB 819 if it applied equally to all energy generation.
We would support many of these regulations if they were applied to all sources of energy.
The bill is filled with provisions that we would support in other contexts, including:
- Environmental impact review.
- Notice to any affected parties within 25 miles.
- Public meeting to obtain public input.
- Agency authority to deny a permit application.
- Hearing for affected parties.
- Permits that include the facility boundary, the number of permitted facilities, and any monitoring or reporting requirements.
- Reasonable setbacks from property lines.
- 200 feet setbacks from any habitable structure.
- Facility information posted online.
- Monitoring and reporting of environmental and wildlife impacts.
- Decommissioning obligations.
- Facility cleanup fund.
- Environmental impact fee.
- Prohibitions on tax abatements.
The purpose of regulations should be to protect public health and welfare. Many of these provisions applied to the oil and gas industry would accomplish that purpose.
Fossil fuels kill thousands of Texans every year.
Fossil fuel burning kills 17,000 Texans each year just from particulate matter pollution.2 There is a single coal plant in Fort Bend County, the WA Parish plant owned by NRG, that is linked to 178 deaths every year.3 It is the fossil fuel industry—not the renewable energy industry—from which people need protection.
We would support SB 819 if it used regulations to minimize the public health and environmental impacts of all sources of energy. Targeting only renewable sources is plainly intended to handicap these sources of energy. We do not support this; we support policies to increase clean energy on the Texas grid and to limit the health impacts of fossil fuels.
In conclusion, we cannot support SB 819 because it weaponizes regulations to favor one industry over another. Doing so trivializes the role regulations play in protecting public health.