Odd Alliances Form As Battle Lines Drawn In Texas Coal-Fired Power Plant Fight - Austin Chronicle

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A big old Texas-sized showdown is taking shape over plans by various electric utilities, led by Dallas-based TXU, to build 16 old-style, coal-fired power plants, which threaten to push Austin's marginal air quality into the red; keep Houston and Dallas in federal Clean Air Act violation; and obscenely add to Texas' nation-leading emissions of climate-changing carbon dioxide and mercury, a neurotoxin linked to fetal damage, autism, and an array of adult ailments. The posse looking to kill the coal proposals continues to add Texans both mighty and meek, increasingly blurring partisan and cultural lines. Meanwhile, a couple of credulous groups have lined up behind the coal cause. Observers anxiously await pro-coal Gov. Rick Perry's pivotal replacement appointment to the ideologically split, three-member Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and look to 2007's incoming Legislature to address the plant proposals, possibly slowing the TCEQ permitting process, which was sent stampeding by Perry's fast-tracking executive order last fall.

Battle lines were firmly drawn last Thursday in Austin at the State Office of Administrative Hearings, where final requests for party status in upcoming contested case hearings for TXU's 11 plants were taken up. A slew of opposition groups were given party status, as was a pro-plant group led by the mayors of five cities close to planned plants. (It was revealed that TXU had actually helped fund the group, known as Texans for Affordable and Reliable Power, and its founder, Fairfield Mayor Roy Hill, admitted to having family real estate dealings with the utility). The two-judge SOAH panel rejected calls from environmental groups to lift Perry's fast-track order, based on due process issues and discrepancies over TXU's nearly exclusive use of imported Wyoming Powder River Basin coal. They also moved to consolidate contested case hearings for six TXU permits, further streamlining an air pollution discourse that opponents complain is already being rushed – though they admit that the ruling allows them to concentrate their efforts. Joining TARP is the Texas Association of Business, which has publicly backed all of the proposed coal plants and announced this week the launch of Texas Business for Clean, Affordable and Reliable Energy, "a coalition of businesses and individuals working to ensure that Texans have reliable power that meets or exceeds environmental standards." Astute readers may recall that TAB was indicted last year for funneling more than $1 million in corporate cash into Tom DeLay's 2002 redistricting boondoggle.

Squaring off against the coal cowboys is an unlikely gang known as Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition, which was granted party status in all hearings. TCCAC has allied environmental groups with rural locals, ranchers, business chiefs, and a deep-pocketed, galvanized coalition of large and small local governments. Led by Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, the group boasts 32 participating governments, each kicking in a $10,000 membership fee. Miller hopes to address the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's "painfully flawed permitting process," which fails to consider the plants' cumulative impact, and undermines the costly State Implementation Plan for air cleanup (think vehicle emissions testing). While some greener groups outrightly oppose coal, Miller says the TCACC "wants the proposed plants to burn as cleanly as possible," – i.e., the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or bona fide clean-coal plants, proven to be up to 90% cleaner and able to capture CO2.

In addition, the coal plants are seeing increasing push-back from business interests. Dallas oilman Albert Huddleston's decision to partner with a Waco-area community group to file suit against TXU over its Oak Grove plant this month – arguing that the coal-burner doesn't use the cleanest technology available and promising to file similar suits for all of TXU's plants – was an atypical union of right and left interests. Also this month, Texas Business for Clean Air was formed by real estate icon Trammell Crow, Container Store Chairman Garrett Boone, and Consumer Club head David Litman. They've set up a PAC to lobby legislators to require the cleanest possible technology and to slow the TCEQ permitting process – and unlike many other opponents, they have very deep pockets. Echoing Miller, the group says increased pollution could harm economic development. "We are not against TXU," said Litman. "We are all for companies making money. But you've passed off some of your costs on the public in terms of dirty air, in terms of kids showing up at Children's Hospital." The group, 20 business leaders strong, also includes Central Market VP Stephen Butt, Mary Kay Inc.'s VP Dick Bartlett, and Dreamworks Animation Chairman Roger Enrico.

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