TEXAS – Day One of the Joe Biden administration is only a few weeks away and so are a series of executive orders aimed at kick-starting the new president’s ambitious clean energy agenda as part of his promise to forcefully combat climate change.
With the oil and gas industry making up about 30 percent of the Texas economy and more than a third of Houston’s GDP, how the Lone Star State responds to these measures — and to proposed climate legislation — will invariably impact our future.
That impact will not only be felt economically. Intensifying storms due to climate change threaten millions of lives in the region and our city’s very existence.
Judging by past actions, the political response will be cynically simple: Texas Democrats will drag their feet and talk about the complexity of the energy industry, while Republicans will pummel their opponents and label any regulation as a job killer.
But attitudes are changing — among Texans and the oil industry itself. We urge lawmakers and state leaders to see the transition away from fossil fuels not as an obstacle or even a challenge but as an opportunity.
