The world is waiting for the United States to step up and lead on the issue of global warming and environmental protection.  And while George W. Bush of Texas last week issued a new proposal to convene major nations on the issue, this President has spent his entire presidency resisting, and in many cases, contravening his obligations to lead the issue.  In Germany, last night, the President again refused to embrace CO2 reduction targets or energy efficiency goals.  Meanwhile in Austin, Texas, the Texas legislature itself failed in its recent session to adopt measures that would help our state improve its environmental profile, with many key measures failing to even get hearings on the legislative floor.  Our state and our nation are therefore in the grip of people who refuse to lead. 
 
This is not a coincidence.  The modern Republican movement in many ways began in Texas, with the Bush family, the Baker family, and others building the modern party in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  In the wake of the civil rights movement, traditional conservative white Democrats fled the party for the open arms of the Republican party.  To this day, Texas remains a bastion of support for George W. Bush, despite his troubles.  The similar environmental approaches of the Us government and the Texas state government results should therefore not be a surprise.  This week the Associated Press issued a story that describes the uneven approach to CO2 emissions among the states.  The AP reported that “Texas, where coal edges out cleaner natural gas as the top power source, belches almost 1 1/2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. That's more than every nation in the world except six: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India and Germany.”
 
And so just as some nations are choosing to lead on these issues while others deny them, so some states and cities lead while others deny.  California and New York are pushing ahead reflecting their emerging progressive consensus.  Progressive Texas mayors, determined to create environmental agendas for their citizens, lead major Texas cities.  If Texas joined California and New York, the back of resistance will be broken.  And for Texas to change, its state legislature, where environmental policy in the state is controlled, must change.  And when the resistance in the Texas statehouse is ended, the resistance of Republicans nationwide will be broken as well.  And when that happens, the United States will take its place leading the world on this issue.  There is therefore much at stake to change the minds of Texans and the grip on power in Austin.  While Republicans may think the Texas statehouse is a bastion, it is in fact to become a key, major battleground for the future of the planet.  Republicans at the national level are changing rapidly.  The top three Republican presidential candidates all accepted the need to change in their debate the other night.  Other Republicans now accept the need for gasoline taxes and/or carbon cap and trade systems.  Soon, Texas Republicans will either have to follow suit, be left behind, or lose control of political power. 
 
For decades we have been told by Republicans that the environment and the economy are mutually exclusively, that you cannot help one without hurting the other in a zero sum game.  On NPR this week, I listened to the President of the small Pacific island country of Palau say that “The environment is the economy, and the economy is the environment.”  This construction is absolutely correct: environment and economy are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent.  The future will bring competition for both better economies and better environments, and the products and skills will reflect that.  And in the face of flagging US leadership in environmental energy, the Japanese now lead in solar panels, and the Danes in wind turbines.  There is no place in the world with more engineers skilled in understanding the production of energy than in Texas.  And yet if the state leadership does not lead, that mantle will shift to California, which is investing large amounts in new energy systems, led by that state’s formidable venture capital industry.  Texas energy companies have plenty of money to make such investments, yet they have little inclination to do so without good state leadership.  And for all the leadership failures, there are some bright spots.  Texas leads the nation in wind energy generated, partly the result of the state legislature’s mandating of minimum levels of alternative energy investment.
 
As a son of Texas, I believe that my fellow Texans are, faster than their leaders realize, coming to accept the need for a cleaner world faster than their leaders in Austin are.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Republican Texas State legislators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
 
I’m Leo Gold.  This is The New Capital Show.