The CO2 State

But to many Texans, environmental activism looks too much like big government threatening the state's business interests. Under Republican Gov. Rick Perry, Texas has dug in its heels when it comes to enacting any state initiatives aimed at cutting emissions or promoting efficiency. Perry publicly doubts that global warming is a manmade problem—something his predecessor George W. Bush has acknowledged—and pokes fun at those who do. Last year Perry remarked that Al Gore's mouth is the country's leading source of carbon dioxide, not Texas.

"The problem is that big oil companies run the show," says Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, a statewide environmental advocacy group. Last year the Texas Association of Manufacturers and Houston-based Exxon Mobil successfully lobbied against a bill that would have provided incentives to homeowners and businesses to install solar panels. The Republican-held state legislature even voted down a bill that would have allowed cities to increase their sales tax in order to fund the construction of light rail systems, for fear of appearing to be seen as raising taxes. When a Democratic state senator from Austin proposed a bill that would have merely set up a task force to study climate change, it was defeated thanks to fierce opposition from the business community, including the Texas Oil and Gas Association and Texas Automobile Dealers Association.

When Dallas-based power company TXU Corp. announced plans to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in 2006, to go along with the 18 the state already had, Gov. Perry fast-tracked the permitting process, limiting the time frame for public comment. That summer a coalition of more than 40 Texas cities and other local governments intervened at the permitting level and stirred up public opposition to the power plants. When New York-based private equity firm KKR bought out TXU for $45 billion last February, it scrapped plans for all but three of the plants. The fight is the subject of a new documentary by Robert Redford, "Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars."

"The most important thing that came out of that is that Texans are finally understanding this problem and are starting to demand that something happen," says former Dallas mayor Laura Miller, who chaired the coalition until her term ended last year. The coalition is currently in an active lawsuit opposing the construction of the remaining three plants.

"People are starting to realize how vulnerable Texas is to the effects of global warming," adds Jim Marston, the regional director of the Texas office of the Environmental Defense Fund. "We have the longest coastline, which is highly susceptible to tropical storms and hurricanes in the Gulf, and an agricultural area in the western part of the state that is very close to the desert and could be seriously crippled by drought."

Marston says that Texans are also eager to take advantage of green business opportunities. "The business community here sees that a lot of green investment is flowing into California because they've created a market for it, but Texas actually has more potential than any other state to profit from green technologies." With so much flat, windswept land and plenty of sunshine, Texas has more potential for wind and solar energy than any other state, according to Environment Texas. And investment is starting to pick up. In 2007, for the third year in a row, Texas was the nation's leader in the amount of wind capacity added to the electric grid, as nearly $3 billion of wind-powered generators were installed in Texas. Also last year a group of businesses pledged to invest more than $10 billion in renewable energy projects in the state. Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is planning to invest billions of his own money to build the world's largest wind-energy farm in the Texas panhandle, with construction slated to begin in 2010.