West Texas Renewable Projects Offer Hope

A couple of weeks ago I drove to Santa Fe, NM to visit a client and as I passed the area near Big Spring, TX I saw three very large clusters of windmills. I didn’t try to count them as that wouldn’t have been safe to do at 75 mph but I could see that there very many. Now two weeks later I’m reminded of those windmills again as I see news reports of the massive hurricane that destroyed Grand Bahama Island and threatens much of the east coast of the United States. I’m reminded because there is little question that hurricane Dorian is as powerful and slow moving as it is because global climate change has led to warmer air and seas which are the fuel for hurricanes.

Wind has generated 22% of the Texas’ electrical needs this year slightly more than the provided 21% provided by coal according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Just sixteen years ago, in 2003, wind made up less than 1% of the state's power, and coal satisfied 40% of electrical needs, according to ERCOT documents.

In 2017 utility scale solar generation is Texas equaled what wind generated back in 2003. Utility scale means a project big enough for a utility to buy from. By the end of this year it will be double that and indications are it will double again within the next year or two. Distributed solar generation, meaning primarily rooftop installations, provides about 25% as much as utility scale facilities at this time.

Projections indicate that Texas will become the second most prolific generator electricity from solar by 2021, as more solar farms are built in West Texas near existing wind farms. Investments in transmission lines to accommodate wind generators making building solar farms nearby very cost efficient because solar and wind energy production mostly occur at different times a day allowing them to share those transmission lines.

Despite the tariffs on Chinese solar panels imposed by the Trump administration, the price of solar power continues to drop so that every year electricity from solar energy gets a little cheaper while coal and natural gas costs are basically the same as the prior year and nuclear just keeps getting more expensive. It's often more cost effective to build a new solar plant than it is to keep running an existing coal power plant or gas plant.

Solar alone employs around 330,000 people in the United States while wind employs about 110,000. Coal mining and generation employs about 140,000. Taken together wind and solar energy jobs nearly triple the number of coal related jobs in the electricity sector.
Seeing that more than two thirds of Grand Bahama Island are now underwater should make anyone who believes climate change is not a big deal or a long way off rethink that position. The growth of renewable energy generation in Texas makes clear that what needs to be done to avoid the worst of the damage global climate change can cause it just takes the will to do it. We as voters must demand that our elected officials take this problem seriously and adjust the incentives and tax breaks offered to the energy industry in Texas and the nation to encourage speeding up the build out of renewable energy projects for the sake of our future and that of future generations.

To paraphrase Wendell Berry: We don't inherit the climate from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - September 6, 2019

Time for Texas to End Barbarous Death Penalty

Were it not for last minute action by a federal appeals court yesterday, August 15, 2019, the State of Texas would likely have executed Dexter Johnson for the murders of Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo in Harris County in 2006.  Earlier in the week, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his motion for a stay of execution and his habeas petition without reviewing the merits of the claims he raised, including evidence of his intellectual disability and the false and misleading testimony of a State’s witness at trial. Unlike the Texas justices, the federal court did consider the evidence suggesting intellectual disability and sent the case back to state courts for further review on that issue.

Over the next four months 12 other Texas inmates are scheduled for execution. Next week, on Wednesday, August 21, the State of Texas is scheduled to execute Larry Swearingen. Since his conviction in 2000 he has consistently maintained his innocence of the 1998 murder of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. Swearingen was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone, there is no forensic evidence tying him to the murder, nor eye witness testimony.

Since 1973, 166 people have been exonerated from death row on innocence grounds. The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. That’s about one exoneration for every hundred executed. How many of those who were executed weren’t exonerated simply because they didn’t have adequate representation? How many were like Larry Swearingen and just didn’t have an alibi to prove they didn’t commit the crime? Once again Texas is at risk of executing an innocent man. It is unacceptable for the state in service to the people to kill someone when so many doubts about his guilt exist.

Many supporters of the death penalty claim it is a deterrent however criminologists will tell you it isn’t because either the murder is committed in a moment of passion when such considerations aren’t in play or the perpetrator simply doesn’t believe they’ll get caught.

Other supporters of the death penalty claim it is the ultimate punishment but think about this a moment, as soon as the prisoner is executed they are free of all hunger, pain, loneliness, and fear. They no longer suffer punishment at all. Ask someone like Anthony Graves, a man who was exonerated after spending 18 years on death row, he’ll tell you that many of those with life sentences longed for execution so it would end their misery. If this was truly about punishment we’d just hand out life sentences knowing that the suffering would last for decades. A death sentence just lets the worst criminals off the hook while not giving society a chance to walk back injustices when innocent people are executed for crimes they didn’t commit.

Finally some death penalty supporters claim that it gives closure to the families of victims. In reality most families get no such closure regardless of the penalty imposed on the convicted individual. In fact some find peace in forgiving the murderer after meeting with them and sharing their grief.

Since none of the so-called justifications for the death penalty actually exist neither should the death penalty. It is time for Texas to join much of the rest of the United States and developed world and end the barbarous practice of state sanctioned murder.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 16, 2019

Trump and Republicans to Blame

There are lots of problems in this country that our legislators fail to address, last weekend one event that is an example of how two of them are often intertwined occurred here in Texas. Yet another right wing white supremacist used a gun to kill 22 people, at last count, in El Paso. Trump and Republicans in Congress are responsible for this incident in the same way that a parent is responsible when a child follows their example and does something wrong.

If Trump made a few racially insensitive jokes in private it wouldn’t be such a problem, however he makes claims that certain ethnicities are “bad people” at political rallies, in televised speeches, and in tweets. He minimizes the perceived dangerousness of neo-Nazis by saying “many of them or good people”. Whether he believes these things or not doesn’t matter, he is the President of the United States and sets an example that unfortunately many Americans are keen to follow. Certainly a large fraction of those already felt that way before he started his run for president but his repeated statements have given them permission to be vocal as well. Like any mob when a loud voice starts calling for an action others take up that call and act on it.

It isn’t just that Trump uses racist tropes and scapegoats immigrants, or that congressional Republicans or for that matter Texas Republicans haven’t called him out for it. I’m truly saddened that Trump and Republicans from Congress, state legislatures, on down to some city halls would rather use his hateful, divisive rhetoric to win office than work to heal the nation and their communities.

A year ago, while right wing terror attacks were on the rise, the Trump administration dismantled a Department of Homeland Security intelligence unit focusing on domestic terrorism and reassigned the staff to different positions within the DHS. That wasn’t the first time Republicans forced dissolution of a DHS analysis group focused on domestic terror not committed by Islamists. Congressional Republicans pushed DHS to shut down a group run by Daryl Johnson not long after President Obama took office in 2009. Johnson produced a report called Right-Wing Extremism and Republicans went nuts.

Stopping research and information gathering on right-wing violence is the same sort of head in the sand behavior we see with Republicans on gun violence where they have defunded efforts to study the issue at the Centers for Disease Control. It’s also very similar to how they hide from the global climate change crisis be defunding research by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal and state agencies.

It’s truly sad that the party of Lincoln, who did everything in his power to maintain the union, has chosen division and strife as a means to retain power. I fault not just Republican elected officials in this, it is the responsibility of Republican voters too for if they don’t repudiate Trump and his enablers at the ballot box they are in fact supporting them just like good little Nazis. Oddly enough George W. Bush’s claim around the time of the Iraq war that “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” is very true in this instance.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - August 9, 2019

Impeachment How and Why

Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees regarding his team’s investigation of the Donald Trump and his associates it is time to consider what impeachment means and how it works. For the purposes of this discussion I have cited the various paragraphs of the constitution and provided their text including the archaic spelling used at the time.

Article I, Section 2, paragraph 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

We should think of this duty of the House as similar to that of a grand jury, meaning that House’s job isn’t to determine guilt or innocence but rather to determine if there is enough evidence of impeachable offenses to proceed to trial.

Article I, Section 3, paragraph 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

If the House finds that there is sufficient evidence of impeachable offenses it is the Senate which must then hold the trial and it requires at least 67 members to vote convict assuming that all 100 Senators are present.

Article I, Section 3, paragraph 7: Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Impeaching the President is specifically limited to removal from office with no other penalties attached. The constitution is also clear that anyone removed from office is subject to criminal trial and attendant penalties, such as imprisonment or fines as appropriate to the charges, if there is evidence of criminal acts just like anyone else.

Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Any federal official including judges but not members of Congress are subject to impeachment and if convicted are removed from office. Treason and bribery are just the crimes spelled out in the constitution but it includes the vague “high crimes and misdemeanors” phrase to give future legislatures the flexibility to impeach for actions not imagined by the authors of the constitution.

If you haven’t read the Mueller report yet you really should, the first section regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election is enlightening though dry. While it doesn’t name Trump or others in his orbit it is part of the evidence of the conspiracy which evidence described later in the report suggests a conspiracy. Note the legal term is conspiracy, not collusion, so no Mueller’s team found no evidence of collusion because they weren’t looking for it, they were looking for conspiracy and found some evidence of it. As Mueller testified last week they also found that Trump and his lackeys withheld documents and testimony that might have provided further evidence for conspiracy.

Withholding those documents and testimony in addition to Trump’s efforts to fire James Comey are all the evidence the House should need that Trump obstructed justice and that is an impeachable offense.

Congressman Vicente Gonzalez hasn’t yet made a public statement on his position regarding impeachment.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 1, 2019

Frightening Historical Parallels

While Donald Trump is no Adolf Hitler and no Benito Mussolini that doesn’t mean he’s not a fascist. Merriam Webster dictionary defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

Trump most certainly exalts “white” people over all other races even though race is really just a social construct. His rhetoric and actions, such as not naming permanent leaders of numerous departments and agencies which would require Senate confirmation thus allowing him to name people as acting leaders so he can put anyone he wants in those leadership roles, show his autocratic philosophy. Under Trump the middle class has shrunk and the rich have gotten richer, especially the very richest. Trump showed his desire to forcibly suppress opposition when told Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, that they should “get rid” of journalists as they met in public at the G-20 conference of world leaders in Osaka, Japan.

Similar to Hitler who vilified Jews and other minority groups, Trump has vilified immigrants from non-northern European countries. His policy of separating children from their parents when migrants seek asylum at the border is horrendous. Keeping both parents and children in unsanitary conditions without access to showers or toothbrushes would violate the Geneva Conventions if they were prisoners of war. Japanese-Americans and Jewish-Americans, many of whom have family members who suffered in concentration camps during World War II, have protested at Trump’s camps complaining that the conditions are reminiscent of those concentration camps.

Prior to World War II the German ocean liner St. Louis sailed out of Hamburg with nearly 900 Jewish refugees seeking visas to enter the United States. They were not admitted on the grounds that they needed to wait their turn as the roughly 27,000 slots available to Germans and Austrians had already been filled and so were the slots for the next several years. By 1945, just six years later, 254 of those roughly 900 passengers had been murdered by Nazis in the Holocaust.

The Trump administration is using the same rhetoric all over again to deny entry to migrants from countries south of our border. I’m all for waiting your turn in line but when the line stretches 20 or more years as is sometimes the case I think it’s time to revisit the rules that make the line. Several former asylum seekers have already been reported as murdered after being sent back to their home countries.  We’ll probably never know just how many of the deported asylum seekers are killed by the very drug lords and criminals they were fleeing the first place.

The examples above are just some of the frightening parallels between the leadership of present day United States and Germany of the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. I don’t know about you but I don’t want another stain on our nation like that of the ill-fated voyage of the St. Louis or the Japanese internment camps.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 19, 2019

Political or Violent Revolution

A week ago yesterday we celebrated Independence Day, the American Revolution, led by wealthy, educated elites in order to wrest control of government away from a distant despot and take it into their own hands.

This Sunday France will celebrate Bastille Day, their own revolution against the rich and powerful despots of the late eighteenth century. Workers in the cities and small farmers in the countryside resented the privilege and wealth bestowed by the accident of being born in to certain families. The triggers were the rising prices of bread and other staples exacerbated by crop failures and government on the brink of bankruptcy driven by the country’s participation in a war of choice, the American Revolution.

The seeds of revolution in our country have been planted once again and are growing even now. One famous rallying cry of the American Revolution was “No taxation without representation”, unfortunately many Americans, including Texans, once again suffer from it due to partisan gerrymandering. In some states 60 percent of voters can turn out for the party that ends up with just 40 percent of legislative seats because the other party had the opportunity to draw legislative and congressional maps that provide a near permanent advantage to that party regardless of the will of voters.

In the United States today three white men, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, own more wealth than the poorest 50% of the population combined. The Walton Family and the Koch brothers combined own about the same amount, while Bezos, Buffett, and Gates started with little and made billions, the Walton’s and Koch brothers inherited their wealth and use it to exert political control, gain privilege, and protect and increase their wealth.

Grocery prices have risen noticeably over the last year or two, other living expenses have as well yet most workers have seen little if any increase in their wages. Trump’s tax cut put little more in the pockets of you and me while lining the pockets of the already fabulously wealthy. At the same time it further exacerbated the national deficit even as the nation still bears the expense of the unnecessary war of choice in Iraq. Climate change is bearing down on us like a freight train, last week Anchorage Alaska had a record high temperature of 90 degrees – that’s 5 degrees above the previous record, there was massive flooding in the Great Plains last month wrecking crops and killing livestock, and the Arctic ice cap is showing signs of record shrinkage. As climate change worsens crop failure and livestock losses will cause further shortages and price increases. With the vast majority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck there’s not much room in the budget for increased costs.

There is mounting pressure for change, in the past the United States has managed that through the electoral process choosing Teddy Roosevelt, his nephew Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson to manage the necessary adjustments. Will this nation choose another visionary leader to guide us through the critical transition or will it take the kind of upheaval seen in the latter part of the eighteenth century?

Published in the Seguin Gazette - July 12, 2019

New Gilded Age or New Era

The period from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until just after the turn of the century is known as the Gilded Age, it is the time of big railroads, big banks, and big steel. Men like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Mellon made themselves wealthy by monopolizing trade and corrupting government then built grandiose homes and earned the appellation robber baron. Economic inequality reached historic levels and children starved while Morgan and Mellon decided where to build their next 75 room mansions. Teddy Roosevelt earned a reputation as a trust buster through his efforts to curb the most egregious excesses of such men. Roosevelt didn’t attack all trusts or monopolies, only those he felt took excess profits and failed to provide good, efficient services or high quality products. While his public face was that of a protector of the common man he was very much a supporter of capitalism who believed that strong government provided necessary balance. Economic inequality continued to increase through the Roaring 20’s proving that Teddy Roosevelt didn’t go far enough.

Just two decades after Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency the national economy took a nose dive into what became known as the Great Depression. It took reformers like Teddy’s nephew Franklin Delano-Roosevelt and his vice-president, Texan John Nance Garner, to push back against the avarice of the robber barons’ successors and set the stage for the rapid growth in the middle class after the end of World War II. Roosevelt and Garner were forced to compromise with southern Democrats and withhold some of the protections and benefits from domestic help and farm workers, who were often minorities, in order to pass their legislation. Those left out were unable to fully enjoy the benefits of the vibrant economy.

Two decades later another reformer was needed and Texan Lyndon Johnson took up the banner to expand those benefits to the grandsons and grand-daughters of slaves and other minorities. Like all reformers before him he also had to be pushed by those who suffered under the existing system and he had to accept compromises in order to move forward.

While each of these great reformers efforts were necessary they have never been enough and soon after LBJ left office the legislation and regulations that protected the middle class were weakened or reversed. It has been 50 years since LBJ and once again economic inequality has reached record levels with just three men holding as much wealth as the bottom 50% of Americans combined.

In 2020 we have an opportunity to elect a reformer who will turn back the tide of avarice that threatens the fabric of our society and prevent another Gilded Age or Great Depression. I hope you watched the two nights of Democratic presidential candidate debates and recognized that some of them will move us forward while others just offer the status quo. Sanders, Warren, Harris and a few others offer a chance to restore balance to our economy. Biden, Hickenlooper and the rest would happily settle for scraps off the table of the new robber barons of Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.