Luke Metzger
Director of Environment Texas
N: Could you start by giving us some background on who you are, what you do, and
why you do it?
L: Sure. I’m the Director of Environment Texas, which is a non-profit, grassroots
organization working for clean air, clean water, and open spaces. I guess how I got
into this work probably goes back to my childhood. I was an army brat, so I grew up
a good chunk of time in Germany. I spent a lot of time in the boy scouts, camping, in
beautiful places like the Black Forest, so from an early age grew up with a deep
appreciation of the outdoors and nature. I was there when the Chernobyl nuclear
plant melted down in 1986, and I remember distinctly we weren’t allowed to eat
fresh fruit and vegetables for several weeks because of fears of contamination, even
though we were a thousand miles away from Ukraine. And that stuck with me – that
shouldn’t happen, that’s not right.
Then eventually I went to college in Los Angeles, at USC, and got involved in
activism and started to learn about how individuals working with others can make a
difference and have an impact. And at the same time, I was involved in a number of
social change issues, but the environment became increasingly important to me.
Especially because I was living in LA and experiencing all of the smog, and not being
able to see the mountains just a few miles away. The pollution and the sprawl
helped press on me the need to take action, and so I decided to pursue a career in
environmental activism. And I’ve been doing that ever since. I was a student
organizer in California for a couple years, and then I moved to Texas to help start up
our networks organization here. I’ve had the opportunity to work on some really
great campaigns, everything from renewable energy to suing big polluters to
stopping the sale of mountain ranges and closures of state parks. So, it’s been
definitely very rewarding. And that’s why I do it.
N: So you’re the founder of an entire organization. How exactly do you start
something like that? Are your ideas for the organization at its beginning consistent
with what it is now? How did this organization come into being, and grow so large?
L: So, we came out of another another organization, actually, the Texas Public
Interest Research Group, or TexPIRG, which has been organizing in Texas on
environmental and consumer issues for more than 30 years. We decided to put
special attention specifically on the environmental program by creating a separate
environmental organization and brand called Environment Texas, which we
established to allow for user organizing and a clearer message when we’re reaching
out to Texans across the state. I together with some folks within TexPIRG, helped
create the new Environment Texas and the programs, the brand, and dealt with the
administrative and corporate setup requirements. We are a primarily grassroots
organization, so most of our funding comes from individual donations, and we have
a door-to-door canvas where we go out and talk to tens of thousands of Texans
every summer and get them to get involved by writing letters, volunteering, making
donations, and becoming members of Environment Texas. That’s definitely our core
and our base: being able to mobilize people one person at a time, one home at a
time, and that’s helped us be so successful.
N: What are some hardships that you’ve faced, especially with starting a grassroots
organization in a pretty right-wing state?
L: We definitely have faced a lot of challenges. Texas can be pretty conservative, and
is of course dominated by a bunch of powerful corporate polluters. Exxon,
Halliburton, and many others. Companies that pollute not only Texas but are
responsible for much of the world’s pollution. They spend a lot of money on
campaign contributions and lobbyists in the legislature and congress, so we have the
deck stacked against us. But we do know that the public is with us on the issues that
we work on. Polls show that Texans want clean air, water, they want to have parks
protected and funded, they even want the government to tackle global warming,
regulate greenhouse gas emissions. So we know people are with us.
Our strategy about how to beat the big polluters is to focus on those issues
where we know the public is with us, and where they’re motivated and excited
about an issue. We want to leverage the power of the public, so we are very careful
about picking campaigns where we think we have a chance of winning. It’s not just
about raising consciousness; we want to get actual results for the environment. So
our program has been a blend of issues, like state parks funding, where we know we
have very, very wide support, and deep support, from across all demographics of
Texans and political orientations. That’s been an issue that’s allowed us to build up
our membership and activist support around our state, as well as to be able to go
and lobby people who might not agree with us on everything else, but they do agree
with us on public parks. So we’ll work on those issues that have a broad base of
support.
We’ve also been working on other important issues, like global warming,
where we know we have Perry and governor elect Abbot, who are climate deniers
and are actively working to stop any action on global warming. But in those cases,
we’re not primarily trying to influence them, we don’t think we’re going to be able to
change their minds, or be able to pass a cap and trade or carbon tax in Texas, but we
do know that we’re organizing in Texas in support of President Obama’s Climate
Action Plan, focusing on federal issues, where we do have the opportunity to make
progress. We put our energy into that.
We also do a lot of work at the local level. Cities like Austin, San Antonio, and
even Dallas, are doing some good, progressive things like banning plastic bags, or
making investments in solar power or energy efficiency as well. We spend a lot of
time at the local level because a lot of our cities are bigger than some states in the
US, so getting Austin to build a new solar farm is a pretty big deal. We also do some
work in litigation, working to sue companies directly. We know Rick Perry’s
appointees on the Texas commission on environmental equality basically are
regulators that don’t actually hold accountable violators of the law, so we just go
around them and use our rights under the Clean Air Act directly. And we have had
some success at the legislature, primarily when there’s a business interest that
happens to align with us. For example, in 2005, we helped double the state’s
renewable electricity standard with a mandate for renewable energy, which these
days, I don’t think there’s any way it would have passed in the Texas Legislature, but
in 2005 renewable energy was still bipartisan, there was a lot of support for it, and
we had the wind industry, which is a multi-billion dollar industry. Having them on
our side to go and lobby the legislature, we were able to get Texas to pass a pretty
important law and become the national leader in wind energy. And things like
fracking, where in 2011, the legislature passed a law requiring greater disclosure of
the chemicals involved in fracking. It’s not a great law, but it’s an improvement
above having no information at all. And we were able to get that because industry
was divided, and there were some members that recognized that they needed to do
something to avoid huge public backlash. So we were able to team up with at least
some part of the community to pass regulatory measures. That combination then of
organizing at the local level, winning policies municipally, as well as federally;
President Obama is usually willing to press for some significant environmental
efforts. Then working to just stop a rollback of laws at the state legislative level. We
spend a lot of time defensively, whether its smaller reforms or things that have
more universal support like public parks funding. Doing that for each measure we
can and then suing the bastards when all else fails.
R: So, you just mentioned legislative rollback. How frequently does the Texas
legislature rollback something you just got passed, and how do you deal with that?
L: In the past few years, there have been a number of attempts to rollback
environmental laws. So, for example, a proposal to preempt cities from creating
plastic bag bans, or preempt cities from banning fracking, like Denton recently.
There’s also been efforts to weaken the process by which citizens can contest
pollution permits. All of those examples, at least thus far, have not prevailed. So we
see the bills filed quite often, but we’ve been successful at stopping them to date.
This coming session, though, a lot of us are worried that this might be the session
that the flood gates are breached, and we see a flood of bad bills going forward and
being successful, primarily because we have Lieutenant Governor Elect Dan Patrick,
who has promised to change the voting rules of the Senate which will allow for more
of these bad bills to go forward, and he also has a pretty terrible voting record on
environmental issues. So we think that some of those bills that could previously
have been stuck in committee, or just didn’t make it through the process, will be
fast-tracked, so we’ll have to work a lot harder to stop them.
N: So you really work on multiple levels for change making: you said you work on
the federal level, state level, and with communities. Does your language change
when you’re talking to these different groups of people?
L: Yeah, definitely. I think in general our messaging is focused around engaging the
public. So mostly, we’re still talking the same way regardless of which level. But
certainly, when it gets down to lobbying an individual legislators, you’re going to
emphasize different things depending on what their interests are. That’s true at any
political level. Even within the same body, you might speak differently to city council
members, for example, based on what motivates them, and where their interests lie,
what would be most convincing to them. But, for example, a conservative lawmaker,
we might emphasize more the economic benefits of wind power, and not talk quite
as much about global warming. Whereas a more progress lawmaker, we’d really
need to emphasize global warming primarily. They might be generally not wanting a
lot of tax breaks for corporations, even wind companies. So that economic argument
might not actually be a powerful one, but saving the planet from catastrophe is. So
certainly I think the language is changed a little bit based on who the target is.
N: What do you think about someone who’s trying to make change, but doesn’t have
that political literacy? Is it harder?
I think it is and it isn’t. I mean in some ways, the more you know about the process,
it can sort of slow you down, or lead you to try to be more careful, or other things,
whereas having the liberty to not know as much about the process, going out there,
raising hell, can be actually more effective than what’s called for. When you’re more
drawn into the process, you’re more reluctant to do those tactics, and really that’s
what we need. I think you want to have some knowledge of the system I think
there’s also a danger of getting too close, and getting sucked into such that you lose
the perspective of just the power of organizing and talking to your neighbors,
getting them involved, which often, in my experience, has been the most successful
and more important than individual lobbying.
N: So I’m thinking about going into environmental activism. So my major is
environmental policy, so I could go into both spheres, I could start with grassroots
organizing, or I could end up in the political realm. So what do you have to say about
each sphere of work?
I think they both can be quite rewarding and exciting and can lead to great social
change. I think if you still have some time you should try some internships, to try a
bit of both. Work as an intern for a city council or legislature and get to experience
that, but then also volunteering for more of a grassroots-oriented group, and get a
chance to see how both work, and see where your strengths lie, and what you find
more motivating. In my job, I have the opportunity to do a little bit of both, not
working in a legislative office, but looking for the outside in, and working to
influence offices. So getting a chance to help write bills and call legislative plays, and
all that stuff, but also still getting to do grassroots things, recruiting volunteers at a
farmer’s market, getting a chance to do a little bit of both. Different combinations is
probably the best way to make change.
R: So you’ve mentioned a ton of initiative that you’ve been involved in. Could you
focus in on one that you think is either particularly important, or something you’ve
done recently, and step through the process of how you actually organized a
movement around that and made something happen?
I think the best example would be our work around parks. That’s an example where,
it’s often hard to know whether you turned the tide or not, knowing that everything
all adds up, but on the parks campaign I felt more confident our role really did make
a difference.
So the context was that in 2011 the legislature massively slashed the budget,
including the state parks, cutting the state parks funding by about 150 million
dollars. Then there was the drought in 2011 that was the worst in Texas history,
which led a lot of lakes to dry up, which meant fewer people went to state parks, so
they their revenue was lower. Then there were wild fires that destroyed Bastrop
State Park and Possum Kingdom State Park. So the combination of those cuts and
the problems with the park systems just added up such that at the beginning of
2013, the parks department announced that they were going to have to close 20
state parks because of insufficient funding. So, we’ve been working on park issues
for a number of years, but this was, going into it we were definitely not going to let
that happen, we weren’t going to let state parks be closed.
So we worked to get a lot of media attention around the issue, to let the
public know what was at stake, that some of our beloved parks could be closed
because of the legislature’s failure to fund them even though all taxes on sporting
goods are supposed to go to our parks and if the legislature just used that money for
its intended purpose it would have enough money to keep our parks open and
actually grow them and extend the system. So we wanted to get a lot of media
attention around that, but also just use the opportunity to educate people about
issues beyond that immediate problem. In addition to the park’s closure, there’s also
a backlog of repairs, camping facilities and bathrooms are falling apart, and the park
rangers who are responsible for teaching people about nature have been laid off,
too, some of the camping sites have been closed down and there’s not enough staff
to manage that, and in fact there was also this grant to help cities build new parks
and playgrounds, and that was completely eliminated in 2011. So we seized this
opportunity to rally attention to a broader attention of parks funding. We also
teamed up with the Texas Travel Association to make the economic message,
pointing out that tourism is a major part of Texas’s economy, and a lot of reason
people come and visit Texas is because of our beautiful park system, and how much
money it actually generates for our economy. So together we got an Op Ed which
was printed in five newspapers around the state. We also mobilized our members;
we got them to send ten thousand emails to the legislature, another three thousand
to the governor. We had them send in photos of them and their families and friends
in the state parks, to really put a face on the issue for our legislators.
Getting close to the session, this was successful, the key budget people
announced “Ok, ok , back off, we’re not going to close any parks, you’ve won. “But we
had other issues that I mentioned, restoring sparks, rehiring parks rangers, funding
this local park grants program, we still had more work to do. We also were working
with the Texas Recreational Park Society, which was the association of all of the city
park’s directors around Texas, which was a really great network to team up with
because they have it on the ground in all the legislative districts. They could go to
their local city councils and key business players, tap into their network, but also,
they’re not lobbyists, they’re not political strategists because they’re with the parks
department, so it was really good to team up with them and kind of guide them. So
they did a good job of coming to the legislature, meeting with their lawmakers, and
especially with this local parks grant problem They completely zeroed it out in
2011, we had no money for these parks in the last two years and in fact that it and if
they didn’t fund it again it that program could go away forever, so there was a lot at
stake. So they did a good job of meeting with legislators, talking about, “This is the
park we were able to build, we’re not going to be able to do things like that again in
the future.”
Still, after all that work, nearing the final session, they kept outputting new
drafts of the budget. The House had passed their version of the budget, and the
Senate had passed their version of the budget, so there was a conference committee
appointed of ten members who had to negotiate the differences or strike a deal. So
each version of the budget that committee put out still had $0 for this local parks
grant program. So we decided to use the final days to do kind of a big push and we
looked at the committee, we saw that more than half of the committee members
were from the Houston area. So we called the Chamber of Commerce for Houston,
and they agreed to write a letter to the conference committee members saying one
of the four priorities of this business community is funding the local parks grant
program.
We were able to activate our members and get them to call these committee
members and urge them to restore the program. And following up, the Houston
Chronicle to write an editorial saying we need to restore this local parks grant
program. So after that editorial came out, the committee released a new budget, and
wa-la, we had fifteen million dollars for our local parks for the last two years and
that was only half the historical amount. Still, it’s fifteen million dollars and new
parks and playgrounds are being build around Texas because of that, and it’s helped
us to keep this program alive and fight another day.
So that’s an example of how we’re able to go in and provide lobbying and
strategy and then mobilize our networks in terms of activists and media and
coalitions and be able to put them all together at key moments to win.
N: So, kind of a grand question: Do you think that it will be possible, with the right
technology and policies, to be able to maintain our current lifestyle or level of
consumption sustainably, or do we need a fundamental change in our lifestyle to
avoid apocalypse?
L: Yeah, great question, that’s something I ask myself all of the time and struggle
with for sure. I think technology is going to get us part of the way, and that
technology won’t just magically appear. We’re going to have to fight to shut down a
coal plant and replace it with wind or solar. But at the end of the day, once we’ve
switched to 100% renewables, for example, can the planet survive with populations
out of control, rampant energy use, strain on agricultural resources, etc., I don’t
know. Right now I think our frame and the way our republic is ordered, we do have
these solutions and that will definitely go a long way, but when you talk about global
warming, for example, electricity is probably the easiest part of it, and that’s going to
get us part of the way, maybe 40% or so from carbon emissions. But then when you
talk about transportation, how do we get people out of gas guzzling cars. If we
improve the fuel-economy that helps some, but ultimately you probably need a zero
carbon transportation solution, which requires changing fundamentally how we
live, how our cities grow, we can’t just have these sprawling suburbs anymore, we
have to build more densely. We can’t have people living in 4000 sq. ft .houses, we
need to live within our means. So I think technology and clean energy is going to get
us a good chunk of the way there, but we’re also going to have to make some
changes in our lifestyles.
Leave a Reply