Luke Metzger
Executive Director, Environment Texas
Executive Director, Environment Texas
AUSTIN – Three leading Texas environmental organizations announced a new television advertising campaign today aimed at getting the Texas Legislature to support measures to make Texas a world solar leader. The commercials will run for a week in the Abilene, Dallas/Fort Worth, Tyler/Longview, and Wichita Falls viewing areas and call on the Legislature to support incentives to install solar panels on the equivalent of a half-million Texas rooftops by 2020. The ad can be viewed here.
“Texas has the right stuff to be a world leader in solar power, producing clean energy that will create tens of thousands of jobs and reduce pollution” said Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger. “But with other states moving aggressively to court the solar industry, we have a narrow window of opportunity to act. The Legislature should invest in making Texas the Silicon Valley of solar energy.”
Environmental Defense Fund Regional Director Jim Marston added, “To ensure that Texas gets the green collar jobs we deserve from solar power, we need to show national leadership. We did that with our original wind renewable portfolio standard, saving Texans money along the way, and we can do the same if we have a renewable portfolio standard for solar power now.”
“Texas needs a statewide rebate program to make it easier for homeowners and businesses to go solar,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, Director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. “This will kick start a solar industry in Texas that will be a major economic driver for the next century and beyond.”
More than 80 bills have been filed by a bi-partisan group of legislators to promote solar power and other renewable energy technologies, including:
With only 45 days left in the legislative session, the groups called on the Legislature to act quickly to approve these bills.