Double Take: Texas House Committee on Natural Resources

From T.A.:

Let's chat

This video was what I thought was the best speaking of the day: Comissioner Shawn Nanny

Well here is something I saw.

Here is me saying you can do these things.

I am writing to urge The Texas Natural Resources Committee to hold a follow-up hearing dedicated more to exclusively to public testimony. If the committee invites Big Tech - or others - We the People would like to know in advance on the agenda.

During the hearing on June 23, there was a blatant disregard for the time and effort of the 115 constituents who traveled to Austin to be heard.

First speaker was Michael Lucci - the founder and CEO of State Armor, a non-profit organization focused on enacting state-level policies to counter global security threats, primarily those originating from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was apparently invited with unlimited times to speak. He never talked about water.

He was there for what seemed like forever - 45 minutes or longer. While data center representatives - Google, Fermi, Amazon, Lancium (data centers) - Data Center Coalition (50 Big Tech )

Members were granted unlimited time, many citizens who sat through the 10-hour session were never given the opportunity to speak. It is estimated that approximately 60 plus registered individuals were silenced when the meeting adjourned. The only person that appeared willing to talk after the meeting to the people was - Rep. Gonzalez. Rep. Gonzalez offered everyone to go to her office for refreshments and to discuss the issue in detail.

I see you and applude you - Your dedication to the people not just from your district but to - We the People who are Texas.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CsnLCDd99/

I applude the following speakers, linked below -

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18h71SLgi2/

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Cz2KQjNHu/

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1H41zNBE4y/

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1E1W8nsRtR/

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18s2inaA1w/

There were many other memorable moments... note these are great questions asked by the Committee:

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17QurgHjDB/

But as I understand the entity the lady represents has no environment enforcement powers to do anything

To rectify this and ensure the people of Texas are properly represented, I request a new hearing that adheres to the following:

- I do welcome another Heating:

-I do invited testimony from corporations or state agencies.

-I do request -  We the People know who is invited ( Big Tech and Regulator Agencies / Stakeholders ) in advance ( at least a 72hrs notification on the public page ) so we can prepare our questions for these invited guests and not waste time

- Equal Time: If corporate representatives wish to speak, they must register and adhere to the same time limits as the general public.

- Accessibility: Please schedule this meeting over two or three days, preferably on a weekend, to allow working Texans to attend. Second option - at the least - Friday, Saturday Or - Sunday, Monday

- Timeline: This hearing should take place before the elections in November.

The public deserves a fair opportunity to voice concerns regarding water usage and the impact of data centers on our communities. We look forward to your response regarding a date for this session.

I encourage every Texans to watch the 10 hour video (I know fast forward). Okay at least review the video and get your understanding:

https://house.texas.gov/videos/22709

Email and call:

You can contact Texas Governor Greg Abbott by calling his main switchboard at

(512) 463-2000 or email him at greg.abbott@gov.texas.gov.

Email addresses of this committee:

brad.buckley@house.texas.gov,

cecil.bell@house.texas.gov, trent.ashby@house.texas.gov, erin.zwiener@house.texas.gov, mary.gonzalez@house.texas.gov, ramon.romero@house.texas.gov, caroline.fairly@house.texas.gov, mando.martinez@house.texas.gov, jeff.barry@house.texas.gov, josey.garcia@house.texas.gov, erin.gamez@house.texas.gov, denise.villalobos@house.texas.gov, cody.harris@house.texas.gov, angelia.orr@house.texas.gov

We the People who are the US

We the People who are Texas

Texans Standing with Texans

We Deserve Better

See you in the comments

----

From Miriam: 

The hearing of the Texas House Committee on Natural Resources was rough to say the least. I am not proud of what I saw sitting across from the  citizens of our state. I am not proud of the conduct of the committee. I am deeply disappointed by those in positions of leadership.

But I am immensely proud of the Texans who showed up and are advocating in spaces where they know they aren’t being heard. Protect the Paluxy, Protect Round Rock, Stop the Temple Datacenter - the list is longer than it should be, but it reflects a resilient, compassionate community that is committed to ensuring the legacy of Texas - the resources of Texas - will be passed down to the next generation. It is a distinct privilege to be remotely affiliated with the people who continue to show up.

My phone died before the hearing ended.

Time ran up before everyone could speak.

Members did and said things they shouldn’t have.

We will talk about it more in the days to come.

Texans don’t quit, we’re a stubborn bunch, and we’re not going anywhere.

Someone in our Facebook community asked what issues Miriam saw with the committee:

There were a lot of issues with the committee members, but I’ll start with these:

-this committee is exclusively on natural resources, they clarified at the beginning that any testimony deviating from the charge of “Datacenters and water usage” would be shut down. Then, they brought in testimony from State Armor about the potential risks of China having more datacenters than the US/the us “falling behind on Ai”. https://statearmor.org/about-us/ turned out the speaker had Palantir connections. They gave him over an hour to speak.

-that was not in line with protocol (at all), but to add to it several members claimed they’d “never heard about this whole thing being a potential security issue”. I don’t know if they thought we’d be relieved that they were ignorant to this?

-They brought in 8 pro-datacenter invited speakers, the ones that everyone invested in this issue already know - Lancium, Google, Amazon, Datacenter Coalition, etc - and then half of the committee members LEFT THE ROOM during one portion of this testimony that went for another hour. Were these speakers for our benefit? Because I can guarantee everyone who drove multiple hours to be there already heard the pitches they said. These speakers also significantly deviated from the testimony boundaries that the chair set at the beginning of the meeting.

-they really “passed the buck” on the issue of the surveys from TCEQ, PUC, and TWDB. They acted as if these agencies “should’ve done more” - when these agencies were not given the ability to do more. The members - in my opinion - were too comfortable blaming others when they actually have the ability to intervene and ask for changes. And they haven’t. There are 3 members of our representatives that have asked for a special session or a moratorium while the state catches up on this issue - Kerwin, Slawson, and Birdwell - Kerwin showed up even though she’s not on the committee. So did Rep Spiller, who’s been helping his community. The people on the committee? They’ve taken no independent action, but they felt very comfortable berating those agencies who have no authority to do more (with the exception of TWDB, and only Spiller brought up the need for them to do more - again, he’s not even a member of the committee. He was a guest because he knew he needed to be there).

-they knew people were coming from across Texas. Kerwin, Orr, Hickland, and Spiller signed up as guests because they knew that their people were going to be there. This means that the consistent stalling was intentional - a 10 hour hearing? And then you wait til the last 1.5 hours to let citizens speak that you KNOW bussed in from across the state? That’s disrespectful at best and hateful at worst.

That’s how I saw it. That’s how I feel about it. And people need to know what’s happening at the Capitol.

That’s the top issues that come immediately to mind. Our group will share more thoughts on what happened and what needs to happen next.