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Comment by abalashov | Hacker News Reader

If they could just somehow recruit Texas to the cause, they'd pretty much have the leverage, as anchors of economics and policy for much of the rest of the country.

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The primary issue in the Texas legislature the last session was who could go to the bathroom. They couldn't figure it out so now they are going to have a special session to iron out the details. So Texas is not going to lead the country anywhere. http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/order-timeline-bathro...

In 2008, Californians voted through referendum to make gay marriage illegal, overruling their own supreme court.

If that incident had no great impact on Cali's overall ability to lead, why does this event say anything about TX's?

In 2008, the overwhelming amount of money and support for that referendum to make gay marriage illegal came from Utah. That same sort of effect cannot happen in Texas in all the executive/legislative offices. Also, in California, Proposition 187 mobilized the Latino/Hispanic vote to help turn the state blue (obviously before 2008) having less fundamentalists in offices of power lessens their bully pulpit so to speak. Texas minorities have not been incentivized by the GOP with an equivalent move in Texas so the historic low turnout among Latinos/Hispanics there has been consistent. They could stage a revolution through the ballot box in the coming years if people would just show up to vote. http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/latinos-wont-turn-tex...

Also, after Proposition 8 in California, California did not doubled down on hate against gay/lesbians with more measures. Texas had an equivalent vote for equal rights in Houston, it got lots of attention, and it went from winning to losing. The tide turned so much that the state of Texas double down on moves against gay/lesbian rights, the lege moved to not permit cities to have equal rights ordinances and keeps throwing bathroom bills against the wall spaghetti style.

You are right, these 3 states currently represent 24.7% of the US GDP, with TX they would get to 33.5%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gross_S...

Yeah, but it's more than just % of GDP. Think about the outsized influence Texas has on school textbooks nationwide. Same idea with CA/NY/WA/TX in other areas.

Could you explain this for a non-American? Is there a committee that sets national curriculum that is heavily influcenced by Texans?

Just the text book creators being influenced by their biggest consumer.

"Texas buys 48 million textbooks every year. No other state, except California, wields that sort of market clout."[1]

http://www.nea.org/home/39060.htm

IANAEducationExpert

Textbooks are written by publishers and reviewed by boards appointed by the state. However, this is a costly process and most small states do not bother with it. Due to the size of Texas, it makes sense for them to review and direct the writing of their own textbooks.

Thus, small states will often use textbooks originally published and directed by Texas(or another large state) for their school curriculum. This is why it's such a huge deal when <x huge state> removes <x important topic> from their curriculum.

I think the idea of states having national influence in these matters comes from the fact that if a producer of some sort (textbooks, cars, etc) wants to sell something across the US, they need to follow the strictest standards that populous states have, or else they need to have separate cars for California, separate textbooks for Texas, etc. I guess it can be more expensive to do that, so they end up just meeting the stricter conditions nationwide when that makes more sense.

In some states, school districts choose their textbooks. In some states, the state as a whole decides on their textbook. So the states that do that (like Texas) have a much larger impact on the contents, because it's such a large order. Whereas a school district can't afford to have their own textbooks written and published, so they have to go with a version already out there.

Impossible with the current Texas governor.

I wouldn't be so sure, if Rex Tillerson was in favor of staying in Paris, why wouldn't the governor of Texas?

The Texas governor has constituents and voters that hold him accountable.

Rex doesn't have to try to get re-elected.

I believe Tillerson wanted to stay in Paris so the United States would be involved in the program and shape it's direction. I'd say that's quite a bit different than voluntarily taking on the pledges for Texas.

Maybe Abbott will surprise us though

In case nobody noticed, former TX gov. Rick Perry did speak out on this, and he was in favor of the Paris accord, also.

Shocking that Trump would go against the current head of Exxon, the ex-head of Exxon who is also his Sec. of State, and another very conservative oil-state politician in Rick Perry.

http://time.com/4754578/rick-perry-paris-agreement-trum-clim...

I've read some informed speculation that this was done in a fit of pique because of criticism from Angela Merkel: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/paris-and-the-battle-of-...

"informed speculation" aka BS.

It couldn't have had anything to do with the 22 senators petitioning him to drop it or the campaign promise he made...

Despite that, he was still considering staying in and reportedly has been torn on the subject for weeks now.

I wish he had remained in Paris, too, but they link is just utter drivel.

Trump doesn't give a shit what those 22 senators have to say.

There is absolutely nothing in that opinion piece to back up the author's claim.

The author didn't actually make a "claim". Josh Marshall was speculating, and he labeled it as such.

But there is quite a bit of support for this line of reasoning now, after the fact, actually.

Have you been to Texas?

Given the amount of oil related industries there, it's not in the state's interest to regulate carbon, which is mostly a proxy for taxing oil and gas.

Additionally, it is a state with a large hard conservative population. They hate climate change.

Like many populous states, Texas is filled with large cities with very liberal voters.

Also, white/anglos are predicted to lose the plurality in Texas in 2020.

True, but the oil will run out. Ask the former coal mine towns what happens then.

Texas runs its own power grid. Not the same interest as NY and CA in particular. They are probably actually cleaner than both combined?

I'm not sure why Texas would be particularly clean, it has abundant quantities of coal and natural gas. It also has an abundance of wind, but I'd be surprised if its wind power production is even a tenth of its combined fossil fuel power production.

> but I'd be surprised if its wind power production is even a tenth of its combined fossil fuel power production.

Surprise!

http://electricitymatch.com/blog/customer-choice/texas-elect...

From a pure electricity standpoint, they're doing pretty good. It's almost all zero carbon or low carbon (NG) generation.

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=TX#tabs-4

Of course the real problem is their oil industry. They export a shit ton of oil, and they are extremely well connected to every aspect of state politics.

Texas gets about a quarter of its power from coal. That's a lot lower than some states, but "almost all zero carbon or low carbon" is a bit generous. That's also way, way higher than California.

Probably.. but at this point it's really not just about the emissions... it's now also about economics. Renewable energy is set to be a massive industry -- worth trillions and create millions of jobs globally. No state should want to be left behind.

Texas ranks #1 in the US for wind energy capacity and biofuel production. It ranks #2 for employment in the renewable energy sector. It is hardly set to be left behind.

That's awesome.. but when you look at the numbers that actually matter on a macro level Texas ranks 44th. #notThrowingShadeJustFacts

Regardless, we got a lot of work to do as a nation :-/

Source: https://energy.gov/maps/renewable-energy-production-state

Why would you just plain guess at TX being cleaner than CA, the clear leader among all US states on climate issues, without bothering to look it up? Careless and lazy.

Because Texas has a lot of wind power (so much that the price sometimes goes negative at night) and because, although California gets a lot of its power from renewable energy, most of that is imported (WA hydro) while in-state production remains dirtier.

Don't get me wrong: I live in CA and would be happy never to set foot in Texas again, but this responds to your specific statement.

why is hydroelectric power not "renewable"?

I'm merely saying while California consumes a lot of energy from renewable sources, most of the energy generated in the state is dirty.

In the specific case of hydro, California has, for all intents and purposes, none. There is some pumped hydro storage (as far as anyone can tell, all the reasonable candidate sites are in use) but actual generation comes from WA which has plenty of water flow. This also means that WA deals with the environmental problems of these generator dams, and California does not.

California does have some wind and solar of course, in additional to its hydrocarbon plants. But lots of gas peakers.

For pollution in general, California might be a leader for policies enforcing cleanliness.

But for clean power generation, they're not the leader, Vermont is [1]. California is ranked #8 (Texas is ranked #22). This is based on a ratio of the power consumed, not raw power generation total.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...

New York generation is almost entirely gas, nuclear and hydro.

It's one of the cleaner states.

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