Environment, agriculture get larger campaign play
By JESSICA MEYERS | The Dallas Morning News | February 14, 2010
Environmentalists' favorite buzz words – green energy, biofuels, sustainable development – are fast becoming the jargon of agriculture workers and the politicians who support them.
A strengthening link between environmental awareness and agricultural development is reshaping the role of Texas agriculture commissioner. It's also redefining how commissioner candidates campaign and who is taking notice, even as early as the Democratic primary.
"The farmer and environmentalist have often been trying to do the same thing but approaching it from different angles," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, the director of Public Citizen's Texas office, which focuses largely on environmental and energy concerns. "And the farmers and ranchers are the people who have really watched the changes appearing in the climate and are beginning to sound the alarm."
Democratic candidates Hank Gilbert and Kinky Friedman have noticed. Their platforms include promises to increase water conservation efforts and promote bioenergy production.
Friedman has discussed creating truck stops with farmer co-ops and sustainable fuels. Gilbert has called for desalinization plants along the Texas coast and heftier clean air requirements.
The Sierra Club, a top environmental group, has decided not to make an endorsement in the primary race because both candidates are so strongly advocating green positions, said David Griggs, chairman of the group's Texas political committee.
The Obama administration has helped emphasize this intersection, Griggs said, by making global warming a household phrase and climate-change talks an international discussion.
"A lot of people woke up and realized we needed to start prioritizing environmental issues," he said. "You have a younger generation that gets it in regard to global warming."
Much of it does have to do with timing, said former Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, who helped establish one of the country's first organic certification programs in the 1980s. He is credited by some Texas environmentalists as being among the most eco-friendly commissioners.
"People know the agriculture commissioner is the representative of Texas food and food producers," Hightower said, "but with environmental interests, I tried and didn't have a lot of success."
A water-conservation campaign went nowhere 20 years ago, Hightower said. But a two-year drought has made water concerns one of the top issues in this primary race.
The windmills now peppering the West Texas plains have drawn attention to renewable energy resources. A national slow-food movement has some people questioning pesticide use and recognizing where their food is grown. Even the Legislature is getting in on the action, creating a Bioenergy Policy Council led by the agriculture commissioner.
The Democratic candidates shouldn't receive all the credit for pushing environmental issues, said Kirby Brown, the Texas Wildlife Association's vice president for public policy. The organization is endorsing Republican incumbent Todd Staples.
He credits Staples with promoting the state's GO TEXAN labeling, pushing ecotourism and pulling conservation groups into public discussions.
"You now have the Audubon Society sitting at the table with cattle ranchers and Fish and Wildlife," he said. "When you have 95 percent of Texas as private land, you're going to have to work with the landowner."
Recognizing those common interests offers new opportunity, said Jim Marston, the Texas director of the Environmental Defense Fund.
"We used to think agriculture was only a user of energy or something that had to bare the cost of regulation," he said. "Now we understand that agriculture can be a source of energy or source of offsets in a carbon-constrained world."
But, he warned, campaign promises don't necessarily translate into practice.
"Can we in Texas take advantage of the opportunity that is coming from changing environmental policies around the world?" he asked. "Can we be a supplier of new biofuels, or are we simply saying we're against all federal regulations?"
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