State of Nature: Texas Legislature Faces Environmental Challenges — Interview With Luke Metzger, ‘Environment Texas’ Director

AUSTIN Luke Metzger has lived in Texas almost as long as George W. Bush has been President of the United States.

During that time, the president has undone almost 30 years of federal law that have sought to protect the nation’s natural environment.

The last time the environment took this kind of pounding was back when President Ronald Reagan and his Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, were in power.

It’s been well documented that Reagan thought that plants caused air pollution and Watt believed that destroying the environment was cool since Jesus would be back to terminate it all eventually.

The Bush administration has since taken Reagan’s torch and lit legislative fires such as the Orwellian-titled Clean Air and Clear Water Acts, gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement division and its Superfund clean-up program, and sparked big business’ interests in logging, mining, and drilling millions of acres of wilderness not to mention inflaming the international community by ignoring the Kyoto Treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Metzger, on the other hand, has been fighting for the health of not only the environment but also the people effected by those changes statewide as director of Environment Texas.

Before Texas, Metzger lived in California where he worked with Environment Texas’ sister organization an environmental consumer group called the California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG).

According to Environment Texas’ mission statement:

“We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress. That’s the idea behind Environment Texas. We focus exclusively on protecting Texas’ air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

The Lone Star Iconoclast’s Nathan Diebenow recently spoke with Metzger about the environmental issues coming up in the next session of the Texas Legislature and the role of Congressional Democrats in framing green issues nationally,.

Here is that interview:

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ICONOCLAST: Why are you an advocate for the environment in Texas?

LUKE METZGER: I’ve been in Texas for about six years. I was an Army brat so I grew up in Oklahoma, Germany, Alabama, California, and growing up, I was a Boy Scout and had a particular interest in nature and camping.

Since coming to Texas, I also have had the opportunity to explore a lot of the beautiful, natural areas of the state, everything from Padre Island and sea turtles down there to canoeing on the Pedernales River.

I’ve been able to have great experiences with that,