One year ago, just weeks after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord, San Antonio’s brand new City Council and its new mayor voted 9-1 to join a coalition of cities determined to meet the accord’s goals for reducing the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.

The first step of the ambitious commitment was for the City-owned CPS Energy to give the University of Texas at San Antonio a $500,000 grant to study the area’s sources of greenhouse gases and come up with a plan to reduce them.

This week, the Rivard Report’s environmental reporter, Brendan Gibbons, broke the story that UTSA has been replaced by a private consulting firm. Listen to the background.