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Progress Texas was proud to join our allies at Environment Texas recently for a terrific discussion on clean energy and its intersection with the beautiful, varied and treasured ecologies of our state, at the wonderful Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in south Austin.
In this first of two parts: a welcome statement from Andy Sansom, former Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department; an update on the current state of clean energy in Texas from Dr. Michael Webber, Professor and expert in the field at UT Austin; and a panel discussion on the alignment of conservation and energy goals in Texas with Conservation Director of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter Cyrus Reed, Vice President of the Advanced Power Alliance Judd Messer, Executive Director of the Texas Solar and Storage Association Mark Stover, and Audubon Texas Vice President and Executive Director Lisa Gonzalez.
Stay tuned for part 2, coming on Wednesday.
Learn more about Environment Texas at https://environmentamerica.org/texas/.
Thanks for listening! Learn more about Progress Texas and how you can support our ongoing work at https://progresstexas.org/.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
Neither of the Republicans running for their party's nomination for Texas attorney general would be better than Ken Paxton - they both, in fact, are looking to accelerate Paxton's right wing crusades: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/13/texas-attorney-general-gop-runoff-overturn-supreme-court-rulings-chip-roy-mayes-middleton/
The Texas Committee on House Administration emerged from that Friday meeting with individual fines against each of the Democratic quorum breakers of about $8,000: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2026/04/11/548833/texas-house-democrats-quorum-break-penalties/
Embattled West Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales - already on his way out over a sex scandal involving a staffer - has been accused by a second staffer of sexual harassment: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/second-staffer-says-rep-tony-gonzales-sent-sexually-explicit-texts-rcna266969
...The Gonzales scandal, and another involving California Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, threatens a wider series of competing congressional expulsion moves: https://www.axios.com/2026/04/11/eric-swalwell-expel-tony-gonzales-sexual-misconduct
...Meanwhile the San Antonio Express-News reporters who broke the Gonzales scandal are being commended for their journalistic dedication: https://www.cjr.org/laurels-and-darts/tony-gonzales-and-the-patient-work-of-local-news.php
The defeat of Viktor Orban in Hungary by a "big tent" challenger who mobilized record turnout, notably among younger voters, shows Texas progressives that it IS possible to vote out an established autocratic regime: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/hungary-election-viktor-orban-europe-magyar-b2956377.html
The Texas Tribune has published a search tool to find out who will be on your primary runoff ballot: https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2026/texas-may-2026-primary-runoff-ballot/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
The City of Dallas is poised to step into the global spotlight, as the most-watched sporting event on the planet, the FIFA World Cup, arrives in North Texas this summer. At this critical juncture - when the international image of the United States has faced significant challenges and scrutiny due to the recent political climate - and our domestic tourism economy has suffered as a result - Dallas has a chance to seize a unique opportunity to demonstrate to a worried world the true character and values of the American people, at a time when the it is direly needed.
Joining our conversation are three exceptional Dallas-based guests who have advocated for making the most of this chance to make a solid impact for Dallas, Texas and the nation at large. Dr. Rick Halperin, director of the SMU Human Rights Program, Dallas author and historian Michael Phillips, and Hadi Jawad, president of Human Rights Dallas, recently authored a compelling op-ed in the Dallas Morning News exploring the profound potential of their beloved town officially becoming a designated “Human Rights City” before the tournament kicks off on June 14. Read their op-ed at https://progresstexas.org/blog/op-ed-fifa-world-cup-dallas-can-become-human-rights-city.
Thanks for listening! Learn more about Progress Texas and how you can support our ongoing work at https://progresstexas.org/.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
The victims of the Colony Ridge real estate scam have been left out of a $68 million settlement against the developer who ripped them off: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/09/texas-railroad-commision-bo-french-midland-republican-candidates-forum/
The Texas House Administration Committee will meet today to decide how to enforce $9,200 personal fines levied against the 2025 Democratic quorum breakers: https://www.statesman.com/news/politics/state/article/texas-house-democrats-fines-22195322.php
MAGA wackjob and Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commission Bo French has attacked a GOP women's group in Midland for leaving him out of a candidates forum - an event the group has been trying to invite him to join all year: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/09/texas-railroad-commision-bo-french-midland-republican-candidates-forum/
The Texas Tribune has published a search tool to find out who will be on your primary runoff ballot: https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2026/texas-may-2026-primary-runoff-ballot/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
The coverage by the Texas Observer, a longstanding and legendary liberal Texas media outlet - of a recent hit piece on Houston State Rep. Gene Wu by the Dallas Express, an upstart, well-funded right wing rag masquerading as a "spin-free" media entity - has us thinkin' about how difficult it has become to tell fact from fiction in the news...and that's before we even start thinkin' about AI.
Now, more than ever, it's vital to find, patronize, and support fact-based indie media with high standards of journalistic integrity - without whom, we're all at the mercy of fat cats and MAGA propagandists. Our very democracy now depends on selective and informed media savvy.
Thanks for listening! Learn more about Progress Texas and how you can support our ongoing work at https://progresstexas.org/.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
As focus on the conditions inside ICE lockups in Texas has wavered, detainees remain confined in dangerous, unsanitary and inhumane circumstances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tW7WyzvAtg
...A celebrated doctor from Venezuela - the 2025 "Resident Of The Year" at UT Health Rio Grande Valley - is himself likely being held in similar conditions after his detention in Sarita on Monday: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/texas-doctor-detained-border-patrol-visa-freeze.html
Students and Greek life groups have begun teaming with advocacy organizations to support their undocumented colleagues, who are left largely without institutional support under Trump: https://thebarbedwire.com/2026/04/09/undocumented-students-texas/
A Dallas Express hit piece on the son of Houston State Rep. Gene Wu highlights the importance of journalistic integrity, and the importance of choosing your news sources carefully: https://www.texasobserver.org/dallas-express-smears-state-rep-son-fake-byline/
The Texas Tribune has published a search tool to find out who will be on your primary runoff ballot: https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2026/texas-may-2026-primary-runoff-ballot/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
Texas elected officials are calling for Donald Trump's cabinet and the Congress to remove him from office using the 25th Amendment before he starts WWIII - but in reality, that remains highly unlikely: https://www.chron.com/texas/article/texas-lawmakers-trump-iran-22194262.php
...Even Congressman Henry Cuellar is sounding sensible: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5820948-cuellar-reverses-war-powers-stance/
City and state officials have responded to Corpus Christi's looming water crisis not by curtailing industrial use and employing conservation - but by accelerating drilling and draining of local aquifers: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042026/corpus-christi-water-crisis-south-texas-aquifers/
...The drying up of Corpus Christi is not a localized problem - it's a harbinger of what's coming for the rest of Texas: https://www.texasobserver.org/corpus-christi-water-crisis-climate-projections/
...Turns out the data center boom will not only drain Texas of water - it's also draining us of tax dollars: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/08/texas-data-centers-sales-tax-break-billion-dollars/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
A Florida-based private school materials company has used a loophole to score funds from our new voucher scam: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/school-voucher-loophole-florida-virtual-22183576.php
The Texas State Board of Education meets today in Austin to discuss a broad agenda: https://sboe.texas.gov/state-board-of-education/sboe-2026/sboe-2026-april/april-7-2026-committee-of-the-full-board
...The main event for many parents and education advocates: the whitewashing of Texas social studies materials that water down hard facts and global perspectives while amplifying Christian religious stories and promoting "Texas exceptionalism": https://www.kut.org/education/2026-04-06/austin-tx-texas-state-board-education-social-studies-curriculum-changes
...Slavery in particular is minimized, especially for younger students: https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2026/04/06/texas-reviewing-what-students-learn-about-history-slavery-and-religion-in-major-curriculum-rewrite/
...Many of the advisors to SBOE, and many of the board members themselves, lack any experience with classroom teaching: https://www.thecentersquare.com/texas/article_30c52773-7b65-42d4-8297-03e4e1cd549f.html
...Also problems with right-wing meddling at the collegiate level, as the new Office of the Ombudsman has been granted wide latitude to target Texas colleges for failing to comport themselves in a sufficiently MAGA way: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/03/texas-ombudsman-investigate-university-complaints/
Progress Texas is the media partner of the Texas Nature and Clean Energy Summit, hosted by Environment Texas, at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Tuesday April 7! RSVP to join us: https://environmentamerica.org/texas/center/events/texas-nature-and-clean-energy-summit/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
A crowd of over 2,000 protestors - and speakers of a surprisingly bipartisan range - took part in a Saturday demonstration against purported plans by the Trump administration to build border walls through Big Bend National Park and other sensitive parts of the region: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/05/texas-capitol-protest-big-bend-border-wall
...Assurances that the Trump administration is not planning a physical wall have not been enough to assuage worries: https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/03/texas-border-wall-big-bend-national-park-ranch-state-park/
Trump's FEMA head is a longtime Texas misinformation peddler who claimed recently on a podcast to have "teleported" into a Georgia Waffle House restaurant: https://www.chron.com/news/article/texas-fema-teleporting-22186446.php
Governor Greg Abbott has taken heat - but offered no retraction or apology - for sharing a fake AI image of the rescue of downed American fighter pilots in Iran on Easter Sunday: https://www.chron.com/news/article/texas-gov-abbott-blasted-sharing-ai-generated-22190447.php
Progress Texas is the media partner of the Texas Nature and Clean Energy Summit, hosted by Environment Texas, at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Tuesday April 7! RSVP to join us: https://environmentamerica.org/texas/center/events/texas-nature-and-clean-energy-summit/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
Stories we're following this morning at Progress Texas:
Texas oil executives, in a recent industry poll, are both bullish on recent profits and production, but also highly uncertain about future prospects due to the Trump war in Iran: https://www.wfaa.com/article/money/business/right-on-the-money/how-texas-oil-gas-executives-feel-about-war-with-iran/287-df0ccee4-9c21-4a6e-9e04-3684d348724a
...Those same oil executives now have a clear lane to choose profit over marine life in the Gulf, as their industry has been exempted from the Endangered Species Act by the Trump administration: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/30/nx-s1-5745926/endangered-species-committee-hegseth-security
...The Texas economy is suffering, meanwhile - gas prices are up, prices generally are high due to Trump tariffs, and multiple industries are suffering worker shortages due to Trump's immigration crackdown: https://www.kvue.com/video/money/economy/experts-concerns-economic-impact-texas/269-e360e1b8-9f9e-49df-9576-e46f9713d3d7
Pam Bondi's firing is meant to silence the uproar around the Epstein scandal, but it is already having the opposite effect: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/03/pam-bondi-fired-trump-epstein
Progress Texas is the media partner of the Texas Nature and Clean Energy Summit, hosted by Environment Texas, at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center on Tuesday April 7! RSVP to join us: https://environmentamerica.org/texas/center/events/texas-nature-and-clean-energy-summit/
We're excited to see YOU in Dallas for our 16th anniversary celebration on Tuesday June 16! Make your reservation now: https://act.progresstexas.org/a/anniversary2026
Progress Texas is expanding into both broadcast radio - including a new partnership with KPFT-FM in Houston - and into Spanish language media! Make a tax-deductible contribution to our radio initiative HERE, and to our Spanish expansion HERE.
Find our web store and other ways to support our important work at https://progresstexas.org.
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