Group sues Texas over law banning state business with firms 'boycotting' fossil fuels

shut it down

A business group is suing Texas over the so-called “anti-ESG law.” Photo via Getty Images

A progressive business group sued Texas on Thursday over a 2021 law that restricts state investments in companies that, according to the state, “boycott” the fossil fuel industry.

The American Sustainable Business Coalition filed suit against Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Glenn Hegar, alleging that the law, Senate Bill 13, constitutes viewpoint discrimination and denies companies due process, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The group asked a federal judge in Austin to declare the statute unconstitutional and permanently block the state from enforcing it.

“Texas has long presented itself as a business-friendly state where limited state regulation facilitates the ability of businesses to conduct themselves as they see fit,” lawyers for the group wrote. “Yet in 2021, the Legislature passed SB 13 to coerce and punish businesses that have articulated, publicized, or achieved goals to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.”

Known as the “anti-ESG law” — which stands for “environmental, social and governance” — Senate Bill 13 requires state entities, including state pension funds and the enormous K-12 school endowment, to divest from companies that have reduced or cut ties with the oil and gas sector and that Texas officials deem antagonistic to the fossil fuel industry.

In approving the legislation, Republican officials looked to protect Texas oil and gas companies and to bite back at Wall Street investors pulling financial support from the industry in an effort to incorporate climate risk into their investments and respond to pressure to divest from fossil fuels, which play an outsized role in accelerating the climate crisis.

In March, Texas Permanent School Fund, Austin, cut ties with BlackRock, which managed roughly $8.5 billion of the $52.3 billion endowment and which was listed by Texas as one of the companies that should not handle state business.

The statute defines “boycott” as, “without an ordinary business purpose, refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or limit commercial relations with” a fossil fuel company. It also prohibits state agencies from doing business with a firm unless it affirms that it does not boycott energy companies. And it charges the state comptroller with preparing and maintaining a blacklist of companies based on “publicly available information” and “written verification” from the company.

In a statement, Hegar, the comptroller, called the lawsuit an “absurd” attempt to “force the state of Texas and Texas taxpayers to invest their own money in a manner inconsistent with their values and detrimental to their own economic well-being.”

“This left-wing group suing Texas,” he said, “is hiding their true intent: to force companies to follow a radical environmental agenda that is often contrary to the interests of their shareholders and to punish those companies that do not fall into lockstep and put politics above earnings.”

Paxton’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Texas has blacklisted more than 370 investment firms and funds, including BlackRock and funds within major banks like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. BlackRock, among other companies, pushed back on its designation as “boycotting” fossil fuels, calling the decision “not a fact-based judgment” and citing over $100 billion in investments in Texas energy companies.

“Elected and appointed public officials have a duty to act in the best interests of the people they serve,” a BlackRock spokesperson said at the time. “Politicizing state pension funds, restricting access to investments, and impacting the financial returns of retirees, is not consistent with that duty.”

In Thursday’s suit, the American Sustainable Business Coalition argued that the physical and financial risks posed by climate change are a legitimate investment and business consideration and cause for efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

The group said the Texas law was enacted to go after what Republican lawmakers saw as a “burgeoning fossil fuel discrimination movement,” and that it effectively “infringes rights of free speech and association under a scheme of politicized viewpoint discrimination” and allows Texas officials to “punish companies they believe are insufficiently supportive of the fossil fuel industry.”

The group argued that the law penalizes companies for their energy policies and membership in certain business associations, and compels them to adopt positions that align with Texas officials “as a condition” of doing business with state entities.

The suit also alleged that the law violates companies’ right to due process because vagueness in the statute “encourages arbitrary enforcement” and fails to provide blacklisted companies a fair process to contest their designation.

Texas blacklisted “the flagship investment funds” of Etho Capital and Sphere, two climate-focused firms represented by the American Sustainable Business Coalition, according to the lawsuit.

“Among ASBC’s many projects are efforts to encourage sustainable investing and sustainable business practices,” the lawsuit reads. “These are all cornerstones of the modern Texas economy. Yet, SB 13 takes aim at, and punishes, companies that speak about, aspire to, and achieve this goal.”

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

James Tour of Rice University has received funding to support his energy transition research. Photo via rice.edu

Houston chemist earns $12M grant to support innovative soil pollutant removal process

making moves

A Rice University chemist James Tour has secured a new $12 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center on the team’s work to efficiently remove pollutants from soil.

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from contaminated soil through its rapid electrothermal mineralization (REM) process, according to a statement from Rice.

Traditionally PFAS have been difficult to remove by conventional methods. However, Tour and the team of researchers have been developing this REM process, which heats contaminated soil to 1,000 C in seconds and converts it into nontoxic calcium fluoride efficiently while also preserving essential soil properties.

“This is a substantial improvement over previous methods, which often suffer from high energy and water consumption, limited efficiency and often require the soil to be removed,” Tour said in the statement.

The funding will help Tour and the team scale the innovative REM process to treat large volumes of soil. The team also plans to use the process to perform urban mining of electronic and industrial waste and further develop a “flash-within-flash” heating technology to synthesize materials in bulk, according to Rice.

“This research advances scientific understanding but also provides practical solutions to critical environmental challenges, promising a cleaner, safer world,” Christopher Griggs, a senior research physical scientist at the ERDC, said in the statement.

Also this month, Tour and his research team published a report in Nature Communications detailing another innovative heating technique that can remove purified active materials from lithium-ion battery waste, which can lead to a cleaner production of electric vehicles, according to Rice.

“With the surge in battery use, particularly in EVs, the need for developing sustainable recycling methods is pressing,” Tour said in a statement.

Similar to the REM process, this technique known as flash Joule heating (FJH) heats waste to 2,500 Kelvin within seconds, which allows for efficient purification through magnetic separation.

This research was also supported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Rice Academy Fellowship.

Last year, a fellow Rice research team earned a grant related to soil in the energy transition. Mark Torres, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences; and Evan Ramos, a postdoctoral fellow in the Torres lab; were given a three-year grant from the Department of Energy to investigate the processes that allow soil to store roughly three times as much carbon as organic matter compared to Earth's atmosphere.

By analyzing samples from the East River Watershed, the team aims to understand if "Earth’s natural mechanisms of sequestering carbon to combat climate change," Torres said in a statement.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Power finally was restored to most by last week, after over a week of widespread outages. Photo via Getty Images

Heat-related Texas deaths climb after Beryl left millions without power for days or longer

ripple effects

As the temperature soared in the Houston-area home Janet Jarrett shared with her sister after losing electricity in Hurricane Beryl, she did everything she could to keep her 64-year-old sibling cool.

But on their fourth day without power, she awoke to hear Pamela Jarrett, who used a wheelchair and relied on a feeding tube, gasping for breath. Paramedics were called but she was pronounced dead at the hospital, with the medical examiner saying her death was caused by the heat.

“It’s so hard to know that she’s gone right now because this wasn’t supposed to happen to her,” Janet Jarrett said.

Almost two weeks after Beryl hit, heat-related deaths during the prolonged power outages have pushed the number of storm-related fatalities to at least 23 in Texas.

The combination of searing summer heat and residents unable to power up air conditioning in the days after the Category 1 storm made landfall on July 8 resulted in increasingly dangerous conditions for some in America’s fourth-largest city.

Beryl knocked out electricity to nearly 3 million homes and businesses at the height of the outages, which lasted days or much longer, and hospitals reported a spike in heat-related illnesses.

Power finally was restored to most by last week, after over a week of widespread outages. The slow pace in the Houston area put the region's electric provider, CenterPoint Energy, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared.

While it may be weeks or even years before the full human toll of the storm in Texas is known, understanding that number helps plan for the future, experts say.

What is known about the deaths so far?

Just after the storm hit, bringing high winds and flooding, the deaths included people killed by falling trees and people who drowned when their vehicles became submerged in floodwaters. In the days after the storm passed, deaths included people who fell while cutting limbs on damaged trees and heat-related deaths.

Half of the deaths attributed to the storm in Harris County, where Houston is located, were heat related, according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

Jarrett, who has cared for her sister since she was injured in an attack six years ago, said her “sassy” sister had done everything from owning a vintage shop in Harlem, New York, to working as an artist.

“She had a big personality,” Jarrett said, adding that her sister had been in good health before they lost electricity at their Spring home.

When will a complete death toll be known?

With power outages and cleanup efforts still ongoing, the death toll likely will continue to climb.

Officials are still working to determine if some deaths that have already occurred should be considered storm related. But even when those numbers come in, getting a clear picture of the storm's toll could take much more time.

Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which uses death certificate data to identify storm-related deaths, estimated that it may not be until the end of July before they have even a preliminary count.

In the state's vital statistics system, there is a prompt to indicate if the death was storm related and medical certifiers are asked to send additional information on how the death was related to the storm, Anton said.

Experts say that while a count of storm-related fatalities compiled from death certificates is useful, an analysis of excess deaths that occurred during and after the storm can give a more complete picture of the toll. For that, researchers compare the number of people who died in that period to how many would have been expected to die under normal conditions.

The excess death analysis helps count deaths that might have been overlooked, said Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

What do different toll numbers tell us?

Both the approach of counting the death certificates and calculating the excess deaths have their own benefits when it comes to storms, said Gregory Wellenius, director of the Boston University School of Public Health's Center for Climate and Health.

The excess death analysis gives a better estimate of the total number of people killed, so it's useful for public health and emergency management planning in addition to assessing the impact of climate change, he said.

But it “doesn't tell you who," he said, and understanding the individual circumstances of storm deaths is important in helping to show what puts individual people at risk.

“If I just tell you 200 people died, it doesn't tell you that story of what went wrong for these people, which teaches us something about what hopefully can we do better to prepare or help people prepare in the future,” Wellenius said. ___

The lizard already is “functionally extinct” across 47 percent of its range. Photo via Getty Images

New endangered listing for rare lizard could slow oil and gas drilling in Texas, New Mexico

to save the species

Federal wildlife officials declared a rare lizard in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas an endangered species Friday, citing future energy development, sand mining and climate change as the biggest threats to its survival in one of the world’s most lucrative oil and natural gas basins.

“We have determined that the dunes sagebrush lizard is in danger of extinction throughout all of its range,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. It concluded that the lizard already is “functionally extinct” across 47 percent of its range.

Much of the the 2.5-inch-long (6.5-centimeter), spiny, light brown lizard's remaining habitat has been fragmented, preventing the species from finding mates beyond those already living close by, according to biologists.

“Even if there were no further expansion of the oil and gas or sand mining industry, the existing footprint of these operations will continue to negatively affect the dunes sagebrush lizard into the future,” the service said in its final determination, published in the Federal Register.

The decision caps two decades of legal and regulatory skirmishes between the U.S. government, conservationists and the oil and gas industry. Environmentalists cheered the move, while industry leaders condemned it as a threat to future production of the fossil fuels.

The decision provides a “lifeline for survival” for a unique species whose “only fault has been occupying a habitat that the fossil fuel industry has been wanting to claw away from it,” said Bryan Bird, the Southwest director for Defenders of Wildlife.

“The dunes sagebrush lizard spent far too long languishing in a Pandora’s box of political and administrative back and forth even as its population was in free-fall towards extinction,” Bird said in a statement.

The Permian Basin Petroleum Association and the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association expressed disappointment, saying the determination flies in the face of available science and ignores longstanding state-sponsored conservation efforts across hundreds of thousands of acres and commitment of millions of dollars in both states.

“This listing will bring no additional benefit for the species and its habitat, yet could be detrimental to those living and working in the region,” PBPA President Ben Shepperd and NMOGA President and CEO Missi Currier said in a joint statement, adding that they view it as a federal overreach that can harm communities.

Scientists say the lizards are found only in the Permian Basin, the second-smallest range of any North American lizard. The reptiles live in sand dunes and among shinnery oak, where they feed on insects and spiders and burrow into the sand for protection from extreme temperatures.

Environmentalists first petitioned for the species' protection in 2002, and in 2010 federal officials found that it was warranted. That prompted an outcry from some members of Congress and communities that rely on oil and gas development for jobs and tax revenue.

Several Republican lawmakers sent a letter to officials in the Obama administration asking to delay a final decision, and in 2012, federal officials decided against listing the dunes sagebrush lizard.

Then-U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at the time that the decision was based on the “best available science” and because of voluntary conservation agreements in place in New Mexico and Texas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said in Friday's decision that such agreements “have provided, and continue to provide, many conservation benefits” for the lizard, but “based on the information we reviewed in our assessment, we conclude that the risk of extinction for the dunes sagebrush lizard is high despite these efforts.”

Among other things, the network of roads will continue to restrict movement and facilitate direct mortality of dunes sagebrush lizards from traffic, it added, while industrial development “will continue to have edge effects on surrounding habitat and weaken the structure of the sand dune formations.”

3 Houston clean energy startups advance in Elon Musk-backed cleantech competition

finalists

Twenty promising climatetech companies were selected to advance to the final stage of a global competition backed by Elon Musk's foundation — and three of the finalists hail from Houston.

Vaulted Deep, Mati Carbon, and Climate Robotics secured finalists spots in XPRIZE's four-year global competition is designed to combat climate change with innovative solutions. XPRIZE Carbon Removal will offer $100 million to innovators who are creating solutions that removes carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere or the oceans, and then sequester it sustainably.

"For the world to effectively address greenhouse gas emissions, carbon removal is an essential element of the path to Net Zero. There's no way to reverse humanity's impact on the climate without extracting carbon from our atmosphere and oceans," Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, says in a news release. "We need a range of bold, innovative CDR solutions to manage the vast quantities of CO2 released into our environment and impacting our planet.

"The teams that have been competing for this Prize are all part of building a set of robust and effective solutions and our 20 teams advancing to the final stage of XPRIZE Carbon Removal will have an opportunity to demonstrate their potential to have a significant impact on the climate," Ansari continues.

The finalists — categorized into four sections: air, rocks, oceans, and land — were selected based upon their performance in three key areas: operations, sustainability, and cost. The full list of 20 finalists is available online.

Around 20 Houston-area companies were initially identified by the challenge. Here's a look at the three that are advancing to the finals:

Mati, in the Rocks category, durably removes carbon from the atmosphere using basalt based enhanced rock weathering (ERW) in smallholder rice paddy farms. This process, which is being demonstrated in India, removes atmospheric CO2 while adding key nutrients in the soil helping to restore degraded soils to benefit smallholder farmers.
Climate Robotics, in the Land category, enables broad-scale agriculture adoption of biochar which builds soil health and removes excess carbon from the atmosphere. The company's mobile technology converts crop residues into durable biochar on the fly and in the field, making the economics work for farmers and our ecosystems.
Vaulted Deep, also in the Land category, delivers scalable, permanent, carbon removal by geologically sequestering carbon-filled organic wastes. Their patented slurry sequestration, which involves the geological injection of minimally processed wastes for permanent (10,000+ year) carbon removal.

"This cohort of exceptional teams represents a diversity of innovations and solutions across a range of CDR pathways, and shows the significant progress the industry is making in a short period of time," Nikki Batchelor, executive director of XPRIZE Carbon Removal, says in the release. "Over the past three years, this competition has helped accelerate the pace of technology development for a whole new industry of high-potential solutions aimed at reversing climate change."

What can hospital systems do to combat climate change? A lot, according to a new report from the Center for Houston's Future. Photo via TMC.org

New report calls for Houston-area health care providers to take action amid climate change

call to action

A new report underscores an “urgent need” for health care systems in the Houston area to combat climate change and avoid an environmental “code blue.”

“By adopting collaborative strategies and leveraging technological innovations, health care providers can play a pivotal role in safeguarding the health of Houston’s residents against the backdrop of an evolving climate landscape,” says the report, published by the Center for Houston’s Future.

Among the report’s recommendations are:

Advocate for policies that promote decarbonization.
Create eco-friendly spaces at hospitals and in low-income communities, among other places.
Recruit “champions” among health leaders and physicians to help battle climate change.
Establish academic programs to educate health care professionals and students about climate health and decarbonization.
Bolster research surrounding climate change.
Benchmark, track, and publish statistics about greenhouse gas emissions “to foster accountability and reduce environmental impacts of the health care sector.” The report notes that the U.S. health care sector emits 8.5 percent of the country’s greenhouse gases.

“By embracing collaborative strategies, acting with urgency and implementing sustainable practices, our region’s health care providers can play a pivotal role in creating a healthier, more resilient Houston,” says Brett Perlman, outgoing president and CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future. “If we work together, given all the collective wisdom, resources and innovation concentrated in our medical community, we can tackle the challenges that are confronting us.”

The report highlights the threat of climate-driven disasters in the Houston area, such as extreme heat, floods, and hurricanes. These events are likely to aggravate health issues like heatstroke, respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular diseases, and insect-borne diseases, says the report.

St. Luke’s Health, a nonprofit health care system with 16 hospitals in the Houston area and East Texas, provided funding for the report.

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Global bank announces new Houston hub for powering energy transition projects

cha-ching

Spanish financial services company BBVA Group has created a hub in Houston for financing energy transition projects in the U.S.

BBVA made the announcement at the first-ever Houston Energy & Climate Week, which the bank sponsored.

“The United States has a unique opportunity to lead the global transition to a more sustainable economy. Our office in Houston, the energy transition capital of the world, will be a key component of our sustainability strategy, complementing and integrated with our New York operations,” Alvaro Aguilar, BBVA’s head of strategic projects in the U.S., says in a news release.

The new Houston office is part of BBVA’s corporate and investment banking unit in the U.S. The local hub will partner with BBVA cleantech finance teams in New York City, London, and Madrid.

“We aim to make sustainability a driver of growth, support decarbonization projects, and position BBVA as the leading player in sustainable finance in the United States,” says Javier Rodríguez Soler, BBVA’s global head of sustainability.

BBVA’s U.S. sustainability strategy supports energy companies and those that promote renewable energy, including wind and solar, as well as emerging cleantech options, such as energy storage systems, hydrogen, and carbon capture. It also covers sectors like electric vehicles and energy efficiency.

As of June 2024, BBVA had amassed $279 billion in sustainability business toward its 2025 goal of $332 billion.

Investors name most-promising energy tech startups at annual Houston event

big winners

Investors from around the world again identified the most-promising energy tech startups at the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship's annual event.

"The recognition that Houston is the epicenter of energy transition is growing. It's something we are championing as much as possible so that the world can know exactly what we're doing," Paul Cherukuri, chief innovation officer at Rice University says at the 21st annual Energy Tech Venture Forum.

The event took place during the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week, and nearly 100 startups from 23 states and seven countries pitched investors Wednesday, September 11, and Thursday, September 12. At the conclusion of the event, the investors decided on 10 companies deemed "most promising" from the presentations.

This year's selected companies are:

Revterra, a Houston-based company innovating within kinetic battery technology to enable faster and cleaner electric vehicle charging.
From Austin, 360 Mining is a modular data center provider for the oil and gas producers.
New York company Andium is a centralized and optimized operations platform for large energy companies.
Elementium Materials, a local Katy-based company, created its battery technology that originated out of MIT.
Splight is a San Mateo, California-based technology platform that provides real-time operational data based on inverter-based resources assets.
Los Angeles-based Mitico, one of the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator's class 4 participants, provides services and equipment for carbon capture through its granulated metal carbonate sorption technology.
From Cambridge, Massachusetts, Osmoses is changing the way molecular gas separations are performed within the chemical, petrochemical, and energy industries.
Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator class 4 participant CORROLYTICS, based in Houston, has a corrosion detection and monitoring technology. The company also won over the crowd and secured the People's Choice win too.
Ardent, based in New Castle, Delaware, has developed a membrane technology for point-source carbon capture.
New Haven, Connecticut-based Oxylus Energy produces an alternative fuel from converting CO2 into green methanol.

Last year, investors named its selection of most-promising companies at Rice.

"We have a responsibility as a city to lead energy transition," Cherukuri continues. "A lot of the investments we're making at Rice are going to change the world."

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Things to know: Gastech returns, Fervo Energy secures loan, and apps open for Houston hardtech fellowship

taking notes

Editor's note: Dive headfirst into the new week with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition.

Gastech returns to Houston this week

Gastech, billed as the world’s largest exhibition and conference for the natural gas, LNG, hydrogen, low carbon solutions, and climate technologies, returns to Houston beginning Tuesday, September 17. It'll be the first time the event takes place in Houston since 2019.

“Gastech is a global event that draws tens of thousands of attendees and millions of dollars in economic impact to its host city, and we are incredibly excited to have in Houston," Michael Heckman, president and CEO of Houston First Corp., says in a press release announcing the news last fall.

"The conversation around the future of the energy industry is a different one today than it was just five years ago when Gastech was last here," he continues. "We believe the role Houston is playing in leading the energy transition to a low carbon future makes this an ideal place to host this important global event and we look forward to expanding on the success we had in 2019 when Gastech returns."

The program's full agenda is available online and features a series of climate-focused panels on hydrogen, carbon capture, nuclear energy, grid stability, and more.

Activate Houston opens applications for 2025 cohort

Activate's application is live from now through October 23, and all founders of early-stage, research-backed hardtech companies in Houston are encouraged to apply. Photo via Getty Images

Applications are officially open for a hardtech-focused incubation and fellowship program's second Houston cohort.

Activate's application is live from now through October 23, and all founders of early-stage, research-backed hardtech companies in Houston are encouraged to apply. The Berkley, California-based program launched in Houston last year and recently named its inaugural Houston cohort.

“The Activate Fellowship provides an opportunity for approximately 50 scientists and engineers annually to transform into entrepreneurial leaders, derisk their technologies, define first markets, build teams, and secure follow-on funding,” says Activate’s executive managing director, Aimee Rose, in a news release. “With an average 30 percent annual growth in applications since 2015, we know there is high demand for what we do, and we’re excited to see the talent and impactful ideas that come through the pipeline this year.

The application is available online, and fellows will be selected in April of next year. The 2025 program will begin in June. Read more.

Big deal: Fervo Energy secures $100M for 'world’s largest geothermal energy plant'

Fervo Energy received $100 million loan for its Utah Cape Station project. Photo via fervoenergy.com

Houston-based geothermal energy company Fervo Energy has secured a $100 million bridge loan for the first phase of its ongoing project in Utah.

The loan came from an affiliate of Irvington, New York-based X-Caliber Rural Capital. Proceeds will support construction of Fervo’s Cape Station project, which is being touted as the world’s largest geothermal energy plant.

The first phase of Cape Station, which is on track to generate 90 megawatts of renewable energy, is expected to be completed in June 2026. Ultimately, the plant is supposed to supply 400 megawatts of clean energy by 2028 for customers in California.

“Helping this significant project advance and grow in rural America is a true testament to how investing in communities and businesses not only has local influence, but can have a global, long-lasting impact by promoting sustainability and stimulating rural economies,” Jordan Blanchard, co-founder of X-Caliber Rural Capital, says. Read more.

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