At least one thing already seems certain with regard to the future relationship between President-elect Barack Obama's administration and the state of Texas on the intertwining subjects of climate change and energy:

There will be disagreement on the climate issue between Gov. Rick Perry and Carol Browner, reportedly Obama's choice to be the top White House official on climate and energy policy – the “climate czar” or “energy czar,” as some say.
 
Browner was an aide to then-U.S. Sen. Al Gore before he became vice president and the world's most prominent advocate of sweeping action to address what he calls "the climate crisis."

In the Clinton-Gore administration, Browner served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times, reporting her probable inclusion on Obama's team of top energy and environment officials last week, called Browner "an acolyte" of Gore.

Perry has stated a view of Browner's former boss that no Gore acolyte would share.

Last year, speaking to a gathering of California Republicans, he said: "I've heard Al Gore talk about man-made global warming so much that I'm starting to think that his mouth is the leading source of all that supposedly deadly carbon dioxide."

Referring to human-caused warming, a Perry aide later told the Austin American-Statesman that the governor was "not convinced that it's an issue." More►

A&M study confirms water vapor's warming role
Dec. 7, 2008

Humidity distribution, NASA visualization

Texas is the nation's oil capital. Texas is the nation's biggest producer of wind energy. Could a blending of those two roles be in the offing, thanks to the credit crunch and tax credits?

Without addressing the Texas angle specifically, the Wall Street Journal's Russell Gold posed a broader question in a recent post on the newspaper's Environmental Capital blog:
“Could Big Oil end up financing tomorrow's wind farms?”

The possibility arises, he wrote, because oil companies are part of a “shrinking group” with “a reliable stream of taxable income to offset with tax credits” available for wind projects.

Gold examined the possibility that oil money might replace now-harder-to-find capital from other investment sources because of news about BP, the U.K.-based energy giant. Britain's Guardian reported a shift in BP’s strategy for future renewable projects on Nov. 7:

"BP has dropped all plans to build wind farms and other renewable schemes in Britain and is instead concentrating the bulk of its $8bn (£5bn) renewables spending programme on the U.S., where government incentives for clean energy projects can provide a convenient tax shelter for oil and gas revenues."

The Journal's Gold, in the Nov. 11 blog post, reported no sign that three major U.S. oil companies were similarly inclined:

"ConocoPhillips says it is focusing on its oil and gas portfolio. A Chevron Corp. spokesman said the California company had evaluated it in the past, but ‘we are not currently pursuing tax credits for wind projects.’ Exxon Mobil Corp. declined comment." More►

President-elect Barack Obama used his radio (and YouTube) address to the nation on Saturday to promise an economic stimulus package aimed at creating 2.5 million jobs in two years, with a strong emphasis on green energy.

"We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead," Obama said.

That was it, as far as details in the speech itself about green jobs. The New York Times fleshed things out a bit with comments attributed to Obama staffers:

"Nearly every spending program and tax cut that Mr. Obama proposed during the campaign could well end up in the stimulus package, advisers indicated. For example, Mr. Obama’s proposals to invest in energy alternatives and advanced 'green' technologies will most likely be part of the package, rather than proposed later in his administration."

Anyone looking for more insight into Obama's thinking on how a stimulus plan and green energy initiatives can fit together should check out a pre-election interview he granted to Time columnist Joe Klein and pay a visit to the Web site of a group called the Apollo Alliance.

Klein touched on energy only briefly in the article he based on the interview, conducted 17 days before the election, but the entire Q-A transcript that he posted on Time's political blog had much more detail on the stimulus-energy nexus that Obama perceives. More►

Welcome to Texas Climate News, a new online magazine about climate change and sustainability. TCN will present a steady stream of original reporting on these closely linked subjects. We'll also provide a regularly updated guide to relevant reports by others.

Our goal is to enhance Texas citizens' knowledge and understanding of important developments in science, government, business, citizen action and other areas. We want to help inform the public dialogue that’s unfolding as Texans confront a changing climate and work to build more sustainable futures for themselves and their descendants.

This Web site will publish public-interest journalism, based on traditional journalistic principles of independent-mindedness, accuracy and fairness.

That sounds serious – and it is. Texas Climate News covers serious subjects. But news about climate change and sustainability doesn’t have to be unceasingly somber. We'll certainly report on risks and problems. We'll also examine new ideas and actions being forged to address them. We’ll highlight some of the people who are involved. And we'll try to do it all in a lively and engaging way.

You’ll find our major original reports under the Feature Stories heading. Most items in that department will be text-based articles, but we also plan to offer audio and video reports.

Shorter items will be published here on our blog, the TCN Journal. Some will be based on our original reporting. Others will mainly point to information published elsewhere. TCN Journal will include interpretation and context, but it's a news blog, not an opinion blog. More►