If they could just somehow recruit Texas to the cause, they'd pretty much have the leverage, as anchors of economics and policy for much of the rest of the country.
The primary issue in the Texas legislature the last session was who could go to the bathroom. They couldn't figure it out so now they are going to have a special session to iron out the details. So Texas is not going to lead the country anywhere. http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/order-timeline-bathro...
In 2008, the overwhelming amount of money and support for that referendum to make gay marriage illegal came from Utah. That same sort of effect cannot happen in Texas in all the executive/legislative offices. Also, in California, Proposition 187 mobilized the Latino/Hispanic vote to help turn the state blue (obviously before 2008) having less fundamentalists in offices of power lessens their bully pulpit so to speak. Texas minorities have not been incentivized by the GOP with an equivalent move in Texas so the historic low turnout among Latinos/Hispanics there has been consistent. They could stage a revolution through the ballot box in the coming years if people would just show up to vote. http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/latinos-wont-turn-tex...
Also, after Proposition 8 in California, California did not doubled down on hate against gay/lesbians with more measures. Texas had an equivalent vote for equal rights in Houston, it got lots of attention, and it went from winning to losing. The tide turned so much that the state of Texas double down on moves against gay/lesbian rights, the lege moved to not permit cities to have equal rights ordinances and keeps throwing bathroom bills against the wall spaghetti style.
Yeah, but it's more than just % of GDP. Think about the outsized influence Texas has on school textbooks nationwide. Same idea with CA/NY/WA/TX in other areas.
Textbooks are written by publishers and reviewed by boards appointed by the state. However, this is a costly process and most small states do not bother with it. Due to the size of Texas, it makes sense for them to review and direct the writing of their own textbooks.
Thus, small states will often use textbooks originally published and directed by Texas(or another large state) for their school curriculum. This is why it's such a huge deal when <x huge state> removes <x important topic> from their curriculum.
I think the idea of states having national influence in these matters comes from the fact that if a producer of some sort (textbooks, cars, etc) wants to sell something across the US, they need to follow the strictest standards that populous states have, or else they need to have separate cars for California, separate textbooks for Texas, etc. I guess it can be more expensive to do that, so they end up just meeting the stricter conditions nationwide when that makes more sense.
In some states, school districts choose their textbooks. In some states, the state as a whole decides on their textbook. So the states that do that (like Texas) have a much larger impact on the contents, because it's such a large order. Whereas a school district can't afford to have their own textbooks written and published, so they have to go with a version already out there.
In case nobody noticed, former TX gov. Rick Perry did speak out on this, and he was in favor of the Paris accord, also.
Shocking that Trump would go against the current head of Exxon, the ex-head of Exxon who is also his Sec. of State, and another very conservative oil-state politician in Rick Perry.
I believe Tillerson wanted to stay in Paris so the United States would be involved in the program and shape it's direction. I'd say that's quite a bit different than voluntarily taking on the pledges for Texas.
Why would you just plain guess at TX being cleaner than CA, the clear leader among all US states on climate issues, without bothering to look it up? Careless and lazy.
Because Texas has a lot of wind power (so much that the price sometimes goes negative at night) and because, although California gets a lot of its power from renewable energy, most of that is imported (WA hydro) while in-state production remains dirtier.
Don't get me wrong: I live in CA and would be happy never to set foot in Texas again, but this responds to your specific statement.
I'm merely saying while California consumes a lot of energy from renewable sources, most of the energy generated in the state is dirty.
In the specific case of hydro, California has, for all intents and purposes, none. There is some pumped hydro storage (as far as anyone can tell, all the reasonable candidate sites are in use) but actual generation comes from WA which has plenty of water flow. This also means that WA deals with the environmental problems of these generator dams, and California does not.
California does have some wind and solar of course, in additional to its hydrocarbon plants. But lots of gas peakers.
For pollution in general, California might be a leader for policies enforcing cleanliness.
But for clean power generation, they're not the leader, Vermont is [1]. California is ranked #8 (Texas is ranked #22). This is based on a ratio of the power consumed, not raw power generation total.
I'm not sure why Texas would be particularly clean, it has abundant quantities of coal and natural gas. It also has an abundance of wind, but I'd be surprised if its wind power production is even a tenth of its combined fossil fuel power production.
Of course the real problem is their oil industry. They export a shit ton of oil, and they are extremely well connected to every aspect of state politics.
Texas gets about a quarter of its power from coal. That's a lot lower than some states, but "almost all zero carbon or low carbon" is a bit generous. That's also way, way higher than California.
Probably.. but at this point it's really not just about the emissions... it's now also about economics. Renewable energy is set to be a massive industry -- worth trillions and create millions of jobs globally. No state should want to be left behind.
Texas ranks #1 in the US for wind energy capacity and biofuel production. It ranks #2 for employment in the renewable energy sector. It is hardly set to be left behind.
