AUSTIN, Texas (KAUZ) – Stewards of Texas, an organization dedicated to safeguarding Texas’ ecological and cultural legacy, has called for action on the “unchecked expansion of renewable energy infrastructure” that has spread across the state.

The organization warns that without immediate oversight and regulation, the state’s environment, rural communities, and farmland are in jeopardy.

The Stewards of Texas argue that rapid expansion, following the Inflation Reduction Act, has ignored critical considerations:

• Where these projects are placed
• How they impact the environment
• Whether local communities even have a say

The Stewards of Texas shared the key concerns they have concerning the rise of renewable energy:

• Landowner Rights:
  • Wind and solar projects are being fast-tracked across rural Texas, threatening the livelihoods of over 250,000 private landowners who have worked these lands for generations. These landowners deserve a voice in decisions that could forever alter their property and way of life.
• Lack of Oversight:
  • Unlike other major infrastructure projects, there is no state authority regulating where utility-scale renewable projects are placed. This has led to unchecked development in some of Texas’s most sensitive areas, including farmland and wildlife habitats.
• Loss of Productive Land:
  • Texas has already lost millions of acres of working land. The rapid expansion of renewable projects threatens to take even more, putting the state’s agricultural future at risk just as its population is set to grow to over 40 million by 2050.
• Impact on Wildlife:
  • Texas’s rich biodiversity, including critical bird migration routes and bat habitats, is at risk from poorly placed renewable projects. Once these habitats are disrupted, the damage is often irreversible.

More information on the Stewards of Texas can be found here.

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