In case you had your head buried in your pillow (we get it!),  there was this “Hands Off!” thing that happened on April 5. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of protesters came out for some good trouble to oppose policies implemented by President Donald Trump and the actions taken by Elon Musk in his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.

These demonstrations were fueled by concerns, fear and — yes, anger — over cuts to essential services such as healthcare, Social Security, and education. In Texas, significant rallies occurred in Houston, Austin, Denton, College Station, San Antonio, Dallas and in many of the most conservative corners of the state.​

Houston: In Houston, more than 5,000 protesters gathered at City Hall from 12 to 3 p.m. Speakers included Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons of District 149, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Texas’s 7th congressional district, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, and City Council Member Abbie Kamin. Community activists like school board candidate Tammy Reed and Starbucks workers representing the Democratic Socialists also addressed the crowd. The protest focused on opposing cuts to healthcare, Social Security, civil rights programs, and education.

Austin: In Austin, a crowd of about 7,000 assembled at the south steps of the Texas Capitol. Demonstrators voiced their opposition to the Trump administration’s policies and Elon Musk’s involvement in government downsizing. The event featured various speakers who criticized the administration’s actions and emphasized the importance of preserving essential public services. ​Elected speakers included U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Texas State Rep. Gene Wu and Texas State Rep. Vikki Goodwin. Others speakers included those affected by government actions, including federal government workers, members of the trans community, senior citizens and many more.

Dallas: Downtown Dallas saw demonstrators convening at Dealey Plaza to express their dissatisfaction with President Trump and Elon Musk’s leadership. Speakers highlighted concerns over the administration’s policies and called for governmental accountability.

The collective message was a call for the administration to refrain from actions perceived as detrimental to public services and democratic institutions.

Third Act Texas collected some of the stories from speakers, so look for those soon on our social media channels. Third Act Texas members were proud to serve in support for the events’ lead organizers, including Indivisible, 50501, Resist Austin and many more.

Key Objectives of the “Hands Off!” Protest:

• Defending Public Institutions: Participants are rallying against efforts to dismantle federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, and the diversion of taxpayer funds to private interests. ​See more at Indivisible.

• Opposing Authoritarianism: The protest seeks to resist perceived authoritarian measures that threaten democratic processes and civil liberties.

• Challenging Corporate Influence: A significant focus is on countering the influence of billionaires like Elon Musk in government affairs, particularly regarding policies that may benefit private entities at the expense of public welfare. ​

Event Details:

• Date: Saturday, April 5, 2025​

• Flagship Event Location: Washington Monument grounds, Washington, D.C., at 1:00 PM ​ET.

• Local Events: Protests and rallies are planned across at least 10 Texas cities, including Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. 

• Find Local Events: Visit the official Hands Off! website to locate events in your area. ​

• Organize Events: Individuals and groups are encouraged to host local events. Informational meetings for event hosts are available to assist with planning. ​

• Stay Informed: Follow updates on Indivisible’s social media channels and official communications.

Texans are getting hit with a double whammy: using more power for cooling AND paying higher rates. This “climate tax” is costing billions statewide.

We’re paying the price—literally.

To learn more, watch Texas climate scientist Andrew Dessler’s presentation at a recent American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans: “The Hidden Climate Tax: How Climate Change Increases Energy Demand and Costs For Society”.

The city of Austin owns its own electric utility, Austin Energy. The Austin City Council serves as the Board of Directors of this utility.

Austin is currently writing a plan for how they will generate, buy and sell electricity in the near future. This is the Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan. Austin Energy staff wants to promote additional utility solar, local solar, energy efficiency, demand response, some batteries, potentially microgrids, and new gas peaker plants.

Third Act Power Up Communities is working to promote everything Austin Energy wants, EXCEPT the new gas peakers.

We believe Austin can meet its electric needs and goals without adding new fossil fuel burning plants that will pollute the climate with heat-trapping gasses and the local community with air pollution. Peaker plants are less efficient and more polluting than combined cycle base load gas plants. Peakers are used mostly when energy on the grid is tight, and electricity is expensive, so owners of these plants can fire them up for fairly short periods of time to make lots of money.

Austin passed a previous plan for its electric generation that disavowed any new fossil fuel-burning plant. We are asking the Austin City Council to stick with this plan by increasing the amount of clean, renewable energy in their new plan and forgoing any new gas plant.

Here are ways you can help with this effort:

• Sign this petition to Austin City Council: https://act.citizen.org/page/74464/petition/1
• Come to the Austin Energy Oversight Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 19^th, 9 am, Austin City Council Chambers, 301 W 2^nd Street, Austin, TX. At the meeting, you can sign up and speak, hold up signs that we’ll have pre-made, make your own sign to hold up, and support our speakers. There is free parking (with validation) in the garage at City Hall where Council meets.
• If you live in Austin, email your Council Member and let them know that you hope they will support a new generation plan that does not include a new gas plant. Here’s the link: https://www.austintexas.gov/austin-city-council
• If you live in Austin, ask to meet with your city council member and tell them why you are a Third Act member and why the climate crisis is important to you. Ask that they support clean, renewable energy in the new Austin Energy resource plan. We can send a knowledgeable person to the meeting with you if you like. Most council meetings with constituents are virtual these days.

For more information contact:
Beki Halpin
Third Act Texas Power Up Communities Coordinator
Beki.halpin@gmail.com

Sierra Club Lonestar Chapter has launched this statewide coalition with the following goals:

• Stabilize the grid.
• Do not pollute.
• Keep bills as low as possible for hardworking, everyday Texans.

The following solutions can achieve all three goals, and do not require major technical overhauls of our electricity system. We just need our state’s decision makers, like Governor Abbott, his appointees at ERCOT and the Public Utilities Commission, and private utilities like Centerpoint, AEP and Oncor, to act:

• Invest in a modern electric grid.
• Pay Texans the same way wealthy corporations are paid to use less electricity when energy conservation calls are made.
• Increase investments in energy savings programs.
• Remove anti-renewable energy policies.
• Responsibly transition away from climate-polluting power plants.

Third Act Texas Power Up Communities is a member of this coalition and will participate in the planning and execution of these solutions.  If you would like to help with this effort personally, contact me at beki.halpin@gmail.com, and I will connect you with the various meetings and committees that are forming around this initiative. We will need help from communities from all across Texas, so please join in wherever you are.

Here is a link to the website for the Keep the Power On effort.
https://www.sierraclub.org/texas/keep-the-power-on

The website has a petition to Governor Abbott, supporting the goals of this initiative, that you can sign.

Beki Halpin
Third Act Texas Power Up Communities Coordinator

Vote 4 Mom!

An awesome original music video from Third Act members about voting — to protect the rights and bodily autonomy of women and girls, and to protect Mother Earth!

From the Composer

When I wrote this song in early July I was REALLY scared about November. (Momala wasn’t even on the ticket. )

Vote 4 Mom is a love song, for all our moms, sisters, daughters (biological or otherwise). It’s also a rallying cry – to get out the vote for Mother Nature & all her kiddos, especially the ones who CANNOT vote — but whose future depends on this election. I was thinking: what could possibly bring Americans together — and down to the polls in 2024?? How about Mom and Apple Pie?

This song was triggered by 3 AM desperation, inspired by 60’s girl groups, and realized thanks to thirdact.org and the Cool Tune Crew. Special Thanks to Purly Gates, Rick Arnoldi and all the Poll Cats –who helped co-create this music video. Thanks for listening and watching!

May we all find the copacetic crews of our dreams!

Vote 4 Mom is performed by Hattie Purl and the Poll Cats:

harriet jerusha korim — music, lyrics and lead vocals
purly rae gates — ukulele, back up vocals, arrangement, mix
rick arnoldi — guitar, bass
outlier moving pictures — videography

All told, gas and electric utilities from Minnesota to Colorado to Texas paid hundreds of billions of dollars in higher costs to gas pipeline companies, most of which they’ve already turned around and passed on to their customers through higher rates. Meanwhile gas producers and pipeline companies made record profits — billions extra in just a few days.

Full article at gasleaks.org

San Antonio’s citizens need to know that city-owned CPS Energy is quietly and without public input committing our city to natural gas power plants until at least 2050. It has recently spent $785 million of our money to buy two gas power plants and is seeking to build more gas power plants (S.A. Express-News 5/26/24). This is especially troubling because it is now understood that natural gas (methane) is actually as damaging as coal because of the leaks in the processing and delivery of methane. Methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas over a 20 year period.

The city council needs to take responsibility for these major policy decisions by CPS Energy, particularly since renewables and battery storage are now less expensive to develop than natural gas plants. CPS Energy presently has more capacity than it needs, so there is no urgency to develop new sources. Texas is presently the hottest market in the country (no pun intended) for utility-scale storage batteries. Enormous digitally controlled batteries now prevent power outages across Texas when demand surges. Nationally, battery storage capacity is expected to double this year. Why are ratepayers incurring billions for natural gas plants when renewables and storage will meet future needs?  And there has been almost no effort locally to promote the retrofitting of buildings to conserve energy.

The city’s utility bond ordinances make clear that the city council can control the CPS Board makeup, rather than continuing to allow the board to appoint its own members. The ordinances also state that the CPS Board is required to follow policies set by the city council. With climate change causing or soon to cause a major disruption in citizens’ health and safety (look at Houston after Hurricane Beryl), it is time for the city council to exercise its powers over the utility we all own. It is not acceptable that the city allows the lives of low-income citizens to be jeopardized by unaffordable energy, especially when the city is the utility company.

One of the reasons for the city’s reluctance to act is that CPS Energy is generating huge unbudgeted sums of money during the summer months (last year $247 million) by selling excess capacity from fossil fuel power plants to the state grid at high rates. The city takes 14% of CPS Energy’s gross revenue. Last summer the city council did not know what to do with the excess being paid to it by CPS Energy. CPS Energy has become the tail that wags the dog, providing 25%-30% of the City’s total revenue.

In the fall of 2020 citizens from the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Southwest Workers Union, and other groups gathered 14,000 signatures of 20,000 needed, to place a city charter amendment petition on the ballot. If approved by the voters, the amendment would have given the city council more control over the utility and would have required policies to reduce fossil fuel emissions. The petition effort was blocked by a court order from Travis County, obtained by CPS Energy without notice to the citizens. I represent two San Antonio citizens in a suit against CPS Energy to obtain a court finding that the Travis County judgment is void; the case is presently on appeal in Austin. Meanwhile, in the 2023 legislative session the Texas legislature passed a law making any “climate charter” amendment to a city charter subject to legislative approval before it can be voted on.

But the city and the state cannot stop us from organizing to elect city council representatives in 2025 who will require the city’s utility to act responsibly to rapidly move away from fossil fuels and to protect our low-income residents from the changing climate. The city has the duty, recognized in its 2019 Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, to do its part in effectively addressing the global climate crisis.

Darby Riley
Third Act Texas Volunteer Coordinator
texas@thirdact.org

• Bring down prices for families.
• End Texas abortion ban.
• Protect Social Security and Medicare.
• Add more border agents.
• Defend Texas renewable energy jobs.

Virtual and in-person actions — see Texas Offense on mobilize.us