Activists react to tree ordinance law news

As most of you may know by now, this weekend the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Joe Straus, sent House Bill 7 back to the Senate. According to the speaker, certain amendments to the bill were not germane and therefore violated House rules. Local environmental activists cheered the move, including the Texas Campaign for the Environment. Its legislative director, Andrew Dobbs, praised the action in a Sunday press release. “We applaud Speaker Joe Straus for stopping the Senate’s attempt to take a benign House bill and turn it into a power grab by developers,” he said. “(The speaker) defended legislative rules that prohibit these kinds of hijacking attempts and he protected local citizens’ power to protect the health of their communities.”