Dallas Mayor Laura Miller spoke about environmental issues at the Meadows Museum Auditorium last Friday. In addition to discussing her involvement in helping the environment since becoming mayor, she expressed her desire to help the SMU Student Senate recreate the Senate Environmental Committee.

“The future of our country is with students,” Miller said. “They are the ones who are responsible for changing the future of our world.”

Miller said she wants to find a donor to cover the $600 the Student Senate would require to resuscitate the Environment Committee.

The committee was dissolved by senate in January and replaced with the Student Concerns Committee, which handles, among other issues, both environmental and diversity issues.

Miller feels that supporting the cause of the environment is one of the most important things for student leadership to be involved in right now.

“The whole country is worried about global warming, and SMU should be at the forefront to positively effect change,” Miller said.

Miller said that she would like to attend the next Student Senate meeting to “help convince them to re-establish the Environmental Committee.”

“I will do whatever it takes to raise the money they need for this to happen,” she said.

Student Body President Taylor Russ said that Miller was not on a mission to “tear Student Senate down,” but that she “didn’t have an understanding” of how Student Senate continues to be interested in environmental issues.

“She didn’t know that we created a larger, more resourceful committee to deal with these issues as well as other things,” Russ said. “Environmental issues and policies are very important to Student Senate, and we will continue to work on them with this new committee.”

According to Russ, the new Student Concerns Committee helps make policy changes, which are responsible for such environmentally friendly programs as recycling, green buildings, lighting dormitories and changing the type of paper in copy machines.

“I think her suggestion that we need to recreate the Environment Committee was an act of her speaking before thinking, and it’s sad because it further misinforms people about what we’re doing,” Russ said.

Russ said that Miller has an open invitation to come and speak at Student Senate at any time.

Miller is passionate about involving the community in environmental issues and has proven her willingness to enable others to help the environment.

One of the most extensive projects she has been involved in as mayor is the Texas Clean Air Coalition, an air quality public information campaign. Miller helped form this coalition because Texas Utilities wanted to create 18 coal-fired power plants in Texas, which would double the number of coal plants currently in Texas.

“It is incredible that Texas has a governor and environmental commission that would even consider plants that will allow places to reach non-attainment,” Miller said.

An area that has reached non-attainment is an area where air pollution levels persistently exceed National Ambient Air Standards. Dallas has been a non-attainment area for years, and it is one of Miller’s goals to help the city fix this.

Governor Rick Perry wanted to have the power plants built right away, fast-tracking their creation. Many Dallas citizens came together to make sure these power plants wouldn’t be built.

However, this proved to be a difficult task, as it required the hiring of experts to prove just how hazardous to the environment the plants are, and the hiring of lawyers to argue the case in court. Fighting just one plant would cost an independent group half a million dollars.

Miller worked to gather communities together to oppose the building of these power plants. Communities all over Texas united to fight the power plants and, in the end, managed to recruit more towns to join their coalition than to side with TXU.

Miller said the hardest communities to convince were the ones who depended on the power plants to provide jobs for their citizens.

The Texas Clean Air Coalition received much assistance from Houston-based lawyer Steve Sussman, who agreed to represent all the cities and fight the plants for free. He wanted to take on this project because it was an issue his wife felt very passionately about, and his assistance is helping Texas become a greener state.

After Miller’s term as mayor she will remain the chair of the Texas Clean Air Coalition and fight against the creation of additional coal power plants, which harm not only Dallas, but the entire state of Texas.

“Power plants should be forced by the federal government to clean up their act,” Miller said. “And if the federal government doesn’t do anything, then the state government should do something.”

Mayoral candidates were also invited to speak briefly at the presentation about their campaigns’ environmental platforms. Candidates Rogilio “Roger” Herrera and Tom Leppert showed up to give the community a sense of what they would do to assist the environment if they were mayor.

Hererra said he is a “big environmentalist” and supports anything that is beneficial for the environment.

“One of the most important things to do to help pollution in Dallas is to reduce the amount of driving,” Herrera said.

He also mentioned that all of his election signs are green and blue to show the people of Dallas that he cares about the environment.

Tom Leppert, another mayoral candidate, also spoke.

According to Leppert, cars cause 80 percent of the pollution in Dallas. Leppert said he has been very involved in the environment, and if elected mayor will continue to do whatever he can to make Dallas a more environmentally friendly place.

“Dallas has to be conscious of its ways to attract people, and if the pollution problem isn’t fixed, nobody is going to want to come to Dallas,” Leppert said.

The Dallas mayoral election is May 12.