Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

• Divert, Inc. , an impact technology company on a mission to Protect the Value of Food™, will host a virtual roundtable “ Wasted Food Regulations: Taking Action for the Future of Our Climate ” on August 24, 2023 at 1:00 pm ET.
• The roundtable will focus on driving awareness around wasted food regulations, both on a federal and statewide level.
• Key discussion areas will include the current landscape and best practices on how to navigate wasted food regulations, the importance of education and leadership in implementing diversion programs, and building a culture of sustainability.
• “The U.S. has set a national goal to reduce food loss and waste by 2030 in an effort to address the 63 million tons of wasted food we see annually.

• The 182,566 enslaved African Americans in Texas had finally won their freedom.
• He had long served as the enslaved servant of Gen. Sam Houston, the most well-known military and political leader in Texas.
• If Juneteenth meant anything, it meant at least that Joshua Houston and his family were free.
• Indeed, the radical promise of Juneteenth is embodied in the community activism of Joshua Houston and the educational career of his son Samuel Walker Houston.

The violent white reaction to Black political power

• In 1878 and 1882, a Republican coalition of Black and white voters opposed to conservative Democratic rule elected Houston as the county’s first Black county commissioner, a powerful position in local governance.
• In the two decades following emancipation, 52 Black men served in the state Legislature or the state’s constitutional conventions.
• Opposition to Black freedom had been a powerful force in the state’s political culture since emancipation.
• Later, in the 1880s, attacks on Black elected officials, their white political allies and Black voters escalated dramatically.

Like father, like son

• On an unknown date, a few years after Juneteenth, Joshua Houston’s son Samuel Walker Houston was born free in the bright light of Reconstruction.
• Houston’s school was named for him and served as one of the first county training schools for African Americans in Texas.
• Young women at Houston’s school received training in homemaking, sewing and cooking, while young men learned carpentry, woodworking and mathematics.
• Together, the group led the Texas Commission on Interracial Cooperation’s effort to evaluate Texas public school textbooks during the 1930s.

An ongoing battle for equality

• The argument used for supporting such restrictions is that “divisive concepts” like the history of racism may make some students feel uncomfortable or guilty.
• In reality, the prohibition on teaching the darker chapters of our past creates a segregated history.
• Americans cannot appreciate the accomplishments of Joshua and Samuel Walker Houston without examining the vicious realities of Jim Crow society.

• HOUSTON, April 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- HIF Global, the world's leading eFuels company, today announced receipt of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Air Quality Permit authorizing the construction and operation of the HIF Matagorda eFuels facility in Matagorda County, Texas.
• When operational, the HIF Matagorda eFuels Facility will produce carbon-neutral shipping fuel and gasoline that can be dropped-in to vehicles in use today without any modification to existing engines or the infrastructure on which they depend.
• HIF Global estimates creating approximately 4,500 direct jobs during the construction phase, which is expected to begin in 2024, and more than 100 permanent operating jobs.
• Renato Pereira, CEO of HIF USA, said, "eFuels are decarbonizing the transportation sector now and will reach commercial scale at the HIF Matagorda eFuels Facility.

• Ahmed El-Hoshy, Chief Executive Officer of OCI N.V., commented: The potential for clean ammonia to solve many of our global problems has become increasingly clear.
• OCI will upgrade over-the-fence blue hydrogen to produce blue ammonia, where over 95% of carbon emissions will be captured and sequestered.
• Blue ammonia is produced from hydrogen derived from natural gas where the CO2 by-product is captured and sequestered.
• This project has been designed to transition from blue to green ammonia production in the future as green hydrogen becomes available at larger scale.