2013 Texas Tribune Festival

Galbraith covered energy and environment for The Texas Tribune from 2010 to 2013. Previously she reported on clean energy for The New York Times from 2008 to 2009, serving as the lead writer for the Times' Green blog. She is the co-author of The Great Texas Wind Rush, a book about how the oil and gas state won wind power race.

Alvarez is a senior scientist in the Texas office of the Environmental Defense Fund. He works to reduce air pollution, with an emphasis on emissions from natural gas and oil production. Alvarez led the organization’s campaign to establish the successful Texas Clean School Bus Program.

Sassoon is an environmental journalist who founded InsideClimate News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization, in 2007. The publication won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for “The Dilbit Disaster: Inside the Biggest Oil Spill You’ve Never Heard Of.” Sassoon has been a writer, editor and publisher for 25 years.

Shaw was appointed chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2009. He has also served as chairman of the Texas Advisory Panel on Federal Environmental Regulations. As an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering at Texas A&M University, Shaw conducts research on air pollution abatement.

Smith, R-San Antonio, has represented District 21 in Congress since 1987. He serves as chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee and sits on the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees. He is a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Smith received his law degree from Southern Methodist University School of Law.

White served a six-year term as chairwoman and commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality starting in 2001. Currently, she is distinguished senior fellow and director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment. She has served as an officer and director of the Lower Colorado River Authority.