As we wrap up our first full year here at StateImpact Texas, we thought it’d be fun to take a look back at your favorite stories from the year. The list is a hodgepodge of articles, dealing with some of the big issues of energy and the environment in the state this year: fracking, the Keystone XL pipeline, energy innovation, and, yes, Bigfoot. And so without further ado, here’s the 2012 StateImpact Texas Top Five, in reverse order.
Photo by Flickr user thewhitestdogalive/Creative Commons
Yes, it's legal to hunt and kill Bigfoot in Texas.
One cryptid enthusiast was curious what Texas law had to say about whether or not it would be lawful to kill Bigfoot in the state. And the answer he got from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will surprise you.
State Rep. Lon Burnam is going after a tax exemption for natural gas drillers.
Texas Lawmakers have already filed more than 400 bills for the upcoming legislative session. Only a fraction of those will end up making it to a vote. But before the session begins, we thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at some environment and energy proposals.
Lon Burnam is state representative from Fort Worth, a Democrat. His House Bill 55 would end a tax exemption that benefits natural gas drillers in the state. The exemption was put in place to spur the gas industry in the late 80s, when many thought Texas had developed all of its gas resources. Critics like Burnam say now that the state has entered a new gas boom thanks to horizontal drilling and hydro-fracking, there’s no more need for it. He estimates closing the exemption would bring in an extra $1 billion a year in revenue for the state. Continue Reading →
Sr. Jerry Brand directs UT's Algae Culture Collection.
Back in the seventies and eighties, algae, a biofuel, was viewed as a possible path to energy independence. Federal money flowed to research, and science made some progress understanding how the stuff could be used. Â Then, the money stopped flowing.
For about 20 years.
Now that researchers are taking another look at algae, they’re also learning how much knowledge was lost in the decades when funding dropped off. Continue Reading →
In a suburb of Houston, some bikers ignore an ordinance that banishes bikes from streets that have bike paths
Texas cities are trying to reduce traffic congestion by promoting bicycling. Austin is adding bicycle-only lanes on city streets. Houston voters recently approved $166 million in bonds partly for hike and bike trails.
But on some roads in Texas, bikes are banned, raising questions about just where bikers have the right to ride.
In the city of Anna just north of Dallas, a stretch of FM 455 has been off-limits to bicyclists since 2006 when the city council deemed the two-lane road too narrow and dangerous to accommodate both cars and bicyclists. Continue Reading →
Houston Democrat Rodney Ellis introduced a bill to prepare Texas for global climate change.
*This article originally referred to Rodney Ellis as a State Representative, which is incorrect. He is a State Senator. We regret the error.Â
In a state like Texas, where much of the political leadership still disagrees with the scientific consensus on global climate change, you might call Rodney Ellis a dreamer.
You might even say his new bill doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in an unusually hot Texas summer of passing.
But Ellis, a Democratic State Senator* from Houston, is introducing legislation to prepare Texas for the effects of global warming. And he seems unconcerned with the odds.
“A lot of places are moving towards adaptation now. Instead of arguing about whether the climate is getting warmer or not,” he told StateImpact Texas.
The Railroad Commission of Texas is under review by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission.
The crowd at the Sunset Advisory Commission hearing at the state Capitol on Tuesday was a veritable who’s who of Austin government insiders, officials and activists. That lead to at least one comedic moment when Sunset Commission Chair Dennis Bonnen called “Jim Mann” to give testimony and two men approached the dais.
One was Jim Mann, a Special Commissioner of condemnation hearings in DeWitt County. He was there to criticize the system by which the Railroad Commission gives pipeline companies the right to eminent domain.
“I was gonna introduce y’all,” joked Rep. Bonnen, [R-Angleton] as the two men shook hands and sat down next to each other. The crowd broke into laughter.
East Texas landowner Mike Bishop in a file photo taken earlier this year. Bishop is suing a state agency for allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to cross his property.
East Texas landowner Mike Bishop went to Nacogdoches County Court on Tuesday hoping that the judge would grant a temporary injunction against the TransCanada Pipeline Company.
He left court later in the afternoon disappointed.
Bishop sought a judgement to keep workers from entering his property. The company is laying pipe for the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The ultimate plan is to move millions of barrels of heavy oil sands1,700 miles from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
The Keystone XL pipeline needs to move across a lot of privately-owned land, involving some 850 landowners. Not all of them are enthusiastic about that.
A Black Bear spotted in Brewster County. Black bears in Texas are generally smaller than in other parts of the country.
There are hardly any bears in Texas, but it hasn’t always been that way. Black bears used to roam the state from the Piney Woods of the east to the mountain ranges of the far west.
Then American colonists arrived.
Bear hunting was “part of the hunting culture that early Texans enjoyed,” Texas Parks and Wildlife Diversity Biologist Jonah Evens told StateImpact Texas. “Eventually we wiped them out completely from the state.”
By the early 1900s there were no bears left. The nearest breeding populations remained across the border in Mexico.
“And then there were no bears in Texas for decades until they returned to Big Bend National Park, I believe it was the early 80s,” Evans said.
That Big Bend population in remained stable, but never expanded to other areas. In East Texas the occasional bear would wander in from Louisiana, but never stuck around to have bear babies. And that’s how things stood until just a couple of years ago.
Record hot days in December. Should we be happy or worried?
Many people who lived through the hot Texas summer of 2011 remember it with something approaching shell shock. The weeks upon weeks of 100-degree heat, the drought that crippled agriculture and contributed to widespread wildfires. Nothing, it seemed, could ever approach such a summer again.
But that doesn’t mean the state isn’t breaking heat records again this year.
Earlier this fall 2012 was projected to be Texas’ fourth hottest year on record when it comes to average temperature. That surprised many of our readers, and it’s no wonder. After 2011, this year seemed like a welcome relief. But, if you take average temperatures from the entire year, it now turns out 2012 won’t likely be the fourth hottest year.
It will likely be the hottest year, on average, in Texas history.
The potential for electric cars to reduce pollution and save drivers some gas money has spurred a market for the vehicles (not to mention government investment).
But there’s always been a lingering concern about the vehicles, especially in Texas where we often hear about the fragility of our electric grid. The worry goes something like this: “If everyone started driving an electric car, could the grid be strained to the point of collapse?”
Probably not, says Trip Doggett.
Doggett is CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas – which oversees the state’s electric grid. On Tuesday he told lawmakers on the Senate Natural Resources Committee that he doesn’t believe even widespread adoption of electric vehicles would have any negative effect on the transmission system.
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