Norman Augustine, who was formerly on the board of directors of ConocoPhillips, has been selected to chair a review of a controversial study on hydraulic fracturing.
A few weeks back we reported that the lead author of an academic study on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” had been sitting on the board of a drilling company at the time, earning well over a million dollars in compensation. After the financial ties came to light, the University of Texas at Austin, whose Energy Institute conducted the study, said it would commission an independent review. And now the university has announced some of the particulars.
There will be three people on the panel, and the university says they’ll have “free reign” in their process. Provost Steven Leslie said in a statement that he’ll follow whatever their reccomendations are. The three members of the panel are chair Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin; James Duderstadt, President Emeritus of the University of Michigan; and Rita Colwell, a former director of the National Science Foundation.
But a watchdog group that first revealed the potential conflict of interest in the original study is skeptical. The Public Accountability Initiative says the university is taking “an important step” after misleading the public, but believes there are “serious questions about the independence” of the panel.
Here’s what the group found about the chair of the panel, from a statement emailed to StateImpact Texas: Continue Reading →
Julia Trigg Crawford has several hundred acres of land in northeast Texas. And the Keystone XL pipeline may have to go through it.
On Friday, Judge Bill Harris of Lamar County heard arguments in a pre-trial hearing about the Keystone XL pipline’s use of eminent domain in North Texas. On one side of the court was Julia Trigg Crawford and her attorney. Crawford owns a farm north of Paris, and the pipeline would cross a portion of her land.
On the other side of the room? A team of lawyers and representatives for TransCanada, the company behind the controversial pipeline, all dressed in black, according to Crawford. “It would make Johnny Cash proud,” she says.
Crawford is one of the last holdouts among some 850 Texas landowners who signed agreements with the company to allow the pipeline on their land. During the negotiations with landowners, the company filed over a hundred eminent domain claims in Texas, pressuring some landowners to sign easements.
In a packed courtroom, Judge Harris heard six hours of arguments from both sides. Continue Reading →
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaks during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Power Subcommittee on Capitol Hill February 9, 2011 in Washington, DC. Abbott has filed over 24 lawsuits against the federal government, six of them against the EPA.
You wouldn’t know it from much of the coverage out there, but a “victory” for Texas in its ongoing conflict with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Monday is something of a moot point.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a 2-1 ruling yesterday saying that the EPA hadn’t properly rejected the state’s ‘Flexible Permitting Program.’ That was a system put in place in the nineties that was used by about ten percent of industrial facilities in the state to obtain air permits. (The rest of the facilities in the state used a standard permit approved by the EPA.) The court found that “the EPA based its disapproval on demands for language and program features of the EPAâs choosing, without basis in the Clean Air Act or its implementing regulations.” All three judges in the ruling were appointed by Republican presidents.
The state Attorney General Greg Abbott, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and several industry groups filed the suit, saying the EPA didn’t have the right to reject the permitting program. But while Texas fought the EPA’s decision, behind the scenes almost all of the facilities in the program went ahead and got a standard, federally-approved permit anyway. And the TCEQ also submitted a new Clean Air plan to the EPA (partly modeled after federal standards), which the agency approved in June. (The TCEQ points out that the new plan isn’t related to the old Flexible Permitting Program.)
So what’s the point of suing the EPA for permits no one really uses anymore? “This is all kind of beating a dead horse,” says Elena Craft with the Environmental Defense Fund. “The reality is that nothing on the ground is going to change.” Continue Reading →
Courtesy The Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce
Attorney General Greg Abbott has filed multiple lawsuits against the EPA
If you search for “EPA” on the website of the Texas Attorney General, you’ll find news releases touting how Greg Abbott is defending Texas against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“Texas Prevails Against EPA,” says one headline.
“Court Grants Texas Motion to Stay EPA’s Legally Flawed Cross-State Air Pollution Rule,” says another.
And there are lots more about how “Attorney General Greg Abbott Files Challenge” to the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations.
Or to the EPA’s “Tailpipe Rule.”
Or to the EPA’s “Unlawful Attempt to Takeover State Air Permitting.”
Why so many lawsuits against the federal agency that claims it’s just trying to protect us from breathing dirty air?
One way Texas could "build" more power is by using less of it.
As we’ve been chronicling over the past few months, Texas is in a bit of a bind when it comes to power. There are more and more people, and fewer and fewer power plants. While natural gas prices stay low, that means power companies in Texas have to charge less (here’s a good explainer on how that all works), so there’s little incentive to build new plants.
One motivation has been to raise the prices generators can charge when the grid nears capacity, or peak demand, like it does on some of these hot August days. That’s when power companies make most of their profits.
But there’s another solution. And according to some observers, it has an attractive price tag: free.
Texas was ranked tenth among states that released the most toxic emissions from power plants in 2010, and first among states in mercury pollution. The report says emissions have increased three percent since the previous year, and takes aim at lawmakers, many of whom can be found in Texas, who have fought tougher emissions standards from the Environmental Protection Agency.
All told, electricity generation comprises 25 percent of toxic emissions in Texas according to the report, with the chemical sector responsible for 40 percent. While the state is listed among the most polluting, no individual Texas power plant was among the top ten most polluting in the country. The report was compiled using data released annually from the EPA.
Photo from Nan Palmero via Flikr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nanpalmero
San Antonio is considered a leader in municipal water policy, and with much of the country in drought other cities may start taking notice.
With families picnicking, children playing, and ducks quacking along the river, visitors to San Antonio’s Brackenridge Park on a recent afternoon would be forgiven for forgetting the drought that’s plagued Texas for well over a year.
That is, until they hear the pumps.
Tucked discretely behind the Witte Museum, the water pumps produce a steady hum, churning treated waste water into the river and allowing it to flow with the strength of a waterway in a far wetter place. The water re-use system keeps the San Antonio River rolling, and keeps people visiting the popular River Walk.
That’s right, this park’s beauty is brought, in part, by water that was recently flushed down the toilets of the Alamo City. Continue Reading →
The sun rises behind the Storm Memorial in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike on September 18, 2008 in Galveston, Texas. The sculpture was dedicated to remember the 6,000 killed when a hurricane hit the island in 1900.
Texas finds itself in the peculiar position of needing just the right storms this summer. Perhaps a light tropical depression that would bring rain to the parched parts of the state, but not bring damage to the coast. So it’s with a keen eye that the state looks to the updated summer hurricane forecast out this morning.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center says we may have a “busy second half” of the summer for hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin. “The updated outlook still indicates a 50 percent chance of a near-normal season,” the agency writes on its site today. But there’s a 35 percent chance of an above-normal season.
The agency predicts anywhere from five to eight hurricanes this season (including the ones we’ve already seen, Chris and Ernesto), and anywhere from twelve to seventeen named storms (with winds that reach 39 mph or higher). Of those hurricanes, two or three of them could be “major,” NOAA says, which means category three or higher, with winds of at least 111 mph (Chris and Ernesto were both category one).
So why did NOAA increase the odds of major storms from their initial outlook in May? Continue Reading →
New climate data shows it's much hotter, and drier, than normal.
New climate data out this week confirms what many parched, sweaty Americans have been suspecting: It is hot, way hotter than normal.
The numbers from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that July was more than three degrees hotter than normal, making it the hottest month ever. The previous record was back in 1936.
And the heat wasn’t isolated to July. The agency says that so far, 2012 has been a year of record warmth, and the last twelve months have been the warmest on record as well.
It there’s any good news in the July report, it’s that Texas, in stark contrast to last year, fared better than much of the country. We ranked in the “above normal” heat category for July, as opposed to the Midwest and East, which were listed as “much above normal.”
It’s also been drier than normal for the U.S. “Near-record dry conditions were present for the middle of the nation, with the drought footprint expanding to cover nearly 63 percent of the Lower 48,” the report says. Texas, again, did a little better, with “above normal” precipitation.
Graywater recycling hasn't really caught on in Texas, mostly due to costs and permitting issues.
If water was gold, graywater recycling might be a watershed. But even in these drier times, a graywater recycling system remains a bit beyond the average homeowner’s budget and Texas’ water options. Graywater recycling captures water from showers, bathtubs, and washing machines for later use in landscaping and lawn irrigation.
While some subdivisions and cities in the state already give you the option to construct dual-plumbing in houses built from scratch, the burden remains with the homeowner to install the full system to start recycling. Dual-plumbing allows homeowners to receive two sources of water via two separate plumbing systems. One delivers fresh, potable water while the other delivers recycled water.
Long-time reclaimed water specialist Don Vandertulip tells StateImpact Texas that the dividends aren’t always enough to outweigh installation and maintenance costs, which can reach as high as several thousand dollars. (Vandertulip has been involved in reclaimed water projects since 1978 and is currently active in numerous conservation organizations including the WateReuse Association, Water Environment Federation, and the American Water Works Association (AWWA).)
Why Your Water Might Cost More the Second Time Around
Unlike commercial reclaim systems, graywater systems typically serve a single home. They’re permitted at either the city or county level and they’re maintained by their private owners. For simple systems, fancy engineering firms stay out of the picture. Continue Reading →
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