There's a whole host of bills dealing with energy and environment at the Texas Capitol this week. Check out our handy guide for more.
It’s going to be a busy week at the Capitol for energy and environmental issues. We’ve culled a list of bills that could affect everything from the electrical meter on your house to radioactive waste disposal in West Texas. All of the meetings are open to the public, and you can always watch the House and Senate meetings online.
Smart Meter Opt-Out
Don’t want that new smart meter installed at your house? A bill, SB 241, by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, could allow customers to opt-out of having a smart meter installed, or if they already have one, allow them to get their smart meter removed, for a “reasonable” fee. The Senate Business and Commerce Committee will discuss the bill Tuesday morning.
Meter Data Privacy
New legislation could limit who has access to the information from your smart meter. The bill, SB 1219, by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, would continue to give electricity providers and utilities access to your electricity usage data, but third parties would need customer consent to access the data. The Senate Business and Commerce Committee will discuss the bill Tuesday morning.
Solving the energy crunch, renewable power, water rates and more, all after the jump:Continue Reading →
But the relief, an answer to desperate prayers, is likely to be short-lived. The drought that has gripped much of Texas since the fall of 2010 shows few signs of abating soon. The latest forecasts say that parched West and South Texas will remain dry, and that the state is likely to see above-average temperatures this spring, increasing evaporation from already strained reservoirs. The conditions could lead to severe water restrictions in some parts of the state.
The implications have finally sunk in among lawmakers and business leaders here, who like to boast about the economic appeal of Texas’ low taxes and relaxed regulatory environment: No water equals no business. In a state fabled for its everything-is-bigger mentality, the idea of conserving resources is beginning to take hold. They are even turning sewage into drinking water. Continue Reading →
Television cameras and reporters lined the back wall, eager to record the arrival of one of Texas’ more controversial figures. There was a certain fever in the room when Ted Nugent, donning his trademark camouflage cowboy hat, showed up.
Nugent, also known as The Nuge, The Motor City Madman or, simply Uncle Ted, is a rockstar, author, reality-television personality and storied bow hunter. His conservatism and pro-gun stances have earned him almost as much attention as his unpredictable behavior. Lately, he’s been in the spotlight for an apparent habit of making veiled threats against President Obama. Something that earned him intense criticism and at least one visit from the secret service.
But Nugent wasn’t at the capitol Wednesday to talk national politics. He was there to talk hunting, and people were ready for a show. Continue Reading →
Keffer's bill would result in more pipeline regulation.
The recent oil spill in Arkansas continues to draw nationwide attention to pipeline safety regulations, but here in Texas, fewer than 20 minutes of a five hour legislative meeting held Wednesday was spent discussing House Bill 2982, a bill that would give the Railroad Commission of Texas more authority to regulate certain pipelines.
Representative Jim Keffer, R- Eastland, Chairman of the House Energy Resources Committee, which is considering the bill, introduced the legislation.
He said the commission currently does not regulate some rural gathering lines, which are pipelines that go from drilling well sites to compressor stations or other well sites. The bill, Keffer says, would grant the commission the authority to inspect these pipelines if requested to do so. Continue Reading →
Texas summers are so hot that in many West Texas reservoirs, more water evaporates than gets used by people. In 2011, more water evaporated out of Lakes Travis and Buchanan in Central Texas than was used by their largest city customer, Austin.
So what about storing water underground — in manmade reservoirs?
More Texas communities are exploring the idea, which has found traction in states like Florida and California, and Texas lawmakers have introduced legislation to help it along. The basic concept of the technology — which is awkwardly named aquifer storage and recovery, or ASR — is to inject water into an aquifer for storage, hundreds of feet down, and pump it back up when it is needed. Proponents say that the technology reduces evaporation, is cheaper and faster to build than surface reservoirs, and avoids some of the issues associated with flooding land.
“You don’t flood a bunch of bottomland hardwoods, or take thousands and thousands of acres of cropland out of service,” said James Dwyer, an Austin-based engineer with CH2M Hill, an engineering company. Continue Reading →
Here are some of the more interesting findings from the study:
Map by NOAA
This map shows that temperature have been warmer than normal over the last two years in Texas.
Temperatures and precipitation have diverged from historical norms. The last two years in Texas were the warmest since 1985. And the entire state experienced lower than normal rainfall in that time period, according to the report.
One result of the oppressive weather is a shrinking water supply. Central Texas’ two largest reservoirs, Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan, are at 41 percent capacity, according to the Lower Colorado River Authority, LCRA, website. Those low levels aren’t likely to improve much in the coming months, as the NOAA outlook anticipates warmer and drier weather through June.
David Barer is a reporting intern for StateImpact Texas.
The Texas Environmental Enforcement Task Force affidavit for a warrant to search the Houston office of the Railroad Commission in 2010
As the legislature considers making changes to the Railroad Commission of Texas in the future, a search warrant is now shedding light on how the Railroad Commission interacted with criminal investigators in the past.
An affidavit for the warrant, obtained by StateImpact, shows that during a 2010 investigation of a state-regulated site used for disposing drilling fluids, the Texas Environmental Enforcement Task Force said it wanted to seize documents it said were being withheld; withheld not by the company that ran the disposal site, but by the Railroad Commission that was supposed to be regulating it.
Field distribution water tank used in the fracking process of natural gas well drilling in DeWitt County, Texas, complete with life buoy and "No Swimming" sign.
For about two hours on Tuesday, the Senate Natural Resources Committee discussed whether or not to tighten rules governing water wells used to supply hydraulic fracturing operations.
The discussion centered on Senate Bill 873, carried by state Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, which would allow local groundwater authorities to require oil and gas companies using water for fracking to obtain permits.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a water-intensive operation involving shooting roughly four to six million gallons of water — or more — down a hole to break up rock and retrieve oil and gas. The water also contains sand and chemicals.
As the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has rapidly spread across Texas, so has the demand for disposal wells, where wastewater from oil and gas drilling is sent deep underground. In this new interactive map from Ryan Murphy of the Texas Tribune, you can see where more than 7,000 disposal wells are in Texas.
The wastewater from drilling consists of both the fluid used in fracking, as well as water that has been waiting underground with the oil and gas. It’s cheapest for drillers to use disposal wells to get rid of it, but Texas regulators are trying to encourage more recycling of wastewater. The wells have resulted in more truck traffic and some incidents of spills and contamination, and the amount of wastewater being disposed has risen dramatically, to nearly 3.5 billion barrels in 2011 from 46 million barrels in 2005.
Check out our list of what to watch for on the issues of energy and environment at the Capitol this week.
We’ve compiled a list of several important meetings coming up this week at the state legislature that could have an impact on Texas’ energy and environment. Find out when the lege will tackle new bills that could affect everything from the concrete casing on oil wells to space flights near the beach:
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives. Learn More »
