Dave Fehling is the Houston-based broadcast reporter for StateImpact. Before joining StateImpact Texas, Dave reported and anchored at KHOU-TV in Houston. He also worked as a staff correspondent for CBS News from 1994-1998. He now lectures on journalism at the University of Houston.
For years, critics of how Texas enforces environmental regulations have charged that polluters didn’t pay enough when caught, that it was cheaper for big corporations to pay the fine than obey the law.
But the newest member appointed to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Toby Baker, said changes made by the state legislature are putting more bite in enforcement. Continue Reading →
In Houston, a biker crosses a utility right-of-way
Update: Rep. Jim Murphy filed a new bill February 18, 2013 that appears to still limit a utility’s liability but not in cases of “gross negligence.”
The electricity industry is among the biggest of the big spenders on lobbying the Texas legislature. So when bills are introduced giving the industry extraordinary protection from law suits, you can bet somebody’s going to cry foul.
“It’s a very unusual bill,” says Andrew Wheat at Texans for Public Justice, a corporate watchdog group in Austin. Continue Reading →
Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman as seen on his Facebook page
Barry Smitherman, the chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission which regulates oil and gas drilling, said there has been “much interest” by the commission’s staff since he made his proposal earlier this month to offer training for concealed handgun licenses.
But a union organizer said state employees of other agencies have shown little enthusiasm in arming themselves.
The Right to Protect Yourself
In announcing his initiative, Smitherman cited “recent shooting tragedies around the country”. In response to questions from StateImpact, he elaborated in an email: “At the Railroad Commission, many of our employees—such as our field inspectors—often work alone in remote, desolate areas of the state that can pose dangers. It is my position that Commission employees have the right to protect themselves.” Continue Reading →
"Nano rust" collects where a magnet is held to vial of water mixed with the tracer
Scientists are developing ways to add non-toxic tracers to drilling fluid so if groundwater is contaminated, investigators would be able to pinpoint if an oil or gas drilling operation was to blame.
“What’s impossible at the moment is if you’ve got multiple companies in an area and it’s thought there is contamination, there is no way to tell which company caused the contamination,” said Andrew Barron at Rice University in Houston. Continue Reading →
Lavaca Bay in Calhoun County is one proposed site for an LNG Terminal.
If you think the price of natural gas is too low and think the solution is to increase demand by exporting the stuff, who will benefit? Continue Reading →
A Cabot Oil and Gas natural gas drill is viewed at a hydraulic fracturing site on January 17, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania. A domestic drilling boom has left the U.S. flush with natural gas, which some want to start selling abroad.
A new report by energy market analysts at Deloitte’s Center for Energy Solutions downplays the risk that exporting natural gas will cause prices to go up for consumers in the United States.
“This shows why the government doesn’t need to put a lid on projects. This says you don’t need to artificially constrain this,” said Deloitte’s Peter Robertson at a media briefing in Houston.
With fracking producing unexpected quantities of natural gas in Texas and other energy states, there are proposals to build export terminals where the natural gas would be converted to liquid (liquified natural gas or LNG) and loaded on to tankers. One facility that has won government permission to export LNG is in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and is owned by Cheniere Energy. Another making its way through the permit process is Excelerate Energy’s project in Port Lavaca, Texas according to a news release from the company.
Natural gas sells in the U.S. for about $3.30 per thousand cubic feet. Even though the liquifying process and shipping would add roughly $6 to that cost, it could still make U.S. LNG competitive in Europe and Asia (natural gas in Japan sells for about $15). Continue Reading →
The small community of Port Lavaca got a boost a few decades ago with the opening of a plastics plant.
Oil and gas have always fueled dreams in Texas. Here’s one more.
“It feels like Port Lavaca is right on the verge of something really big happening,” says Bob Turner, the city manager for this coastal community of 12,000 people. 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 →
Since 2003, the total number of gas and oil wells increased by 42,000 in Texas requiring more pipeline facilities like this in DeWitt County.
Chances may be better this time around that the Texas legislature might actually strengthen regulation of oil and gas drilling by the Texas Railroad Commission.
“I think there’s more and more consensus on what needs to happen at the Railroad Commission,” says Royce Poinsett. He’s a lawyer with Baker Botts and a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry.
Wind turbines in West Texas help produce record amounts of electricity for the state.
The federal tax credit that helped make Texas the leader in wind power expires at the end of year. Some people in the wind energy industry seem resigned to the possibility that even if Congress renews the credit, the days of such breaks are nearing an end.
At the American Wind Energy Association conference held last week in Houston, there was optimism that President Obama’s reelection improved the odds that Congress will extend the production tax credit.
“But few believe the production tax credit will be in existence in 2015,” said Steve Krebs, the vice president of OwnEnergy, who was part of a panel discussion.
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