Mose Buchele is the Austin-based broadcast reporter for StateImpact. He has been on staff at KUT 90.5 in Austin since 2009, covering local and state issues. Mose has also worked as a blogger on politics and an education reporter at his hometown paper in Western Massachusetts. He holds masters degrees in Latin American Studies and Journalism from UT Austin.
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 →
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.
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.
UT Research Engineer Robert Pearsal looks into a vat of algae.
It seems like everyone’s talking pond scum these days.
This year, people ranging from the President of the United States to this humble reporter, have spoken of algae’s potential in creating a carbon neutral biofuel. A recent study from the University of Texas showed how the tiny organisms could create 500 times more energy than they take to grow. And the promise of the slimy green stuff is made even more enticing by the fact that it consumes carbon dioxide, sewage, and fertilizer run-off. It could, theoretically, clean the planet even as becomes a new source of fuel.
Now comes the downside.
A report by the National Academies of Science has identified major road blocks to the widespread development of algal biofuel. Chief among them is water use, says Paul Zimba Director for the Center of Coastal Studies at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
Update: A 3.0 quake struck Irving on the night of January 22, which you can read about here.Â
The US Geological Survey recorded a small 2.6 magnitude earthquake east of Burleson,Texas earlier tonight, occurring around eight miles deep. The tremor was felt by several people in the area, according to Dallas Morning News. This seismic activity comes just under a month since the last small quake. That measured a 2.3 on the Richter Scale and and was centered near Mansfield, Texas.
While it’s difficult to link any individual quake to a specific cause, North Texas has seen a significant uptick in seismic events since hydraulic fracturing technology opened up the area to widespread oil and gas drilling. Many scientific studies have linked earthquakes to disposal wells used to store drilling liquid, including one study that StateImpact Texas reported on just last week.
Photo Courtesy of Slowek Puklo via Flikr http://www.flickr.com/photos/spuklo/
Storms often cause trees to fall on power lines, sometimes bringing blackouts to thousands.
Correction: The original version of this story said the PUC Meeting was Wednesday. It isThursday Dec. 13.
It’s natural to feel powerless when you’re stuck at home during a torrential Texas thunderstorm. It’s even worse if you’re literally without power. All it takes is one tree branch falling onto an electrical wire to cut your precious access to the grid.
But there’s little regulation in Texas aimed at keeping branches out of the way of power lines. Continue Reading →
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