Where politics, government and energy intersect.
In the booming Permian Basin of West Texas, Ector County is one of the leaders in oil production. But some of the crude is ending up on roads and highways, as haulers of drilling wastewater break the law to increase profits by dumping the slimy mixture from tanker trucks, sometimes as the trucks are moving. In […]
Lawmakers had rocketed through more than a dozen bills before they arrived at Rep. Charlie Geren’s complex and controversial water bill, HB 1307. Then things slowed down at the House Natural Resources Committee meeting at the Capitol today. Other bills, including one that would expand the water supplies a waste disposal authority could tap and […]
From the Texas Tribune: Gov. Rick Perry, joining a chorus of Texas politicians, wants Mexico to release more river water to Texas. In a letter to President Obama dated April 9, Perry urged the president and the State Department to press Mexico to release more water from Rio Grande tributaries, under the terms of a […]
The latest University of Texas at Austin Energy Poll finds that a plurality of Americans oppose exporting natural gas; a majority say climate change is occurring; and in general are more concerned about the prices of gasoline and electricity than they are about carbon emissions. The semi-annual poll, conducted online, asks a representative group of 2,000 […]
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 […]
Graphic by Todd Wiseman / Pedro Moura Pinheiro (Texas Tribune) From the Texas Tribune: Something odd happened here last week. It rained. 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 […]
Meetings of the Texas House Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee don’t usually gin up a lot of media attention. But Wednesday was no normal day. 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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
From the Texas Tribune: 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 […]
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