Where politics, government and energy intersect.
Running from headwaters near New Mexico, the Colorado cuts southeast through Texas, feeding cities, farms, power plants and ecosystems before flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the longest river to start and end all within the state of Texas. In good years, its water is enough to sustainĀ communitiesĀ at every point as it cuts its […]
Earlier this morning, with the eyes of America focused keenly on whether the Texas Public Utility Commission would increase the price cap for electricity (oh yeah, and also that thing at the Supreme Court) the PUC made a decision that might fly under the radar. It gave Austin another area code. The 737 area code […]
Under the new rule the wholesale price of a megawatt of electricity will rise to $4,500.
The debate has largely moved from what’s causing the quakes, to what can be done about it.
There have been three low-level quakes in Texas in the last six days. All of them happened near oil and gas plays.
One environmental group believes that the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) needs something more than just a chimney sweep to clean up its act. LCRA was served with a notice of intent to sue last week by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), representing the Texas Campaign for the Environment. The environmental group’s notice of intent […]
Congratulations, McMullen County, Texas. You officially have the highest number of farmers per capita in the United States. More than half of the population there are farmers (374 out of 707 people). The data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and you can visualize it all in a new interactive map built by Slate, Agriculture […]
The sun is setting forĀ drillersĀ wanting a new piece of the Gulf. There’s one more day to bid on leases to drill offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. TheĀ Department of the Interiorās Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) will hold aĀ sale ofĀ nearly 38 million acres of offshore leases Wednesday. Those leases run in […]
For developers in Texas, bringing contaminated, blighted lots back to life can be full of challenges, both legal and economic.
The dunes sagebrush lizard is tiny, and brown, and hides in the dunes of East New Mexico and West Texas. And until recently, it seemed like it could threaten the drilling boom in the Permian basinĀ as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service considered adding the lizard to the endangered species list. But this week the […]
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