Where politics, government and energy intersect.
With nearly 70 percent of the state still stuck in a drought that has dragged on for years, there’s been plenty of talk about how to strengthen water supplies in Texas. A multi-billion-dollar water fund (the passage of Proposition 6 last election) is in the works that will help fund projects like reservoirs, desalination and conservation. And there’s ongoing […]
In the coming years, the federal government wants Texas to reduce its carbon emissions by about 40 percent. With a goal like that, you might expect to see more programs aimed at promoting renewable energy in Texas. But something like the opposite appears to be happening. Donna Nelson, chair of Texas’ Public Utility Commission, asked last […]
In states with the most oil and gas drilling, including Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, the U.S. Department of Labor has won back pay for over 4,000 energy industry workers in just the past year. It totaled $6.7 million dollars, accounting for a third of all such settlements by all types of industries nationwide. “We […]
A Texas family claiming emissions from gas drilling made them sick is one step closer to collecting a $3 million jury award against the drilling company, Aruba Petroleum. When the Parr family of Wise County won their case, it was called the first successful “fracking lawsuit” in the county. Aruba asked Dallas County Judge Mark […]
As summer sets in and drought drags on, the growing burden of a strained water supply is weighing on Texans in the Lower Colorado River Basin. The board of directors for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), the quasi-state organization that controls water from that basin, voted unanimously on Wednesday to raise water prices for some customers […]
On Wednesday night, StateImpact Texas and KERA Dallas hosted a community forum in Azle, ‘What’s Behind the North Texas Quakes?’ The goal of the forum was to bring together experts and civic leaders to address a swarm of tremors that began late last fall that could be tied to oil and gas production. Read our […]
Sometimes old news is anything but. That seemed to be the case this week when the Associated Press reported that the Railroad Commission, the oil and gas regulator in Texas, had banned interviews with the media. “Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency has instituted a blanket policy barring staff members from doing media interviews, raising […]
From KUT News: Texas Gov. Rick Perry has made a career out of visiting, recruiting, and relocating businesses from California to Texas. But as the state’s GOP continues to push further and further to the right of the political spectrum, could the state’s ultra-conservative stance hurt recruitment from a progressive state? First came the Texas Republican Party […]
“In Texas, I don’t think there’s anybody else doing quite what we’re doing,” says research scientist Kevin Schug. What Schug is doing can be found in a two big kitchen refrigerators in a lab on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington. The fridges are crammed with hundreds of plastic bottles containing samples […]
Ever since a fertilizer plant blew up last year and killed 15 people in West, Texas, many Texans have wanted to know where dangerous chemicals are stored in their area. Until recently, it was pretty easy to find out. They could simply ask the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). But a string of recent rulings from Texas Attorney General […]
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