Al Armendariz is the regional administrator for the EPA.
Days after a video surfaced of him making controversial remarks about enforcement, the regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Al Armendariz, has resigned.
In a letter to the head administrator of the agency, Lisa Jackson, Armendariz says that he has “come to the conclusion that my continued service will distract you and the agency from its important work.” He also said that the “comments… made several years ago… do not in any way reflect my work as regional administrator.” Armendariz said his resignation is effective today.
Jackson issed a statement saying that she accepted the resignation. “I respect the difficult decision he made and his wish to avoid distracting from the important work of the Agency. We are all grateful for Dr. Armendariz’s service to EPA and to our nation,” Jackson said.
The remarks that got him in hot water surfaced after Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe talked about them in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, and called for an investigation.
In the video, Armendariz, an El Paso native and former professor at Southern Methodist University, says that his philosophy of enforcement is to make a big example of lawbreakers. “It was kinda like how the Romans used to conquer those villages in the Mediterranean,” he says in the video. “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them. And you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
Other factors, however, make the transition a bit more difficult. Record heat waves, limited bike lanes, and a hilly topography go a long way to deter Austinites from fully embracing cycloculture. Fitness and cost-saving factors are certainly persuasive, but are they really worth arriving to work drenched in sweat in the middle of July?
Rocket Electric, a new bike shop in East Austin, has a solution: electric bikes. The shop’s inventory consists entirely of battery-powered two-wheelers that come in a variety of models, ranging from $1,100 to $2,500 in price. They allow customers to conquer Austin’s hilly streets with just the flick of the “throttle” switch. A fully-charged electric bike can travel fifteen to twenty miles at a speed of about twenty miles per hour without a single bead of sweat.
But in Austin, some transportation interest group representatives have lent only tepid support for e-bikes. Dominic Chavez, the former treasurer for Sensible Transportation Solutions for Austin who’s currently running for a seat on Austin City Council, believes that more work should be done to improve biker safety, especially in neighborhoods with a high concentration of children riders, rather than diversify bicycle technology. Continue Reading →
Judge John Dietz has made a ruling that could cost the state billions in tax revenues.
Travis County District Judge John Dietz is reportedly “reconsidering” a recent decision that could cost the state of Texas billions in tax revenue. Ruling in favor of the drilling company Southwest Royalties a few weeks ago, Judge Dietz found that oil and gas equipment used for exploring and completing wells should not be subject to sales tax, because it qualifies for an manufacturing exemption. Now he’s not so sure that’s the best idea.
“On Thursday, the ever-colorful Dietz recalled that he had been reading The Wall Street Journal over a breakfast of oat gruel when he saw that some Texas judge had recently overturned 50 years of tax law and crippled the state budget. “What fool did that?” Dietz said he wondered as he read the story. “I’ll be damned; it’s me.”
Dietz said that he does not typically hold “stinkin’ rehearings” but that the reaction to his ruling two weeks ago had caused him pause.”I worry about being in error,” he said.”
The judge told the Statesman that “he plans to rule within a week” and expects an appeal regardless of what he decides.
Arthur Berman heads Labrynth Consultanting, and is an outspoken critic of how America's natural gas reserves are being developed.
Chesapeake Energy has been getting a lot of attention lately, and not the good kind.
An investigation by Reuters found that its CEO, Aubrey McClendon, had been leveraging his interests in the company’s wells to secure over a billion dollars in personal loans, setting up a possible conflict of interest. After the news broke, Chesapeake’s stock dropped by a quarter, the company’s Board of Directors discontinued the program that gave McClendon a stake in the wells, and the SEC announced it would be investigating the deals.
It seemed like a good time to touch base with Arthur Berman.
Berman is the head of Labryth Consulting, a Houston-based geological consulting firm. He’s developed the reputation of a one-man cloud, raining on the parade of America’s natural gas cheerleaders.
In a nutshell, Berman thinks the industry is over-leveraged, over-hyped and bound for a market “correction.” It should be noted at the outset that many people in the industry disagree with his analysis. But With the McClendon controversy focusing attention on issues Berman has been talking about for years, StateImpact Texas gave him a call to see what he’s thinking:
Q: To begin with could we just get your general impression. What are you thinking when you read the news about Chesapeake and McClendon?
A: None of this comes as a surprise to me. But to me, the takeaway that the average person ought to get is, this is characteristic of how unstable and unsustainable these kinds of propositions are. Continue Reading →
Maybe not. For one thing, the military is investing in green projects. Big Time.
As Kate Galbraith reports today for the Texas Tribune and New York Times, two major bases in Texas are part of a bigger effort by the military to be less dependent on fossil fuels and reduce waste.
Galbraith writes:
“Solar panels are popping up across Fort Bliss, which is the nation’s largest army post by physical size, covering an area slightly larger than Rhode Island. The panels are part of the base’s effort to cut its net energy and water usage, reduce waste and thus demonstrate self-sufficiency, a concept that can have a large impact on operations abroad. The military refers to it as “net zero,” and bases like Fort Bliss and Fort Hood have embraced it, but high upfront costs pose challenges.
In Central Texas, Fort Hood has a goal of “net zero” waste by 2020. The base, second to Fort Bragg in total number of soldiers, will claim success if about 90 percent of its trash avoids a landfill, according to Brian Dosa, Fort Hood’s director of public works. Right now, more than half goes into the base’s landfill.”
Carlos Barrilia pushes mud from The Lounge bar in the Strand District after it was flood damaged by Hurricane Ike September 19, 2008 in Galveston, Texas.
Large waves from Hurricane Irene pound the Ocean City pier, on August 28, 2011 in Ocean City, Maryland.
This 25 September, 2004 NOAA satellite image shows Hurricane Jeanne moving over the eastern coast of Florida.
Waves are seen crashing around homes as Hurricane Irene arrives on August 28, 2011 in Hampton Bays, New York.
US President George W. Bush in Marine One flies over a damaged residential area near Galveston, Texas, while touring Hurricane Ike damage with Texas Governor Rick Perry September 16, 2008.
Workers prepare to remove a sailboat washed up onto the edge of the highway into Galveston by Hurricane Ike September 21, 2008 in Galveston, Texas.
A street is flooded on Coney Island after Hurricane Irene hit, in New York, August 28, 2011.
Residents walk on the beach past a damaged access ramp on Rockway Beach after Hurricane Irene swept through the city, in New York, August 28, 2011.
Justin Mudge walks through the muddy interior of his great uncle’s gun shop which was destroyed by flooding caused by Hurricane Irene on September 1, 2011 in Prattsville, NY.
A message to the city management is painted on the side of a trailer following Hurricane Ike September 21, 2008 in Galveston, Texas.
The 2012 hurricane season is predicted to be relatively calm in comparison to past years, but meteorologists are still warning residents in coastal areas to take precautions, according to forecasters from Accuweather. The group said today that there is still a possibility of “home-grown” tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Fronts coming down during June and July could cause energy to break off and develop tropically,” Paul Pastelok, the lead long-range forecaster for Accuweather, said.
But even slow hurricane seasons can wreak havoc. On August 17,1992, during a relatively slow season, Hurricane Andrew slammed the East Coast, causing more than $26 billion in damage and killing more than 60 people. Continue Reading →
Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon has come under fire for using his company's wells to finance over a billion dollars in personal loans.
An unconventional and controversial perk for the head of a fracking giant will come to an end. Aubrey McClendon, the eccentric CEO of Chesapeake Energy, which fracks for natural gas in the Barnett Shale of Texas and other parts of the country, will no longer get a stake of every well the natural gas giant drills. He used that partial ownership to secure more than a billion dollars in personal loans. The company announced it will not extend the arrangement (currently set to expire in 2015) and is negotiating with McClendon to reach an early termination.
The perk and the loans McClendon made with it was first disclosed by Reuters in a piece earlier this month. In a program called the “Founder Well Participation Program,” McClendon was allowed to purchase an interest in each well the company owned, up to 2.5 percent. McClendon then went and borrowed against those future potential profits, which totaled more than a billion dollars of loans. (Chesapeake’s stock has gone down nearly a quarter since the loans were revealed.)
The company also says that when it earlier stated that it was completely in the know about McClendon’s loans, it may have overstated how informed it really was. As in, it didn’t really know about them at all until that first Reuters report. Continue Reading →
Video has surfaced of a 2010 speech by Armendariz, an El Paso native and former professor at Southern Methodist University, where he seems to have contracted a bit of foot-in-mouth disease.
“I was in a meeting once, and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philospophy of enforcement,” Armendariz said. “And I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’ll tell you what I said.”
Indeed, it is a crude analogy. Here’s what Armendariz said about how he approaches enforcement:
“It was kinda like how the Romans used to conquer those villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they’d crucify them. And you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”
Then he provides some context:
“You make examples out of people who, in this case, are not complying with the law. Hit them as hard as you can and make examples out of them. There’s a deterrent factor. Companies that are smart see that, they don’t want to play that. And they decide at that point that it’s time to clean up.”
Some in the oil and gas industry and the Republican party are already having a field day with Armendariz’s comments.
Death has been stalking the Pronghorn of West Texas Their numbers have dropped dramatically in the last five years, leaving people wondering if the species will continue in the region.
If you think pronghorn don’t hold an iconic place in the story of the old west, consider the lyrics to the tune Home on the Range. Remember, “where the deer and the antelope play?”
Those “antelope” you’ve heard about your whole life weren’t really antelope at all. They were pronghorn.
The confusion started with European settlers who mistook them for the old world species. In fact, the pronghorn is a uniquely American creature. The the fastest land mammals in the Western Hemisphere, they are the second fastest in the world after the cheetah. They evolved that way to out run a long-extinct species of North American Cheetah.
Pronghorn once roamed Texas from the Hill Country all the way to the state’s western tip. Today, though they still maintain healthy populations in many parts of the Midwest, their range in Texas is diminished to the point of disappearing.
The first case of mad cow disease in the U.S. in five years was discovered this week.
The first case of mad cow disease in the U.S. since 2006 was found in California this week. While the diseased cow didn’t enter the food supply, consumers, ranchers and officials are all watching and waiting to see what happens next.
So does Texas have cause to be concerned? The state’s agriculture commissioner, Todd Staples, said in a statement Tuesday that “American consumers can remain confident our food supply is the safest in the world, and Texas beef is as safe as ever.”
One possible effect of the mad cow case is a rise in beef prices. In an interview with KUT News, Staples said that he and the Texas beef industry are looking at beef futures markets to see what’s ahead. “I feel pretty good that we’ll be able to move forward,” he told KUT. “The fact that there is an all-time low in the number of Texas and U.S. beef herds also indicates that maybe it won’t have an economic impact.”
NPR’s food blog The Salt has a handy FAQ about the disease and the food supply. They say that “the cow in question wasn’t destined for the food supply. Its carcass had been sent to a rendering plant in California,” where it would likely end up as pet food or some kind of industrial product. And the cow had a rare form of mad cow disease, which is “different than getting the disease from eating feed made out of bone and tissue from infected cattle, which caused the outbreaks in England in the 1980s and 1990s.” You can read the full post here.Â
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