A new surprise plan from the Texas Senate would take big decisions about funding for water and roads and put them in the hands of voters.
Water and roads are hot topics at the Texas legislature this session, as for the first time in several sessions, lawmakers make real efforts to fund new water and road projects for the growing state. While there seems to be a broad consensus that significant new funding is needed; as expected, it’s in the particulars where differences are emerging.
If a new Senate proposal ultimately passes, the large allocation of state dollars for water and roads would now be decided by the voters.
A plan already making its way through the legislature would create a revolving state water bank, backed by $2 billion from the Rainy Day Fund (basically the state’s bonus savings account) and an additional $6 billion in bond authority. That recently passed in the House and is now in the Senate, HB 4. But the actual funds for that bill are found in another bill, HB 11, which has yet to hit the floor. (A similar scenario is at play in the Senate.)
But late yesterday, in a surprise move, State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-Woodlands, introduced a different plan for the funds for the water bank, which would send the spending approval to voters. It’s in Senate Joint Resolution 1, with a price tag of $2.5 billion for water, and another $3.5 billion in transportation funding. Voters would decide on each allocation separately. They quickly held a hearing on it this morning in the Senate Finance Committee. Continue Reading →
Right now, there’s a lot excitement over different shale formations across Texas and across the country. But along with excitement, there sometimes comes hype.
First there was the Barnett near Fort Worth and Pennsylvania’s Marcellus. In South Texas you’ve got the Eagle Ford. North Dakota taps the Bakken. It seems like everywhere you look, drillers are finding shale formations that might be the “next big thing” for the American energy industry. (Shale formations are layers of rock that companies can sometimes drill for oil and gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.) Recently the “next big thing” being touted is the Cline Shale in the Permian Basin of West Texas.
The Cline Shale lies more than 9,000 feet underground and many in the energy business expect it to bring the next oil and gas boom to West Texas.
Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, and other government-owned lands could use more solar panels like this one if SB 1586 passes.
A bill that would increase the amount of renewable electricity on publicly-owned land received support from educators, environmentalists and the military at the Capitol Tuesday.
An Army attorney, high school science teacher and an environmental advocate all testified in support of SB 1586, authored by Sen. Jose R. Rodriguez, D-El Paso, at a Senate Business and Commerce Committee hearing.
The bill would allow state-owned land to use up to 10 megawatts of electricity generated by renewable sources, or enough to power about 5,000 homes on average. Currently, publicly-owned land can only use two megawatts.
Grace Blasingame, a science teacher in Pasadena ISD explored solar energy in an engineering class- an exploration that is now known as the PISD Solar Initiative. She says that anything the state can do to offset the district’s $12 million annual electricity bill would be beneficial to taxpayers. She said school districts have unused land purchased for investment projects and future growth that could be used to develop renewable energy.
Pool of of oily wastewater officials say is from illegal dumping in Ector County
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 response, the county is developing ways to catch and prosecute the polluters.
“What we were seeing was a huge increase in illegal dumping,” said Susan Redford, the Ector County Judge in Odessa.
“A lot of companies that were drilling and providing related services were looking for quick, cheap and easy ways to dispose of the fluids they were generating,” Redford told StateImpact Texas. Continue Reading →
Other bills, including one that would expand the water supplies a waste disposal authority could tap and sell to fracking companies, were heard. But Geren’s legislation garnered the most attention this morning.
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 1944 treaty between the two countries.
“Without immediate and direct action from the White House and U.S. Department of State, Texans along the Rio Grande will continue to suffer from a lack of available water,” Perry wrote. Continue Reading →
An aging tractor shares land with a oil drilling rig at a farm above the Niobrara oil shale formation in Weld County, Northeastern Colorado on May 30, 2012.
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 Americans (based on Census data) how they think and feel about the energy issues of our time. This is the fourth wave of the poll, which began in 2011. Sheril Kirshenbaum, the poll’s director, says that political leanings seem to influence how Americans see energy. “There seem to be very strong differences between Democrats and Republicans,” Kirshenbaum says. “It’s coming to the point where if I know what your party affiliation is, I can usually guess where you fall on a lot of these topics.”
Democrats in the poll, for instance, tend to trust the scientific community when it comes to topics like hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” while Republicans are less likely to believe the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring.
Among the findings:
73 percent said global climate change is occurring, while only 16 percent said it isn’t. That number has held steady since the last poll, which came as a bit of a surprise to Kirshenbaum. “Normally, after the winter, whenever there’s snow around the country, we expect those numbers to go down a bit.” Continue Reading →
Carbon emissisions from power generation are down in the U.S., to their lowest levels in nearly twenty years, and Texas is partly to thank.
A new analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that “energy-related” carbon emissions have been declining every year (with the exception of 2010) since 2007. That’s when the drilling processes known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and horizontal drilling started opening up large domestic sources of natural gas and oil. Texas was the incubator for that technology, and home to the first natural gas-from-fracking boom in the Barnett Shale.
As that natural gas has become easier to drill, its price has gone down, and has been steadily replacing coal for power generation. Natural gas has about half the carbon emissions of coal, and far fewer air pollutants. It’s the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel, according to the EIA. Continue Reading →
There's a whole host of bills dealing with energy and environment at the Texas Capitol this week. Check out our handy guide for more.
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 and Senate meetings online.
Smart Meter Opt-Out
Don’t want that new smart meter installed at your house? A bill, SB 241, by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, could allow customers to opt-out of having a smart meter installed, or if they already have one, allow them to get their smart meter removed, for a “reasonable” fee. The Senate Business and Commerce Committee will discuss the bill Tuesday morning.
Meter Data Privacy
New legislation could limit who has access to the information from your smart meter. The bill, SB 1219, by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, would continue to give electricity providers and utilities access to your electricity usage data, but third parties would need customer consent to access the data. The Senate Business and Commerce Committee will discuss the bill Tuesday morning.
Solving the energy crunch, renewable power, water rates and more, all after the jump:Continue Reading →
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 latest forecasts say that parched West and South Texas will remain dry, and that the state is likely to see above-average temperatures this spring, increasing evaporation from already strained reservoirs. The conditions could lead to severe water restrictions in some parts of the state.
The implications have finally sunk in among lawmakers and business leaders here, who like to boast about the economic appeal of Texas’ low taxes and relaxed regulatory environment: No water equals no business. In a state fabled for its everything-is-bigger mentality, the idea of conserving resources is beginning to take hold. They are even turning sewage into drinking water. Continue Reading →
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