Edith Williams lives with her dog in an apartment in Round Rock. She says she depends on low income assistance from the System Benefit Fund to make ends meet.
“Fiscal transparency” and “cost cutting” are just a few of the buzzwords to watch for as state lawmakers gather in Austin next January for the 83rd Texas legislature. But with all that talk, you might be surprised to learn that there’s a pile of nearly one billion dollars that’s been growing in a state fund for years. And it’s not being used for its intended purpose.
Meet the System Benefit Fund, a pot of 850 million dollars overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. You might already be acquainted with the fund. After all, if you’ve ever paid a bill to a private electric company in Texas, you’ve paid fees into it.
Now meet Miss Edith Williams.
Williams is a 69 year old retired housekeeper. She and her dog live in an apartment in Round Rock, Texas. And she’s one of the hundreds of thousands of people who receive money from the System Benefit Fund to help pay her utility bill. In fact, the day I visited her, she said that I may have found her sitting in the dark if it weren’t for the fund. Continue Reading →
The spill was the largest environmental disaster in history, killing eleven and spewing 206 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
“EPA is taking this action due to BP’s lack of business integrity as demonstrated by the company’s conduct with regard to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, explosion, oil spill, and response, as reflected by the filing of a criminal information,” the EPA says in a statement. The agency says they’re doing this in an effort to conduct business “only with responsible individuals or companies” and the suspension is “standard practice.”
While the suspension only applies to new contracts, it could do some financial damage. This morning, the federal government is holding an sale of more than 20 million acres of offshore oil and gas leases in the Western Gulf of Mexico. Update: BP will not be awarded any leases from today’s auction until the suspension is resolved, the Bureau of Oceanic Energy Management, which is running the sale, confirms to StateImpact Texas. The Bureau says that “unless and until” the suspension is resolved, no leases from today’s sale will go to BP.
The electricity industry and its regulators in Texas have consistently touted the state’s competitive retail market as good for consumers. But price data indicate many of those customers are failing to take advantage of the lowest rates.
Courtesy Texas PUC
Donna Nelson chairs the PUC
In speeches and at public hearings, Donna Nelson, chairman of the Public Utility Commission (PUC), has contended that the areas of Texas where electricity is sold by a variety of retailers — as opposed to just one utility company as in San Antonio and Austin — is a system that benefits consumers.
“I think what the rates now show us … is that competitive markets work,” Nelson said at a commission meeting earlier this year.
Similarly, in 2011, Nelson told the Gulf Coast Power Association, an industry group, that while critics may “look for any way to describe Texas’s restructured market as a failure,” Texas retail electric providers had rates well below the national average according to an example she cited. Continue Reading →
Kate Stein's home in Steiner Ranch was destroyed by fire in 2011.
A report released by the Travis County Fire Marshall last week confirmed what many had already suspected: the Steiner Ranch Fire that destroyed 23 homes during last year’s infamous Labor Day wildfires was started by power lines.
County investigators believe the fire was likely started when high winds caused Austin Energy electrical lines to slap together, throwing molten metal on the dry grass below.
Travis County Fire Marshal Hershel Lee told KUT News that his office had been holding off on releasing the report until other private investigations were completed. But Lee says now he’s not sure when those investigations will be finished. So the Fire Marshall’s office decided to release the report a couple days before Thanksgiving.
“We are hoping that by releasing the information we have that people will have some bit of closure about the cause of the fire,” said Lee.
The fact that this fire, and the two other major fires that weekend, are all linked to power lines could force a re-evaluation of power line upkeep and safety, said Travis County fire Marshall Hershel Lee.
Yes, Midland is the second-weatlhiest metro area in the country (measuring personal income per capita in 2011), according to new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Over on the East Coast, though, that ranking raised some eyebrows. That’s where The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson was at first surprised to see Midland ahead of Washington, DC and San Francisco.
But for Texans, this news may not come as that big of a surprise.
Midland has been home to several oil booms, one of which went bust in a big way in the mid-eighties. This latest boom, thanks in large part to hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) drilling technology, is well under way. In Odessa, personal income rose 14.8 percent last year. As we reported earlier this year, there aren’t enough homes to house all the oilfield workers. Midland has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, and sales at the local BMW dealership are up 50 percent from two years ago. Continue Reading →
Wind turbines like this one in France are popping up in parts of Texas, but the loss of a tax credit could stall the green energy growth.
Many Texans woke up to a breezy, cool morning today, and when they turn their lights on and start doing their laundry or nuke a breakfast taco, many of them will be doing so with the help of that breeze: wind power.
Texas leads the country for installed wind power, and is one of the largest wind energy producers in the world, with more wind capacity than France, Italy or Great Britain as of the beginning of this year. A few weeks ago, the state set a new record for generation. Nearly 26 percent of the state’s power on the morning of November 10 came from Texas wind power, beating the previous record set in June.
The amount of power generated by wind that morning was 8,521 megawatts, or enough to power some 4.3 million Texas homes during times of average electricity use, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the grid that supplies much of the state.
“We have surpassed previous wind power records several times this year,” Kent Saathoff, ERCOT’s vice president of Grid Operations and System Planning, said in a statement. “While added capacity is one reason for this growth, experience and improved tools also are enabling ERCOT to integrate this resource into the grid more effectively than ever before.” Continue Reading →
Loblolly pine seedlings take root in the shadow of destroyed trees in Bastrop.
During the Labor Day Wildfires of 2011, tens of thousands of acres burned in Central Texas, destroying over 1,600 homes and killing 1.5 million trees. Some of those trees were true Texas treasures: the Lost Pines of Bastrop State Park, a unique forest nearly a hundred miles apart from the Piney Woods of East Texas. Ninety five percent of the forest was turned to ashes during the fire.
And now they’re on their way back.
This week, nearly a half a million loblolly seedlings will make their way back to the soil of Bastrop State Park, with plans to plant 1.5 million next year and another million in the year following.
But those loblolly pine seedlings, which are now beginning to rebuild the Lost Pines, were close to almost being lost themselves.
Barry Smitherman is the Chair of the Railroad Commission of Texas.
“What does the Texas Railroad Commission oversee?” If it was a question on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, a lot of Texans would lose their spot in the hot seat.
Here’s a hint: the answer is not “railroads.” In fact, the commission regulates Texas’ booming oil and gas industry.
So the first suggestion in the recently released Sunset Report (a review of state agencies) is a name change. Apparently, the agency still receives complaints about train noise.
Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman says changing their name is a good idea. “With the increase of oil and gas activity I think we would be well-served to have a name that is easy for the public to understand,” he told StateImpact Texas.
Though the Railroad Commission does raise concerns over the proposal in its official response to the Sunset report, saying that a name change without an amendment to references to the “Railroad Commission” in the state constitution could lead to legal trouble for the agency.
Whether or not the Railroad Commission becomes the “Texas Energy Resources Commission” (the suggested new name) will be up to state lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session.
‘For Rent’ and ‘For Sale’ signs are a common sight Spicewood Beach. The community had been without its own source of water since January 2012.
Wanda and Jim Watson retired to Spicewood Beach. They worry what lower lake levels will mean for the community’s future.
The LCRA trucks water into Spicewood Beach. The Agency came under fire for selling Spicewood Beaches water in the runup to the well failure early this year.
Now residents worry what will happen if the Agency sends water to rice farmers downstream, further lowering the lake levels.
One of the LCRA’s tanker trucks got into an accident recently on the road into town.
Glass is still visible from the accident.
Lakes in Spicewood Beach a sign reminds residents of wetter times.
Low reservoir levels, like here at the North end of Lake Travis, have some advocating for storing more water underground, where it won’t evaporate.
Lake levels are related to the levels of the water table in the area. If the lake goes down, more wells could go dry.
‘For Rent’ and ‘For Sale’ signs are a common sight Spicewood Beach. The community had been without its own source of water since January 2012.
Slide show compiled by Filipa Rodrigues
The first indication that things are still not right in Spicewood Beach comes as you reach town. You’re greeted with a welcome sign and a notice that stage four water restrictions remain in effect. It’s been nearly a year since the small Highland Lakes community earned the distinction of being the first town in Texas to run dry during the great drought. The situation remains much the same. In some ways it’s gotten worse.
For one thing, there are a lot more ‘For Sale’ signs in front of a lot more houses.
“There’s vacancies all through here and unbelievably low prices, but there’s not takers. Who wants a house with no water?” asks Jim Watson, sitting next to his wife Wanda in their two story home.
Standing in the construction site formerly known as Waterloo Park, you can get a sense for the enormity of a project to tunnel underneath downtown. It’s the northern entrance to the Waller Creek Tunnel, which is designed to prevent the usually slow-moving stream from flooding in a storm. When complete, it will be 30 feet round – nearly big enough to fit two trains.
Gary Jackson, the city’s public works project manager, says that the Waller Creek Tunnel is nearly identical to what would be built for a subway tunnel. In fact, Austin’s foundation rock is the perfect material for digging. The Austin Chalk, as it’s called, is a native limestone that cuts easily underground but is strong enough to support buildings above.
The Waller Creek project is digging up an old question: Why not a subway for Austin? Continue Reading →
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