The Environmental Protection Agency announced a new national standard this week that will require coal-fired plants in Texas to reduce mercury emissions. As Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, the tighter regulations could prove costly for Texas’ electric companies.
March 2011
Posted in
Public Education
Legislators and the Great Balancing Act of 2011
Legislators have to choose between mobs — one under the Gadsden Flag with the snake and motto “Don’t Tread on Me”, the other a recent phenomenon under signs like, “If you can read this, thank a teacher.”
Posted in
Energy
In San Antonio, an Unusual Focus on Land Conservation
Despite tough economic times, San Antonio is continuing an unusual and aggressive program to protect its aquifer, by using public money to purchase land or easements to prevent development in critical areas.
Posted in
Criminal Justice
Plan to Merge Agencies Worries Safety Officials
A money-saving proposal to combine state agencies that oversee police and firefighter training and local jail operations has public safety officials statewide worried about their future.
Posted in
Health care
Lawmakers Push for Changes to Hospital Hiring Law
Lawmakers today heard heated testimony on a number of bills targeting hospitals’ ability to hire physicians.
Posted in
Health care
Lawmakers Target Federal Health Reform
Federal health care reform was the clear antagonist at today’s meeting of the House Select Committee on State Sovereignty. Republican lawmakers laid out a dozen bills aimed at getting the federal government out of Texas’ health care system.
Posted inState Government
The Midday Brief: Top Texas Headlines for March 17, 2011
Your afternoon reading: cuts exasperate one Senate Republican; budget panel hopes to squeeze more money out of more sources; what’s behind those state sovereignty hearings
Posted in
Guides
Texplainer: What’s the Select Committee on State Sovereignty?
The State Sovereignty Committee, which meets today to discuss bills related to federal health care reform, was likely formed for efficiency’s sake, and to create a kind of heat sink for contentious debate.
Posted in
Demographics
Officials Say Mexico Could Be Used by Terrorists
A top adviser to President Barack Obama conceded last week that terrorists seeking to unleash havoc in the United States could use Texas’ porous border. But some security experts say that isn’t likely to happen.
Posted in
Health care
Rural Hospitals Hope to Change Hiring Law
A Texas law dating back to the 1800s that keeps hospitals from directly hiring doctors comes before lawmakers today, in a flurry of bills designed to remove the ban — either for an individual hospital district, or for all the state’s rural hospitals.