“We’re on the brink. We’re teetering. It’s a balancing act. It’s a 50/50 proposition,” said Gunter City Manager Rick Chaffin.
Erin Douglas
Erin Douglas was the climate reporter for The Texas Tribune from 2020 through 2023 where she covered the impacts of climate change, including extreme heat, drought and hurricanes. She reported on the toll flooding takes on mental health, investigated a chemical fire at an industrial facility, and covered the collapse of Texas’ power grid that led to widespread blackouts across the state. Her coverage of the Texas blackouts in 2021 was recognized by the Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Erin was previously a business and economy reporter at the Houston Chronicle where she covered labor, energy and the environment. She studied journalism and economics at Colorado State University, and her first newsroom job was interning at The Denver Post, her hometown newspaper.
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Climate Change in Texas
U.S. Senate approves bill containing Texas’ “Ike Dike” coastal protection project
The U.S. Senate voted to authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin planning for a massive coastal barrier project in Galveston Bay meant to protect against hurricanes’ storm surge. Funding is not yet secured.
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Homeless in Texas
Homeless Texans left with few places to cool off during record heat
Heat-related emergency calls have spiked amid historic heat. Cooling centers are available in major cities but often close in the late afternoon — during the hottest parts of the day.
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Climate Change in Texas
Smog levels in Texas surge during heat wave, bringing worst summer air quality in a decade
Emissions are reacting with the summer heat to create high levels of smog, hazardous air pollution that damages the lungs. But state officials are pushing back on ozone pollution controls proposed by the EPA, arguing such rules would compromise the electric grid.
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Environment
Volkswagen argues that Greg Abbott’s choice of judges in lawsuit could tilt emissions case in Texas’ favor
Because the state is a party in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s cases against the companies, Volkswagen lawyers have argued that allowing the Texas governor to appoint justices to a case for which the state stands to win a substantial amount of money would give “the impression that the State has had undue influence.”
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Climate Change in Texas
U.S. Supreme Court ruling limits EPA’s authority in regulating greenhouse gases
The high court said a cap on power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions that forces a transition to other fuels may be a “sensible” solution to the climate crisis, but that Congress did not give the Environmental Protection Agency the broad authority to make such requirements. Texas was one of 17 states that joined in the suit.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Abortion funds languish in legal turmoil, their leaders fearing jail time if they help Texans
It’s unclear whether Texas’ tangled web of abortion laws would make it a crime to pay for a Texan to leave the state to get an abortion, but the threat has compelled the funds to cease services.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy can temporarily resume in Texas, judge rules
A ban in effect before Roe v. Wade cannot be used, as threatened last week by Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a judge’s ruling Tuesday. However, the stopgap measure will, at most, extend abortion access in the state for two months.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Texas abortion groups file last-ditch suit to hold off ban for a bit longer
Texas abortion providers and abortion funds ceased operations in the state on Friday for fear of being criminally charged under state laws that pre-date Roe v. Wade.
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Texas Abortion Restrictions
Abortions in Texas have stopped after Attorney General Ken Paxton said pre-Roe bans could be in effect, clinics say
Paxton and some anti-abortion activists are arguing that state laws that banned abortion before Roe v. Wade — and were never repealed — could now be in effect in Texas.