Environment

Ongoing efforts to fix the strained Texas power market will almost certainly have an effect on the monthly power bills for ordinary Texans. But there has been little discussion, or study, of the impact on ratepayers.

Increasingly hot summers and new extreme weather patterns have helped activists raise awareness of climate change. But in Texas, weather that once would have been considered extreme has become commonplace.

Oil and gas drilling continues to buoy the state’s economy, but the Railroad Commission, the agency charged with regulating the industry in Texas, is struggling with what one commissioner called technology “stuck somewhere in the mid-’90s.”

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been receiving hate mail from around the country thanks to the gastronomic adventures of an Austin-area food blogger. It all started when the man’s unlikely dinner literally went bump in the night.

A fracking boom in rural counties south of San Antonio continues to produce an enormous amount of oil for the state. But some of those counties are just now beginning to grapple with the consequences — and downsides — of the boom.

Wholesale electricity prices on the Texas power grid will be allowed to go twice as high as is currently possible, following a vote Thursday by the Texas Public Utility Commission. What this move means for Texans’ electric bills is unclear.