Waste Control Specialists

Harold Simmons, the Dallas billionaire and owner of a West Texas radioactive-waste dump, won yet another tailor-made piece of legislation Tuesday. When all seemed lost, and his bill was hung up on a technicality -- a point of order pushed by Representative Lon Burnam, his lonely, perennial opponent -- the top GOP donor's interests found their way into an amendment to a separate bill.

The Texas House voted resoundingly, 131-12, to allow Waste Control Specialists to bring "hotter" radioactive material in from out of state. Burnam proposed amendments requiring monitoring of groundwater levels around the disposal wells, but they got no traction. The bill was on its third reading Wednesday.

This wouldn't be the first time state law has been written in Simmons' favor. As you may recall, the legislature passed a bill allowing private companies like Simmons' to handle radioactive waste, and then a second bill limiting it to one private company -- Simmons', of course.

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Digital rights advocates cheered yesterday after the state House passed a measure requiring police to obtain a search warrant before collecting personal cell phone data. Groups as diverse as the ACLU of Texas and the arch-conservative Texas Eagle Forum have expressed concern that current law, which allows law enforcement agencies to freely harvest cell phone location data, was antiquated and a violation of the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches.

"Cell phones communicate location information constantly," as
Electronic Frontier Foundation-Austin vice president Greg Foster has previously explained it. "Now the details of your life - your employer, your hobbies, your relationships, your religion, political meetings you attend - can all be gleaned from customer data held by your phone company. And police don't need a warrant to get it."

Grits for Breakfast's Scott Henson framed the matter somewhat differently:

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A bill aimed to reform end-of-life care in Texas is likely to die in the state House. Although the bill made it through the Texas Senate, Representative Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican, told the Austin American-Statesman that it won't get a vote due to splits among House Republicans.

Currently if doctors believe continuing treatment would needlessly extend suffering, they can ask an ethics committee -- usually consisting of other doctors, social workers and clergy -- to stop life-sustaining treatment. If the patient or family wants to continue treatment, they have 10 days to appeal the decision and find another provider.

The most contentious parts of the bill, sponsored by Republican Senator Bob Deuell of Greenville, aims to revise this process, providing families with 21 days to find alternate care instead of 10 as well as giving them more days to prepare for the ethics panel.

As we reported in April, Texas pro-life groups have been bitterly split over the bill from the beginning. Its demise comes just as Duell and Texas Right to Life director Elizabeth Graham have been going at each other's throat's, Texas Tribune .

Deuell compared the pro-life group to "the woman that went to Solomon and wanted the baby to be cut in two," and took issue with Graham's claims in emails that the bill would "strengthen Texas' death panels."

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Peter Ryan

Oncor, the Dallas-based sticks-and-wires utility, has collected half a billion dollars from ratepayers since 2007 for federal income taxes. But according to a report, the IRS hasn't received a dime.

In fact, most of that cash has gone to its struggling parent, Energy Future Holdings, which is marching inexorably toward bankruptcy court. Its quarterly reports have logged such huge and consistent losses that the company has actually collected refunds from the IRS on top of the unnecessary tax bill its regulated utility siphons from electricity users. It's a perfectly legal loophole that allows a robust Oncor to be taxed as if it were a healthy, standalone operation, while its parent company consolidates its tax bill and reaps a windfall.

An Oncor spokesman told a KETK reporter in Longview that the millions it has collected over the years -- some $800 million in all, he said -- have been funneled into an account. For safe keeping, obviously. "Those sums that are not used to pay taxes now, will be used in future rate cases to reduce rates in the future," he said. So, no worries, right? That money is safe, and certainly not being used to prop up EFH.

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Marijuana advocates were abuzz last month -- and by "abuzz" we mean excited, of course -- when a bill to reduce penalties for marijuana possession was passed out the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. The bill had been watered down to apply only to people younger than 21, but the Texas chapter of NORML, the national pot-legalization organization, still called it an "amazing step for Texas."

Also encouraging was progress on a medical marijuana bill that would make medical need a valid defense in pot possession cases. The measure, some version of which has been introduced in the past several sessions, got a hearing for the first time ever. As The Joint Blog declared, "The measure isn't perfect, but is a huge step forward for Texas."

Both those bills, the only pro-marijuana legislation to get any sort of traction this session, are now officially dead, which isn't to say that marijuana activists are admitting defeat.

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Lon Burnam

You wouldn't have expected a bill to rename a stretch of Central Expressway for George W. Bush to inspire a rare bipartisan kumbaya moment in the Texas legislature. His presidency is too recent and remains a source of bitterness for too many Democrats. But when the House vote was posted, there it was: 147 yeas, 0 nays.

Representative Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth Democrat, would like everyone to know that tally is wrong. "He most definitely voted against the bill," chief of staff Conor Kenney said in an email yesterday. Burnam's opposition hasn't yet shown up on the still-unofficial tally posted to the House website, but that's because "the clerk is running behind because we're moving so fast right now," Kenney wrote. "I think they're just marking most local and consent bills as unanimous."

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Dallas Area Interfaith

Interfaith groups from across Texas held a rally for healthcare expansion on February 20.

Dallas Area Interfaith held a news conference this morning at Temple Emanu-El, where more than a dozen faith leaders from the Dallas area gathered to support Medicaid expansion. Since Friday, 60 clergy members from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations have signed a letter calling on state lawmakers to opt in for the Medicaid expansion offered in the Affordable Care Act. The DAI will deliver the letter tomorrow to Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst.

The letter reads, in part:

We believe humanity rises to our highest fulfillment as we treat each person with dignity, precisely as we ourselves would hope to be treated. We acknowledge our enduring responsibility to care for one another. As faith leaders, we believe expanding healthcare in Texas should be inclusive, affordable, accessible, and accountable and should strengthen the lives of the working poor and better enable Texans to take care of themselves and their families.

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The North Texas Tollway Authority has been taking an increasingly punitive approach to chasing down toll scofflaws. First came the public shaming, then the lawsuits. Now, it could start impounding cars.

A bill to give the NTTA the power to block vehicle registrations and ban cars from its tollways (this is where the impoundment comes in) has sailed through the Texas House. It still needs a final OK from the Senate and Governor Perry's signature, but those are both formalities at this point. The Senate passed an almost identical version last month by a vote of 29-1.

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Photo by Brandon Thibodeaux

Last night, a bill to fund water projects across the state died an ignominious death in the Texas House of Representatives. This was strange because it looked like the rails had been thoroughly greased. During his State of the State back in January, Gov. Rick Perry made the case for dipping into the normally sacrosanct Rainy Day Fund to the tune of $2 billion for water infrastructure projects -- a move he characterized as vital for attracting businesses to the state.

"What I am proposing will support critical water and transportation systems across our state, addresses our needs both short- and long-term, and ensures both water and traffic will continue to flow in Texas for generations to come," he said at the time.

Yet it came under attack from all sides. Spending fetishists in the Tea Party wing couldn't support it, even though a water crisis could have serious implications for the state's tax base. Democrats wouldn't back it unless it came with increased education spending from the Rainy Day Fund. Republicans threatened sweeping budget cuts if enough votes weren't mustered to pull from the fund. Amendments and points of order were heaped onto the bill until finally it all collapsed.

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Elizabeth Jones

Last night, the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees approved a resolution "opposing legislative efforts to diminish graduation standards and academic rigor." Basically, they don't like HB 5, the Texas House of Representatives-approved bill that would reduce the number of tests students take to graduate, and basically create separate college- and workforce-ready tracks. The bill is currently in the state Senate.

To be clear, the resolution doesn't really cause any action. Specifically it "calls on the Texas Legislature to amend House Bill 5 to ensure all students are enrolled by default in rigorous, college-ready graduation pathways, and the Trustees commit to adopting local policy that takes this stance should the Legislature fail to act."

Trustee Elizabeth Jones said she doesn't believe that non-college-bound students need less rigorous classes. Since DISD's goal is to help students live a meaningful and productive life, regardless of whether or not they attend college, students should not be put on less demanding tracks. This resolution is meant to be a reminder of that to Austin, she said.

(Update: Jones wrote to let us know she takes issue with this characterization. In an email she explains that the resolution is addressing "the idea that any workforce focused pathway should not be any less academically 'rigorous' (or 'vigorous' if you prefer) and must be maintained for academic robustness and should not waiver from the academic standards in a college-ready pathway." We've excerpted the bulk of her email below.)

"What are we expecting?" asked Trustee Bernadette Nutall. "What is our end game?"

See also:
Legislature's Step Backward on School Testing Makes Us Like France, Only Racist

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