ustxtxb_obs_1973_01_19_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

lobbying regulation: Reps. John There will be a tough rule-reform . fight in the Senate, where Sen. Oscar Mauzy of Dallas plans to go after the committee-appointment and bill-referral powers of the lieutenant governor. Mauzy also will be pushing for retention of the minority report and unlimited staff funding and for re-referral of bills by simple majority. He will get some kind of support from other Dallas County senators, but his chances of getting majorities in the Senate at large are doubtful. Hobby probably will not even preside over the fight. He can’t take the chair until Jan. 16, and he wants outgoing Lt. Gov. Barnes to handle organization and appointments. In the meantime, the Dallas County senators had a short-lived spat with their County Commissioners Court. The commissioners hired a law firm to do bill-drafting work; after hearing that the firm’s spokesman said his “normal charge” is $40 to $70 an hour, the senators fired off a letter suggesting that the commissioners rely on the tax-supported Legislative Council to draft bills instead, and call on its district attorney’s office for any special legal assistance. When the commissioners replied that the firm would be working for free in this case, the senators withdrew their objections. The whole shindy may have grown out of a little difference of opinion between commissioners and the delegation during the last special session \(Obs., the law firm in question happens to be Locke, Purnell, Boren, Laney and Neeley. And the Purnell in question happens to be Charles Purnell, recently named Gov.-elect Dolph Briscoe’s chief adviser \(see story this firm. Help for the green earth Environmental Action for Texas, the legislative arm of the Texas Environmental Coalition \(a 40-organization “high-priority” bills to be introduced this session. A six-person committee will be working for passage. The bills: an Enrivonmental Quality Act \(paralleling the National Environmental protection a state policy and requiring all state agencies to file environmental impact statements for major projects; an Environmental Protection Agency Act, consolidating functions of the Texas Water Quality Board, Texas Air Control Board and similar departments in various agencies into a single agency headed by a state EPA commissioner; a Land Use Regulatory Act, authorizing the Land Commissioner to regulate land use in critical regions \(coastal 8 The Texas Observer A. Armstrong and to draw up a comprehensive statewide land use plan; a Standing to Sue Act, permitting’ citizens and groups to seek injunctions against environmental-law violators without having to demonstrate personal damage; a County Environmental Quality Improvement Agency Act authorizing \(not consolidation of local environmental protection agencies; an amendment to strengthen the Open Hearings Act; a Strip Mining Regulatory Act, granting regulatory powers to the Land Commissioner; an appropriations amendment providing money from increased cigarette taxes and the existing motor fuels tax for preservation of “significant natural areas” and development of hiking, biking and bridle trails in state parks. A slight change Robert Strauss has issued an invitation invitation to John Connally to return to the Democratic Party “and bring his constituency with him.” Strauss said he hopes Connally will play “a leading role” in party affairs. Funny, right after he was elected party chairman Strauss said he didn’t think “any man who supported a candidate other than the Democratic candidate should hold a titular office in our party John Connally included.” Also in hot pursuit of Connally was Anne Armstrong, the Republican White House aide without portfolio. She says she’s doing everything she can to get Connally into the Republican Party. .Republican co-chairlady Armstrong is now the top-ranking woman in the Nixon Administration. Ms. Armstrong is $42,500 a year presidential counselor of cabinet rank with duties as yet unspecified. The Observer has no personal acquaintance with the new presidential counsellor and the Texas press has dealt with her mainly on the women’s pages. Here are a few tidbits gleaned from those back-section interviews: The daughter of a French-Creole coffee importer from New Orleans; she was a Phi Bate at Vassar where she majored in English. She met her husband-to-be, Tobin Armstrong, during a vacation on the King Ranch. They married four months later and she moved next door to the 51,000-acre Armstrong Ranch in Kennedy County, where there are servants and polo ponies, a swimming pool, a front yard fish pond, a private landing strip, 3,000 Santa Gertrudis and a swanky old ranch house. “This is a good time to be a woman in politics,” Ms. Armstrong told Women’s Wear Daily. “Men are bending over backwards to meet women halfway.” Hare Rama The first candidate to obtain filing materials to enter the Dallas mayoral affairs director for the Dallas Hare Krishna movement. The movement is engaged in a continuing controversy over their chanting evangelism in downtown Dallas: Liberman represented the faithful at a recent council meeting, demanding the release of arrested chanters. Liberman has until March 3 to present 300 signatures and $50, the filing requirements. Houston Post reporter Ernest Bailey took aim on the Lake Livingston industrial’ water project in three recent articles. Bailey got hold of a “confidential” Chamber of Commerce report indicating that industrial demand for the water will not produce sufficient revenue to make up the expected $200 million expense. Houston taxpayers are already committed to pay $160 million for the Lake Livingston dam \(approved in a 1964 Authority delivery system; the CIWA \(an entity the Legislature created in 1967 “at the request” of Houston Mayor Louie an additional $40 million in bonds. Houston residents had no opportunity to vote on previous CIWA bond issues, though they are paying for the .bonds. Contracts for sale of the water to Houston area industries have not been signed \(the industries are still negotiating potential customers buy, the Houston Water Department will still be paying $8-10 million a year for the project. And