Environment
Is Texas’ Overcrowded, Underfunded State Parks System Being Loved to Death?
After the Flood, the Political Storm?
Democrats in Greater Houston are hoping to tap into the frustrations of residents who are still recovering from Hurricane Harvey.
It’s been more than a year since Hurricane Harvey descended upon southeast Texas, damaging more than 200,000 homes and killing at least 88 people. Now, Democr...Read More
Government Asks Court for More Time To Fix Houston’s Decades-Long Sewage Problem
A lawsuit by state and federal authorities could ultimately delay a fix to Houston’s widespread sewage leaks, which disproportionately affect minority and poor communities, advocates say.
Houston has a sewage problem. In the last five years, the city has self-reported more than 9,300 instances of untreated sewage overflowing from its sewer system...Read More
Inside the Coordinated Attack on a North Texas Wind Farm
Conservative lawmakers, an oil investor and other activists did all they could to stop a wind project in rural Texas, even as the state has increasingly embraced renewable energy.
Earlier this year, a Canadian energy producer was poised to build two large wind farms in Clay County, a mostly featureless stretch of plains at the Texas-Oklah...Read More
How Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Appointment Would Affect Texans’ Air, Water and Land
The controversial Supreme Court nominee has a track record of siding with industry interests over environmental protections.
Media attention has been riveted on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., this week, from his dodgy answers o...Read More
To Bag or Not to Bag: Retailers at a Crossroads after Texas Supreme Court Strikes Bag Ban
Since a court ruling nullified plastic bag bans in 11 Texas cities, some retailers have continued to voluntarily observe the law, while others are handing out bags again.
Nine-year-old Mauricio Treviño is every retailer’s worst nightmare. On a field trip that included a walk along the Rio Grande recently, his grandmother, Lare...Read More
Former TCEQ Employee Files Race and Age Discrimination Lawsuit Against Agency
Shiyan Jiang, who worked at TCEQ for 23 years, says he was repeatedly passed over for promotions and assignments given to younger, white employees.
On April 29, 2016, Shiyan Jiang learned he was being fired from his job at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Jiang, then 71, had been a hydrologist...Read More
Heads in the Mud
A year after Hurricane Harvey, what has the Bayou City learned?
“The people of Houston and their officials will have to decide whether they are building a great city or merely a great population.” These words, from a 192...Read More
Why is Texas’ Leading GOP Think Tank Suddenly All-In on an Anti-Wind Crusade?
The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s latest PR blitz is the kind of thing you’d expect to see from a seedy advocacy group, not a would-be policy braintrust.
If you were a newcomer trying to figure out how Texas politics works, a good start would be to look at the state’s two leading think tanks. The center-left Ce...Read More
El Paso is on the Cutting Edge of Water Conservation. It Really Has No Choice.
Shallow Waters Shallow Waters is a nine-part series on border water and climate change. Part 8 El Paso is on the Cutting Edge of Water Conservation. It Really H...Read More