Politex

Burgess wants an investigation into TCEQ

 U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess had some strong words for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality today following news that it presented inaccurate results to the Fort Worth City Council and failed to notify the city or the public for weeks after it realized the error.

The Lewisville Republican wants an investigation into why the agency didn't make immediately clear that its testing of air quality in Fort Worth related to gas drilling had some problems as soon as they became aware of it.

“Those responsible should be held fully accountable, and I believe that a robust investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s office would be appropriate,” Burgess said in a statement.

Burgess said he was recently briefed by TCEQ on air quality issues related to gas drilling and he's not happy to find out now that he wasn't presented with all of the data.

“I relied on the information I was given, as did many others in North Texas,” Burgess said. “I find it personally offensive to find out that what I have been told may not be the full story on the air quality issues in the area that affect millions of North Texans.  There are a lot of questions that TCEQ needs to answer, and the public is right to demand accountability.”

The TCEQ conducted air tests in Fort Worth in December and told city officials at a public meeting the next month that the air was safe.

State officials later discovered that the tests had been done with equipment that wasn't sensitive enough to measure some of the compounds at lower levels which could be harmful under long term exposure. Samples were retested. After three showed higher levels of an airborne toxic compound, the agency took new samples at those same sites but didn’t inform the city or the public.

Testing of the new samples didn’t find any elevated levels of toxic fumes.

Gov. Rick Perry recently expressed confidence in TCEQ but other lawmakers are less than pleased.

-Aman Batheja

White and Perry differ on TCEQ test snafu

This week’s revelations regarding the test results the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality presented to the city of Fort Worth about toxic emissions from gas wells drew sharply different responses from Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic challenger Bill White.

The state agency gave inaccurate results to the Fort Worth City Council in January and when it realized the error, failed to notify the city or the public for weeks.

The news has sparked calls for a Justice Department investigation and new state legislation punishing state officials for purposefully concealing information.

“The governor has confidence in TCEQ’s oversight of our state’s air quality,” Perry spokesman Allison Castle said. “He expects the agency to provide accurate and timely information to the public, lawmakers and local officials concerning the Barnett Shale air emissions data.”

White’s campaign said the TCEQ’s mistake falls on Perry.

“The fact that the TCEQ didn't even bother to let Fort Worth know about a mistake shows that Rick Perry is failing to ensure state agencies are accountable to Texans,” White campaign spokeswoman Katy Bacon said. “We need a governor who understands the oil and gas industry and who will be accountable to Texas taxpayers.”

The situation may seem like deja vu to White, the former mayor of Houston, who had an extended public spat with TCEQ for months over whether chemical plants and refineries were polluting Houston’s air.

“The TCEQ has been a failure for years,” Bacon said. “When Bill White realized Houstonians couldn't count on the TCEQ to figure out what toxic chemicals were in our air, he took matters into his own hands to measure and analyze independently."

Bacon said levels of cancer-causing benzene and butadiene in the city's air dropped under White.

We have responses from other elected officials over at our Barnett Shale blog.

-Aman Batheja

Trial focuses on murky mail-in ballot methods

Questions over the unusual outcome of a runoff election in southeast Fort Worth made its way into a courtroom Wednesday.

Charlotte Hogan-Price lost her bid to be the next Justice of the Peace for Precinct 8 to Lisa Woodard. But Woodard's win immediately prompted questions over the results.

Usually, the candidate with the most in-person votes ends up winning the election. Hogan-Price won the early vote and election-day vote by 181 votes, or 56 percent to 44 percent. But she lost the race because she trailed in the mail-in vote by a wide margin: 652 to 335, or 66 percent to 33 percent.

Earlier this month, Hogan-Price sued Woodard alleging that she was elected through "fraudulent, absentee mail-in ballot voting practices" to gain votes that would otherwise be considered invalid.

(Texas Watchdog recently published a series of stories on mail-in ballot fraud in South Texas.)

On Wednesday, Hogan Price's attorney, Dan Wyde, presented her case in the 153rd District Court in downtown Fort Worth.

Polls: Majority of Texans back legalizing casino gambling

More than half of likely Texas voters like the idea of expanding casino gambling to help reduce the state's budget deficit, according to a telephone poll.

Rasmussen Reports asked 500 likely Texas voters were asked about ways to address the budget deficit on May 13.

The results: 57 percent favor legalizing casino gambling, 33 percent oppose it. The remaining 10 percent answered "not sure."

When asked if they were willing to pay higher taxes to address the budget deficit, 68 percent of the respondents said they weren't. Only 21 percent said "yes" with the remaining 11 percent "not sure."

The poll had a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points.

Other polls of Texans in recent years have usually showed more than half back some form of expansion of legalized gambling in Texas.

Gambling advocates have been gearing up to make a renewed push in the 2011 Legislature by touting gaming's revenue-raising benefits in hard budget times. One state agency estimate that lawmakers could be facing an $18 billion shortfall in next year's legislative session.

Another poll released today looked at statewide races and found Republicans leading. The University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, an Internet survey of 800 registered voters found Gov. Rick Perry ahead of Democratic challenger Bill White 44-35.

The UT/Tribune poll was conducted May 14-20 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percent.

-Aman Batheja

Activists want Perry to cut tax breaks for 'Machete'

Robert Rodriguez' new flick, Machete, is generating plenty of buzz.

Part of that is due to the star-filled cast: Robert DeNiro, Danny Trejo, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson and, yes, Steven Seagal.

But the film is also sparking controversy that’s reaching all the way to Gov. Rick Perry’s office.

Machete tells the story of an assassin from Mexico working as a day laborer in Texas and battling a Mexican drug lord.

Conservative bloggers have called the film inflammatory in light of growing tension over a recent Arizona law cracking down on illegal immigration.

Dish Mayor suggests Perry's office meddled with health study

Perry's office denied the charge.

At issue is a study from the Texas State Health Services department that looked at the blood and urine of residents in the small town of Dish. The study found no pattern of contamination.

Dish Mayor Calvin Tillman and local residents have raised concerns about the health effects of natural gas drilling.

Read all about it in our Barnett Shale blog.

Oops! Hardball says KBH is up in 2010 - and hints she'll lose, too!

MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews loves to skewer politicians who get things wrong but today he flashed a graphic mocking former Veep Dick Cheney's Senate picks for 2010 -- including Texas' Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

As almost everyone, at least in Texas, knows, Hutchison's term is up in 2012! She kept up the drama -- will she or won't she quit to make a full-time run for governor -- almost as soon as being re-elected in 2008. She recently announced she would stay in the Senate after being trounced by Gov. Rick Perry in the primary, and some politicos are already betting she'll run again in 2012.

-- Maria Recio

Rand Paul is making Kentucky politics as wild as Texas'

It turns out Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race is as wild and woolly as some Texas politics! And that may be because a Texan is in the middle of it! Rand Paul, son of libertarian firebrand Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, is, like his father, an independent-minded Republican; like his father, a physician – Rand is an opthamologist, Ron, an ob-gyn; and, like his father, something of a thorn in the side of the GOP establishment.

The political neophyte appears poised to win the Republican primary Tuesday for the seat being vacated by Hall of Famer Sen. Jim Bunning. Rand Paul has been leading Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the polls and got the surprise endorsement of Bunning while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also took the unusual step of choosing sides in a primary and endorsed Grayson. And among national heavy-hitters, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed Paul while former Vice President Dick Cheney chose Grayson.

Meanwhile, a picture of Rand Paul on the front page of the Washington Post Thursday, May 13 may –or may not – help him. Paul is seen sitting on a TV set waiting to be interviewed wearing a suit jacket, shirt and tie and – no pants. Well, not suit pants anyway. He seems to be wearing shorts after apparently coming from a son’s soccer match.

-- Maria Recio

Perry, 51 percent?

A new poll released Monday shows that Republican Gov. Rick Perry has the support of 51 percent of likely voters in Texas, while former Houston mayor and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White has 38 percent.

A similar poll earlier this month showed Perry holding on to 48 percent of support, to White's 44 percent.

The latest Rasmussen poll is a phone survey of 500 likely voters contacted on May 13. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The election is Nov. 2.

-- Anna M. Tinsley

Democrats "Glee"-fully mock Perry's hair

For all you "Glee" fans out there, the Lone Star Project has an ad sure to catch your attention.

The Democratic group led by Haltom City native Matt Angle has earned a reputation for not pulling punches in its attacks on Republicans.Their latest piece takes aim at Gov. Rick Perry's lovely locks and juxtaposes them with a montage of insults from Sue Sylvester, the cutthroat cheerleading coach from the television series, "Glee."

-Aman Batheja