Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

A crowd of angry lawmakers and citizens gathered at City Hall Monday night after learning ASARCO may only pay a fraction of what it could take to remediate the El Paso smelter.

As other parts of the country grapple with the worst recession in generations, the Abilene economy has remained resilient. From plastic food container manufacturing to wind turbine tower development, expansions in a number of areas have bolstered local job creation.

Under a proposal tentatively approved in the Senate on Monday, more energy would be produced in Texas from renewable sources such as solar energy in the years to come. The bill mandates the development of 1500 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020.

State Rep. Joe Pickett reignited a political storm with a measure he quietly added to a large transportation bill lawmakers approved Monday. His measure would allow the dissolution of the agency set up to finance and build roads in El Paso.

Green Mountain Energy Co. will announce today a program to attract solar energy customers by buying the electricity generated from home arrays at retail rates.
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Texas is in the middle of the road when it comes to highway safety legislation — mostly because of a shortage of drunken driving laws, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The measure would require large restaurant chains – those with 15 or more locations – to be trans fat-free by Sept. 1, 2010, with smaller chains and standalone establishments given an extra year to comply.

"Go back to the election cycle in 2008. The predatory lending industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions to state legislators and to pay lobbyists knowing that laws to regulate interest rates and help struggling families were on the way. These dollars had one goal—to kill any bills that regulate predatory lending and cap interest rates on predatory loans."

Tuition increases at public universities in Texas would be sharply restricted under legislation approved unanimously by the Texas Senate on Monday.

Senate Bill 841 by Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, creates a buy-in option for participation in the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program for families that earn up to 300 percent, or three times, the federal poverty level. This would impact a family of four earning up to $66,000.

The sweeping school accountability bills passed by the Texas House and Senate last week make much needed changes in the way the state evaluates schools and prepares students for college.

Nearly half the appointee donations came from people serving as higher education regents, including more than $840,000 from those at the University of Texas System, according to a Houston Chronicle review of campaign-finance records.

Shapleigh's bill this year calls for the Department of State Health Services to issue licenses and set rules. The cost would drop some because local governments would be encouraged to enter into pacts with the department, under which they'd do the inspections themselves.

In a step that illustrates a growing fight against predatory practices by payday lenders, officials in the city of Irving are researching whether state law would allow the city to cap interest rates charged by such lenders.

I love the Lone Star state nickname for Texas, but if we didn't already have such a great one, the “Solar State” wouldn't be inaccurate.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh and several other Senate Demo crats failed Tuesday to block the reappointment of a commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

One of Gov. Rick Perry's nominees to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles is facing opposition from critics who say she has no criminal justice experience and is best known as a Republican campaigner and crusader against the sale of sex toys in Texas.

Let's first acknowledge the problem. When our community has scores of people on FBI target lists, El Paso has one of the largest public-corruption investigations in the United States.

That has been true for more than a decade but does not have to be if the Legislature passes separate measures that will expand health insurance to poor children and children whose parents work but earn too little to afford private health coverage.

The global recession has already infected Texas exporters. With the state's fortunes increasingly tied up with Mexico, the swine flu epidemic could further weaken the economy.