Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Right after World War II, with 12 million men and women home from war and looking for work, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a National Highway Committee to develop plans for a national system of expressways. Congress designated the 40,000-mile National System of Interstate Highways in 1944, but it was not funded until President Dwight Eisenhower made it a cornerstone of his domestic agenda in 1956.

The Environmental Protection Agency sent a strong message with its appointment of Al Armendariz to the region's top post: It's time to clear the air.

The selection of the Southern Methodist University professor signaled a notable shift in the EPA's approach to regulating pollution. Armendariz, who will serve as regional administrator over Texas and four other states, has been a vocal critic of both his predecessor and state regulators.

Sales tax and natural gas tax collections fell more than $1 billion short of projections in the 2009 fiscal year, according to a state comptroller's report, fueling questions about the financial heartburn that may be ahead for Texas.

The letter arrived from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. "Dear Eliot, the last page of a long story has just been turned. Our father, Albert, died two weeks ago. Both our fathers wrote a very great part of our history together. Times are different for your country." State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, reflected on those words.

Texas voters have spoken and a convincing majority approved a half-billion-dollar fund to enable Texas Tech and six other emerging universities in the state to become national research institutions.

But it is still unclear how long it's going to be for Tech or any of the other schools to get the prestigious designation, better known as Tier One or flagship.

Today's hearing of the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee needs to produce clarity in the Cameron Todd Willingham inquiry.

Members have a roadmap from the new chairman of Texas Forensic Science Commission, who indicated last week where he intends to steer his agency and how he intends to handle the explosive Willingham matter.

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they'll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won't do it justice. Yes, I'm having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge. Obama had to lead a nation's grieving; he had to try and address the thorny issues of Islam and terrorism; to be firm; to express the spirit of America, using familiar, comforting tropes in a way that didn't sound trite. An excerpt from the elegiac address, below, and the full text, after the jump.

President Obama took on the role of national eulogist on Tuesday for the first time since assuming office as he led the country in mourning 13 active and retired soldiers gunned down not on a foreign battlefield but here on their home post by one of their own.

A Southern Methodist University professor will be the next chief of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's office in Texas, the agency announced Thursday.

Al Armendariz, a professor of environmental and civil engineering, will assume the regional EPA post at a time when the federal agency is at odds with Texas over the way the state issues air pollution permits to major industries.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh has commented on a story in CNN Money about foreclosures rising at a faster rate in McAllen over the last quarter than any other major city.

Since World War II, Americans have always shared a common belief that government is by and for people, and that government has a good and essential role to play in all our lives.

Two decades ago, Cristina Reyes’ husband left her with two sons and little income to support them. As her boys entered high school, she struggled to balance parenting with a low-wage job in downtown Houston. And she felt helpless as they began the slide toward dropping out.

Twenty-one Texas organizations today submitted the following letter to the Texas congressional delegation strongly urging passage of meaningful health care reform in 2009. These groups organized their effort through Texas Voice for Health Reform, a project that aims to educate Texans and give them a voice in the national health reform debate. The letter urges legislators to take meaningful steps to make health care affordable and conveys the groups' consensus that a public option is an important tool for achieving affordability.

More and more lately, I find people asking me: What do you think President Obama really believes about this or that issue? I find that odd. How is it that a president who has taken on so many big issues, with very specific policies — and has even been awarded a Nobel Prize for all the hopes he has kindled — still has so many people asking what he really believes?

Congress on Thursday completed final approval of a bill that includes several measures designed to spur the economy and help people who have lost their jobs, representing its latest intervention as the country suffers through its worst recession in decades.

1. Save consumers money

Harnessing Texas' natural resources for the production of high efficiency, clean energy will not only help preserve the environment, it will boost the economy and help energy consumers save money. Today, Texas households pay 56 percent more in monthly energy costs than the national average. Customer-generated electricity would enable Texans to reduce their billed energy consumption while adding small contributions of electricity to the grid, thus reducing the demand on direct energy production by utility companies.

When did common sense leave conservatives? For most Texans, 2009 marks that year. And Rick Perry’s secession talk was not nearly the whole story.

So, how well will health reform work after it passes?

There’s a part of me that can’t believe I’m asking that question. After all, serious health reform has long seemed like an impossible dream. And it could yet go all wrong.

Up is down. Left is right. Black is white.

It applies to Alice once she fell down that hole and walked through the looking glass.

It applies equally to our Republican leadership in Texas.

The final bill may well reflect an industry group's strategy of shaping universal coverage to benefit companies.