Environmental Insider News articles from February 2000

Environmental Insider News archives from February 2000

Energy Paradigm Shift without Real Debate?
February 14, 2000... [This is a test.] Space aliens are descending upon Mother Earth, but we can stop them in their tracks if we will just stop using fossil fuels. But then someone says, "Free Trade! Maybe they just want to buy Texas music and sell us some of their...

Hot Air on Clean Air?
February 14, 2000... Consider the facts. By February 11, staffers had already received over a thousand pages of written comments, with at least that much more expected by the deadline, not to mention the oral comments from public meetings held across the state. On...

Planning for the Drought.
February 14, 2000... Weather forecasters are already predicting a very dry year in the Lone Star State, given that combined reservoir capacities are already lower than they were prior to the 1996 drought. Thanks to recent legislation, Texans may be better prepared...

Clarifying Inactive Landfills.
February 14, 2000... In the wake of the duststorm kicked up last October by state representative Paul Sadler (D, Henderson) over his inability to stop the transfer of a permit for an inactive landfill from the City of Henderson to IESI-TX Corporation [see EI NEWS,...

Texas Tidbits.
February 14, 2000... *** A new study released by the National Center for Policy Analysis shows that year-round and summertime temperatures in Texas and Tennessee have declined over the past century. Using data from the National Climatic Data Center, Arizona State...

Cherry Blossoms.
February 14, 2000... *** Federal environmental penalties collected in fiscal 1999 jumped 80% above fiscal 1998 levels, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to ordering defendants to spend $3.6 billion for environmental cleanup,...

United Copper Appeal Goes to Industry.
February 28, 2000... A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals, Third District, Austin, unanimously overturned a decision by District Judge Margaret Cooper that had rescinded a TNRCC permit issued in April 1998 to United Copper Industries, Inc. for the...

Ruling Could've Nixed 801!
February 28, 2000... TNRCC's Commissioners on April 22, 1998, rejected arguments from Grissom and three other Denton residents who had cited potential negative impacts on respiratory problems of family members (including Grissom's two asthmatic sons) as...

TCC: Scrap Pre-1981 Cars.
February 28, 2000... Perhaps to spark a broader debate, Texas Chemical Council has run the numbers and come up with a radical way to cut motor vehicle emissions in the Houston-Galveston and Dallas-Fort Worth ozone nonattainment areas. Their target is pre-1981...

Foreign Ships Dirty the Air.
February 28, 2000... With the need to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions in the Houston-Galveston area in order to achieve attainment of the 1-hour ozone standard pegged at 118 tons per day, TNRCC, the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the Port of Houston Authority,...

Cal-i-fornia Dreamin'?
February 28, 2000... All the leaves are brown... - and it all (reportedly) comes from air pollution, even though it is, technically speaking, a winter's day in Texas. So state regulators have dreamed up California cars and so-called California diesel fuel as part...

Cornyn Answers Matthews.
February 28, 2000... Little mentioned at the time of the Koch Industries, Inc., settlement that netted Texas about $18 million (including $2.5 million via TNRCC for specified environmental projects) was the fact that Railroad Commissioner Charles Matthews dissented...