Dallas Morning News. March 9, 2024.

Editorial: Renewable energy will transform Texas if lawmakers stay out of the way

Texas’ carbon-free energy moments signal a bright future.

Solar and wind power are often dismissed as niche sources of power that are more of a novelty than an energy staple.

That hasn’t been true for quite some time and was underscored on Feb. 25. Energy expert Doug Lewin astutely noted on social media that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ power grid on that Sunday reached 82.8% carbon-free power, 71.2% of which was provided by renewables, both all-time records. And for about six hours that day, he says, power prices were $0, indicating that renewables can produce massive amounts of power cheaply.

The continued expansion of carbon-free power on the grid represents an important market signal that renewables are sustainable, reliable and affordable power sources in Texas. And from that momentum, the state must not retreat.

We highlight Feb. 25 because Texas’ energy politics turned ugly last year when certain ideologically driven lawmakers introduced numerous proposals to curtail wind and solar power investments and promote traditional oil and gas production. Renewable energy emerged from the most aggressive effort in years to curtail its ascendance without deep, investment-crippling wounds. But backers of renewable energy are bracing for another assault on renewables next session.

State officials would be shortsighted to again put a heavy fist on the scale against renewables. As the state grows, Texas must add power from all sources, including natural gas generation and from batteries that can flexibly dispatch stored power when needed to avert energy emergencies and catastrophic blackouts. Most of all, public policy must promote market competition and encourage energy efficiency, allow renewable energy to expand and reduce carbon emissions.

The reality is that Texas will have extreme temperature days that will set peak load records and edge ERCOT to consider emergency conservation or rotating outages to ensure grid stability. But renewables provide opportunities, not vulnerabilities. The ability to run industrial sites during high peak periods with lower-cost, carbon-free energy supported by a robust battery network is a competitive net plus for economic productivity. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, for example, predicts that solar and battery storage in the United States will make up 81% of new electric-generating capacity in 2024 and that Texas, aided by the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment tax credits for stand-alone storage, is on pace to surpass California.

The expansion of renewables on the grid validates more than two decades of support for a competitive energy marketplace in Texas that dates back to Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry. Texas has come a long way and has an opportunity to secure a robust energy mix that is able to sustain this state’s vast economy.

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Fort Worth Star Telegram. March 9, 2024.

Editorial: Ken Paxton’s on a political, legal rampage. Who will the AG sue next?

Ken Paxton is on a rampage. Politically and professionally, Paxton has approached the first quarter of the new year with renewed vigor. Some might even call it vengeance.

Leading up to the Republican primaries, Paxton targeted lawmakers and judges who had used the law to find fault in his actions. He helped push House Speaker Dade Phelan — who facilitated Paxton’s impeachment trial — into a runoff with opponent David Covey. Paxton also backed challengers to three judges on the state’s highest criminal court, which might eventually have to rule on his securities fraud charges.

Politics can be a dirty and scrappy wrestling match between foes. It’s a proverbial blood sport, sure, but it’s supposed to be an occupation — not a way of life or a worldview. To paraphrase a classic line, it’s business, don’t take it personally. Not for Paxton.

In the last few days, Paxton’s office has announced it will sue at least seven school districts over accusations of electioneering: Aledo, Castleberry, Denton, Frisco, Denison, Hutto and Huffman. The office claims that district officials used public resources to encourage staff and administrators to vote for or against certain candidates, in violation of state election law.

Hutto ISD, in northeast Austin, was surprised. A Hutto ISD official posted Feb. 28 on Facebook that “vouchers hurt our public schools,” according to the lawsuit. District officials pushed back. “At no time has the District used public resources to advocate for or against a candidate, ballot measure or political party, in violation of state law,” they said in a written statement.

Aledo ISD officials also remained firm that they did not break any laws when encouraging staff, in an email, to vote with budget cuts to public education in mind.

Of course, districts need to follow the law when it comes to electioneering. Two Denton ISD officials did explicitly press employees to vote for certain candidates, but that lawsuit has since been resolved. Emails simply encouraging people to vote shouldn’t be seen as a crime and warrant an expensive, lengthy legal process to straighten out. It seems obvious that Paxton is partnering with Gov. Greg Abbott to target public education officials opposed to a voucher program.

Paxton isn’t afraid to showcase this behavior publicly either. Last week on X, Paxton posted that Sen. John Cornyn wouldn’t be an effective Senate Majority Leader. In a post that might go down in history as equally witty and accurate, Cornyn simply quipped, “Hard to run from prison, Ken.”

Conservative allies of Paxton took umbrage, accusing Cornyn of everything from hiding his own dirt, to being an embarrassment to Texas, to lawfare. In Paxton’s case, imagine having the hubris to smear a fellow Texas lawmaker weeks before your own securities fraud trial and just months following an impeachment trial?

It’s not lawfare to point out that Paxton could spend time in prison if he’s found guilty of securities fraud. Those are facts, but if we’ve learned anything about Paxton, it’s that facts don’t stop master manipulators from gaming the political system to elect or remove one’s political foes from office.

To top it off, Paxton also just sued the State Fair of Texas, the Factory in Deep Ellum, and the owner of Texas Trust CU Theatre in Grand Prairie. The lawsuit alleges that these venues didn’t let off-duty officers inside with their firearms, violating state law.

The AG’s office apparently approached the city of Dallas, the Factory owners’ representatives and Grand Prairie prior to the lawsuit, but it still seems excessive. Since when did Republicans decide everything had to be handled in court? The GOP used to be the party that loathed frivolous lawsuits on behalf of a government that knows better than its citizens.

Paxton’s actions just after his impeachment trial and ahead of his long-delayed securities fraud trial, look like those of a man who is on a mission to exact vengeance on political foes, stir up distractions, and wield litigation as a weapon rather than a tool to enforce the law. Being overly litigious is not a sign of leadership nor success. Paxton should learn to tell the difference and stay focused on the job of representing Texans in the most crucial matters.

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Houston Chronicle. March 10, 2024.

Editorial: Abbott’s Super Tuesday triumph in voucher battle is no win for Texas

Our own Captain Ahab, otherwise known as Gov. Greg Abbott, managed to plunge his harpoon into the belly of the great whale last week. After Super Tuesday, our public-school leviathan lists but is not dead yet.

The captain’s uber-wealthy allies — West Texas oilmen who are avowed Christian nationalists — must be giving thanks to God for Super Tuesday’s results and preparing for the death blow the next time the Texas Legislature meets. In 2022, they funded Abbott’s primary opponent and now their obsession with school vouchers has become the governor’s.

The aim of these “tycoon evangelicals” — to borrow Bekah McNeel’s label, writing in Texas Monthly — is to get their grappling hooks into our public schools, bleed them out and redirect public resources into private Christian education. So what if our hemorrhaging public school system washes ashore, a blanched skeleton left to the screeching gulls? As long as West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn of Midland and the Wilks brothers from Cisco are for knocking down the wall — the one between church and state, that is, not the border between Texas and Mexico — how could their agent in the governor’s office be against it?

Abbott is more than halfway there already. Vowing revenge on members of his own party who helped deep-six school vouchers last fall, he relied on a $6 million donation from a Philadelphia billionaire, as well as overlapping donations from Dunn and Wilks, to knock off nine mostly rural representatives of his own party who opposed his obsession. More were forced into a runoff. Based on votes for the House voucher bill during multiple special sessions last fall, he needed to pick up 11 pro-voucher votes. The captain’s likely to reach his ocean’s 11 in the November general election.

“Republican primary voters have once again sent an unmistakable message that parents deserve the freedom to choose the best education pathway for their child,” Abbott said in a statement Tuesday evening. “We will continue to help true conservative candidates on the ballot who stand with the majority of their constituents in supporting education freedom for every Texas family.”

You’ll forgive dedicated public school teachers and administrators, as well as parents of school-age children, if they forgo standing. While Abbott exults, schools around the state — large and small, urban and rural — are grappling with massive budget deficits, thanks to Abbott’s voucher obsession and a Legislature diverted during four sessions last year from meeting its constitutional obligation to adequately fund public schools.

Remember January of last year? Lawmakers convened in Austin for their regular session almost giddy with the prospect of writing the 2024-25 state budget with an astounding cash balance to work with of $33 billion. They staggered home nearly a year later, having for the most part stiffed the school children of Texas (and by extension, the state as a whole). Rather than using that massive surplus to increase base-level funding, they approved $18 billion in property tax cuts. Meanwhile, school districts were left to grapple with inflation, the loss of federal funding designed to help schools weather the COVID-19 pandemic and no new monies to increase teacher pay, hire additional teachers and make needed investments.

Nearly every school district in Harris County is underfunded and in crisis, a recent Kinder Institute study determined. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, for example, is facing a budget shortfall of $73.6 million. For Spring ISD, the budget gap is an estimated $25 million. Spring Branch ISD announced recently that it plans to close two schools and a charter programs in the face of a $35 million budget deficit.

Meanwhile, lawmakers continued their streak of penury last year: The last time they increased education funding was in 2019.

They had the best of intentions, it seems, setting aside nearly $4 billion for public education, but those dollars were never allocated. The school finance bill passed by the House ended up in the drink when the Senate added Abbott’s (and the tycoon evangelicals’) voucher scheme, a scheme that would benefit a relative handful of students around the state (and practically none in rural and small-town Texas).

To be clear, school choice or vouchers or education savings accounts — whatever the label of choice — is a legitimate policy issue. It deserves vigorous debate. But we’ve had that debate. Abbott lost on the merits. Wide-scale voucher programs in other states, such as Arkansas, have failed to produce strong academic improvements while draining public schools of funding.

What’s disturbing about the governor’s voucher obsession is his naked obeisance to wealthy special interests who manifestly do not have the best interests of the people of Texas at heart. Their ultimate aim, even if it’s not necessarily the governor’s, is to transform Texas into a Christian-dominated, biblically based state. Those 21 House Republicans who joined with 63 Democrats to block last year’s voucher proposal understood who benefited and who didn’t. And on Tuesday, many paid the political price. It’s of little consolation, we realize, but we salute their courage.

There will come a time when Texans have had enough of the mean-spiritedness and ideological narrowness of the current governor and his far-right cohorts, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton. There will come a time when they demand more from their elected public servants (emphasis on servants).

Given our long history with Abbott, it’s hard to imagine that other states do have elected governors, Republicans and Democrats, who acknowledge that they represent every citizen of their state, not only those who voted for them, who seek to unite not divide. In the words of New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, “they focus intently on the practical instead of the philosophical, emphasizing issues of broad relevance and not venturing needlessly onto the most divisive terrain.”

Bruni was writing about Democratic governors, among them Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen “fix the damn roads” Whitmer of Michigan, but the inclination toward moderation and practicality describes a handful of Republican governors, as well. Phil Scott of Vermont and Spencer Cox of Utah come to mind.

Of course, that’s not Texas — not today’s Texas, that is. Our obsessive Ahab remains at the helm, steering ever more to the starboard, ignoring the risk to his fellow Texans that he’ll one day run aground. We can do better.

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AIM Media Texas. March 5, 2024.

Editorial: Schools increasingly finding they are having to address smaller enrollment, budgets

Public school districts across the country are dealing with revenue shortfalls, and the Rio Grande Valley is no different. McAllen is looking to end cooperative agreements with the city of McAllen and other entities, and cancel planned construction of theaters at McAllen, Memorial and Rowe high schools.

Brownsville might close three elementary schools, moving their students to nearby schools. The district already has shuttered other campuses in recent years.

The problem isn’t limited to the Valley; the Dallas school district isn’t filling job openings, hoping normal attrition keeps them from having to law people off. Fort Worth has laid off several teachers and staff, and one Houston-area district has let all library staff go.

The biggest problem is falling enrollment. State and federal funding to public schools is tied to enrollment; fewer students mean less revenue, and districts are facing budget crunches as a result.

Several factors contribute to enrollment losses, and they won’t be alleviated anytime soon, if ever.

The most immediate, and noticeable, factor is the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Schools across the country were closed, including those in the Valley, and when they reopened many students never came back.

Another factor is the growing number of options many families have, including private and charter schools.

Yet another is the general slowdown in population growth, particularly in South Texas.

For years this region enjoyed growth rates higher than most of the country, fueled by healthy birth rates and steady immigration from both the north and the south. Recently we have seen lower rates in both areas.

But we’re not alone — slower population growth is being felt everywhere, and many people already fear that not too far into the future we won’t have enough young workers to offset retirements, or enough taxpayers to maintain government programs without substantial tax rate increases.

All this means that traditional public schools don’t just have to start competing for students, they need to learn frugality measures that never were necessary before.

Schools and their districts should reevaluate the need for large, highly paid administrative staffs. Maybe schools don’t need so many assistant principals or specialized administrators. Maybe they don’t all need full contingents of secretaries and assistants.

Closing and consolidating campuses seems an attractive option, as it helps reduce overhead and maintenance costs, and can reduce redundant classes that aren’t filled at any one campus but could justify one course with combined enrollment.

They should, however, think twice about closing unique and popular courses that set them apart from other schools. Such classes give students and their families a reason to stay there instead of seeking other options.

Many people have said that school districts have been too quick to raise taxes and never have had to watch their spending as closely as they should. Now they have to.

Who knows? The process might lead to a few epiphanies and streamlining and austerity measures that can make public schools even better — and save taxpayers money in the long run.

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Lufkin Daily News. March 9, 2024.

Editorial: Sobering Stats: TxDOT numbers offer compelling reasons to drive sober during spring break

Before getting a few well-deserved off days for spring break, several local high schoolers were putting in work as the Angelina County Drug-Free All-Stars concluded their annual Sticker Shock campaign in Huntington Friday morning.

The event was a reminder of the consequences adults can face if they choose to provide alcohol to minors. They do this every year by putting stickers on various cases of beer pointing out what could happen if caught.

Those punishments could include a year in jail, a $4,000 fine and a six-month driver’s license suspension.

The message is a good one.

We’ve always heard the saying “kids will be kids.” But there’s no reason the adults need to help them with the process.

However, it should just be one of many reminders as area schools take their spring breaks this week.

Spring break can be one of the most dangerous weeks of the year for high school and college students. We know those kids assume bad things will never happen to them.

Rest assured, it can.

Various members of the editorial board lost fellow classmates while they were in high school. Some of these were alcohol-related and some weren’t.

Driving can be dangerous, but it’s even more dangerous when alcohol enters into the equation. And none of us ever thought we would be the ones getting a phone call about a lost friend, relative or classmate.

You might not believe us, but it can happen to you.

The Texas Department of Transportation recently started a “Drive Sober. No Regrets” campaign to curb drunk driving incidents during this high-risk period.

“Every death due to drunk driving is preventable,” TxDOT executive director Marc Williams said in a press release. “We want students to understand that it’s easy to celebrate spring break safely. By finding a sober ride, taking a cab, using a rideshare, or simply staying put after drinking, students can make sure their families gather for graduation and not a funeral.”

According to TxDOT, more than half of alcohol-related crashes during the 2022 spring break involved 17-30-year-old drivers.

In 2022, there were 810 DUI-alcohol-related traffic crashes during the spring break period, killing 44 people and seriously injuring 90 others.

It’s safe to say it’s not just a statewide problem.

According to information given out by The Coalition at Friday’s Sticker Shock press conference, Angelina, Polk and Cherokee Counties combined for 229 alcohol-induced arrests in 2022. Of those, 228 were for driving under the influence.

In 2022, there were a total of 161 alcohol-involved crashes with 12 fatalities in Angelina, Polk and Cherokee Counties.

Whether it’s spring break or not, we should all heed the advice to not mix drinking and driving. But spring break is a good reminder — especially for youths — that if you’ve had anything to drink, you don’t need to get behind the wheel.

In the same packet, it said alcohol-impaired driving deaths are at 22% in Angelina, 20% in Polk and 29% in Cherokee. The statewide total is 25% according to the Robert Wood Johnson County Health Rankings.

Unfortunately, one of the sad realities of working for a newspaper is knowing firsthand that it happens in our community whether local kids want to admit it or not.

We’ll echo what the Texas Department of Department said.

Drive Sober. No regrets.

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