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Cartoon of the day

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Cartoon of the day

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Only in America

Many faculty members in Texas are opposed to SB 11, also known as the “campus carry” law [ht: sm]. The law, which was signed in June by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, provides that license holders may carry concealed handguns in university buildings and classrooms, extending the reach of a previous law that allowed concealed handguns on university grounds.

One of them has now taken his opposition to the law a step further.

A longtime economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin is leaving the school, saying  the state’s new campus carry law — which makes it legal for some Texans to carry concealed handguns into college classrooms beginning next August — has “substantially enhanced” the chances of a shooting.

“With a huge group of students my perception is that the risk that a disgruntled student might bring a gun into the classroom and start shooting at me has been substantially enhanced by the concealed-carry law,” economics professor emeritus Daniel Hamermesh, who has been at UT since the mid-90s, wrote in a letter announcing his departure. “Out of self-protection I have chosen to spend part of next Fall at the University of Sydney, where, among other things, this risk seems lower.”

Cartoon of the day

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Cartoon of the day

Special mention

 

Cartoon of the day

Special mention

 

Cartoon of the day

Special mention

 

Only in America

 

Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, has been SCREWED.

As Rebecca Leber [ht: sm] reports,

As ExxonMobil’s CEO, it’s Rex Tillerson’s job to promote the hydraulic fracturing enabling the recent oil and gas boom, and fight regulatory oversight. The oil company is the biggest natural gas producer in the U.S., relying on the controversial drilling technology to extract it.

The exception is when Tillerson’s $5 million property value might be harmed. Tillerson has joined a lawsuit that cites fracking’s consequences in order to block the construction of a 160-foot water tower next to his and his wife’s Texas home.

Meanwhile, Lisa Song, Jim Morris, and David Hasemyer report that air emissions from oil and gas development in Texas, especially in the Eagle Ford Shale area, are creating a natural and human disaster. Among their findings:

• Texas’ air monitoring system is so flawed that the state knows almost nothing about the extent of the pollution in the Eagle Ford. Only five permanent air monitors are installed in the 20,000-square-mile region, and all are at the fringes of the shale play, far from the heavy drilling areas where emissions are highest.

• Thousands of oil and gas facilities, including six of the nine production sites near the Buehrings’ house, are allowed to self-audit their emissions without reporting them to the state. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which regulates most air emissions, doesn’t even know some of these facilities exist. An internal agency document acknowledges that the rule allowing this practice “[c]annot be proven to be protective.”

• Companies that break the law are rarely fined. Of the 284 oil and gas industry-related complaints filed with the TCEQ by Eagle Ford residents between Jan. 1, 2010, and Nov. 19, 2013, only two resulted in fines despite 164 documented violations. The largest was just $14,250. (Pending enforcement actions could lead to six more fines).

• The Texas legislature has cut the TCEQ’s budget by a third since the Eagle Ford boom began, from $555 million in 2008 to $372 million in 2014. At the same time, the amount allocated for air monitoring equipment dropped from $1.2 million to $579,000.

• The Eagle Ford boom is feeding an ominous trend: A 100 percent statewide increase in unplanned, toxic air releases associated with oil and gas production since 2009. Known as emission events, these releases are usually caused by human error or faulty equipment.

• Residents of the mostly rural Eagle Ford counties are at a disadvantage even in Texas, because they haven’t been given air quality protections, such as more permanent monitors, provided to the wealthier, more suburban Barnett Shale region near Dallas-Fort Worth.

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