The Midday Brief: March 5, 2010

Your afternoon reading:

• “The changes, proposed in the wake of legislation last year, would reduce charges depending on a person's income level. The qualifying level would be set at 125 percent of the poverty level, and the fines would be progressive depending on how far a person's income is below that level.” — DPS announces changes to Driver Responsibility Program fines — Texas Politics

• “Texas’s own state climatologist can find no scientific basis in his state’s effort to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public.” — Texas State Climatologist Disputes State’s Denier Petition: Greenhouse Gases ‘Clearly Present A Danger To The Public Welfare’ —The Wonk Room

• “The amount budgeted by the Texas Legislature for basic probation funding in 2010 has fallen short, and state and local probation officials are scrambling to find a solution.” - Local TX probation faces large, unexpected shortfall – Grits for Breakfast

• “He lists as his political heroes Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan.” — Who The Heck Is George Clayton? — Notes from the Lege

• “The states that made the cut in the $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition were Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee.” — Education Finalists Picked — Wall Street Journal

New in The Texas Tribune:

• “If and when he withdraws his name from consideration for reelection, the chairs of the ten county Republican parties in SD-22 will vote to choose a successor to put on the ballot. Darren Yancy, who lost to Averitt on Tuesday, would like to get that support, but Sibley is working the chairs, too.” — 2010: Sibley, Standing By — The Texas Tribune  

• “Texas' senior care industry — still reeling from federal Medicare cuts — may face another financial blow, as the state considers reducing Medicaid provider rates to balance the budget in the face of a $10 billion-plus shortfall.” — A Medicaid Mess — The Texas Tribune

• “For the fourth event in our TribLive series, I interviewed Rick Perry's pollster and George W. Bush's former strategist about the results on primary night: why the governor avoided a runoff, what KBH could have done differently, whether the Tea Party is really a force to be reckoned with, and how Bill White will be caricatured on the road to November.” —Video: A Conversation with Mike Baselice and Matthew Dowd —The Texas Tribune