The latest state agencies news from The Texas Tribune.
The politics and rhetoric of the Environmental Protection Agency's multi-front battle with Texas make for a grand spectacle. Behind the scenes, however, there are signs that big industrial plants are trying to move past the stalemate on their own, talking with federal regulators and, in some cases, preparing to meet the demands of the agency. Full Story
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The Sunset Advisory Commission met today and recommended that the Railroad Commission be renamed the Oil and Gas Commission, and that its top structure shrink from three elected commissioners to one. Full Story
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Gov. Rick Perry wants an end to "sanctuary cities," but in a press conference Wednesday morning, he didn't name specific cities he wants Texas lawmakers to target. Nor did he address whether the Department of Public Safety's policy of state troopers not inquiring about the immigration status of people they pull over should be changed. Full Story
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Texas prisoners have made and received more than 4.7 million telephone calls and sent and received 1.8 million e-mails since 2009, when the state became the last in the nation to allow inmates phone and e-mail use. But all those calls and messages haven’t generated the amount of revenue the state expected. The issue is balancing greater access for prisoners and their friends and family and the need to ensure security. Full Story
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The Texas Legislature today starts its 140-day effort to puzzle out a massive budget deficit, political redistricting, immigration and a slew of other gnarly problems. The budget issues came into focus Monday with new numbers from the comptroller, who says the state is recovering, slowly, from the recession. But first, legislators will get organized, voting on new rules, a new Speaker, and getting sworn in. Full Story
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Police at the Capitol say the state's lawmakers and their guests will be safe under the pink dome as the 82nd Legislature gets underway tomorrow. But lawmakers are encouraging vigilance after the Arizona shooting this weekend that left a congresswoman critically injured and 14 others dead. Full Story
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In a press conference announcing a projected $72.2 billion in state revenue in 2012-2013, Comptroller Susan Combs explains why her previous estimates have been off target. Full Story
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The state will have $77.3 billion in general revenue during the next two-year budget cycle, Comptroller Susan Combs said this morning. The comptroller estimated the Rainy Day Fund will have $9.4 billion in it at the end of the 2012-2013 biennium and that the size of the current deficit is $4.3 billion. Full Story
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The Texas criminal justice system is increasingly the destination for mischief-makers, some as young as 6, in the state’s public schools, according to a new study, which sheds light on what is a rapidly growing part of school budgets: campus security. Full Story
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The 82nd Texas Legislature convenes in Austin this week, and while it’s not as much fun as the circus — usually — it’s more important and does have its share of comedy and drama. Full Story
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The Texas Forensic Science Commission heard testimony from four fire experts today to gather evidence about the reliability of the arson investigation that led to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Half said investigators got it right, and half said they were wrong. Full Story
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The state has shut down Daystar Residential Inc. in Manvel, the facility where The Texas Tribune and the Houston Chronicle revealed that staff had forced young girls with disabilities to fight each other. Full Story
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Watch the Innocence Project livestream of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which gathers today in Austin to question arson experts on the evidence used to hand Cameron Todd Willingham the death penalty in 1992. Full Story
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Advocates for shuttering Texas' institutions for people with disabilities say they have a big plus in their column this session: the state’s giant budget crunch. Full Story
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In Texas, the largest oil producer in the United States, the demand for carbon dioxide is soaring, because it can help squeeze oil out of formations deep in the earth. That's why the idea of of capturing it and pumping it underground is gaining traction in the power sector. It sounds like an exercise in environmental idealism: Take the heat-trapping gas — belched prolifically from coal plants, which generate 45 percent of the nation’s electricity — and bury it, benefiting the atmosphere and combating global climate change. Of course, it is something of an environmental conundrum that stowing the greenhouse gas underground can also help to produce more fossil fuels. Full Story
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Mental health providers are bracing themselves for brutal budget cuts. Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports. Full Story
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A new word cloud visualizes the bills filed so far according to their Texas Legislative Council assigned categories. After education, which accounts for more than a quarter of the bills, the top categories are elections, criminal procedure, vehicles and traffic, and taxation. Full Story
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Lawmakers are waiting for Comptroller Susan Combs to forecast exactly how much money the state will collect between now and August 2013 so they can write a two-year budget that spends no more than that. It's not exactly like opening the envelopes at the Oscars, but the Capitol community will be hanging on her every word. If history is a guide, her estimate of revenues will be closer to the bull's eye than the Legislature's estimate of spending. But this is a dark art; accuracy can be elusive. Full Story
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A wide-ranging coalition of education, criminal justice, religious and charitable groups today called on Texas lawmakers to use more than a machete to balance the state budget this year. Full Story
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The jail conditions expert and professor at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs on why maintaining treatment programs that keep offenders in their communities and reducing some of the harsh, long-term jail sentences often doled out in Texas' notoriously tough criminal justice system could be more cost-efficient and allow Texas to close prisons. Full Story
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