FRIDAY TOP NEWS LINKS:
Dave Fehling, State Impact Texas
Texas likes to be “business friendly” and as the state legislature considers bills to limit environmental regulation to keep it that way, some economists warn of the longer term consequences.
“It’s not as simple as saying yeah, it’s a negative for everybody and everybody is going to move out of the state if we have more stringent regulation,” said Daniel Millimet, an environmental economist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
The idea that too much regulation can scare off business has been a main thrust of some of the state’s environmental regulators like David Porter, one of the three elected leaders of the Texas Railroad Commission. Speaking last October at oil and gas drillers conference in San Antonio, Porter contended that should Texas succumb to the stricter pollution regulation of the federal government, disaster would follow for the state’s booming drilling industry.
[…] But economists in Texas and other states tell StateImpact that when it comes to creating jobs, there’s no clear evidence that minimizing environmental regulation will help.
[…] What also troubles Levinson is this: if states try to out-do each other to attract new business by relaxing environmental enforcement, it could lead to just what a major federal law passed decades ago was trying to prevent.
“The Clean Air Act in ’70 and ’77 was enacted in part to set national standards so that states wouldn’t compete with each other with this sort of a race to the bottom,” Levinson told StateImpact. Texas has ranked poorly against other states in several measures of air quality, toxic exposure of its residents, and for the total amount of hazardous waste it creates….
(Read and listen to the full story at State Impact Texas)
LOCAL AREA HEADLINES:
- Houston-area firefighters honor West victims (KPRC 2 News)
- Houston Neighborhoods Are Unique Study Case For Air Pollution (KUHF Public Radio)
- Is Memorial Park deal best for Houston? (Houston Chronicle)
- Acting Secretary Of Labor Pushes Minimum Wage Increase in Houston (KUHF Public Radio)
- University of Houston Bans Smoking On Campus (KUHF Public Radio)
- BARC gearing up for sponsored pet adoption weekend (Your Houston News)
- HISD School Choice Fair kicks off Saturday (KPRC 2 News)
- Join the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk (KPRC 2 News)
STATE HEADLINES:
- Bill Would Ensure Free Breakfast for Texas’ Poorest Students (Texas Tribune)
- Legislators Seek Action on Medicaid Fraud Measures (Texas Tribune)
- House Backs Bill Limiting Mail-In Ballot Collection (Texas Tribune)
NATION & WORLD:
- West firefighters honored at memorial (Chron.com)
- House conservatives to push own immigration agenda (Washington Post)
- U.S. Economy Speeds Up, but Less Than Forecast (New York Times)
- Death toll from collapsed Bangladesh building passes 300 (Washington Post)
