Tag: Texas

The women are still there. The last two clinics served 3,000 people annually. According to the New York Times, by September, there might be as few as six clinics that perform abortions in the entire Lone Star state.

When politicians tell you that their position on abortion doesn't matter, you might want to suggest that they take a look at the headlines.

BOULDER — There are a lot of opinions on how far hydraulic fracturing should be from schools. One resident near a drilling operation a few hundred yards from Red Hawk Elementary School in Erie said he was probably the only one on his block who didn't mind the noise or environmental and health risks Encana Corp.'s project brought with it. Still, in a perfect world, he said he'd prefer it were a mile away.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall has a new routine. He wakes up every morning, puts on a suit and tie and then implores his colleagues on Capitol Hill to pass the wind production tax credit.

Congress didn't just agree to keep the government's lights on through the rest of the fiscal year. It is also ensuring it has the option of doing so with energy-sucking incandescent 100-watt bulbs.

Public school districts in Texas as in Colorado this year have filed suit to stop the cash-strapped state from raiding the education budget. Coloradans will be interested in the latest developments in the Lone Star state. A proposed series of tax credits for the oil industry would drain even more funds from the schools there. The credits would give back roughly $150 million to oil refinery operators, part of a "business friendly" policy championed by GOP governor-turned-presidential-candidate Rick Perry. Adding insult to injury, the state is asking certain school districts to give back money they've already received in order to fund the oil-company give-backs.

Election politics analysts have been watching for signs that Texas Governor Rick Perry will jump into the GOP presidential primary. Some have argued he could replace Mitt Romney as clear frontrunner. Perry has good hair and is charismatic, like Romney, but he has never even lightly endorsed gay rights and will not have to defend an indefensible effort to socialize health care. On August 6th Perry is hosting a big right-wing evangelical Christian prayerfest in Texas. That might win him the write-in vote in the evangelical Iowa presidential caucuses even if he doesn't declare himself as a candidate, but to non-evangelical America-- the America beyond Republican Iowa and Focus-on-the-Family Colorado Springs-- this event might permanently disqualify Perry for national office. It marks him as a magical-thinking provincial governor who believes Jesus concerns himself with solving problems like the debt ceiling.

As Colorado oil and gas officials continue to resist attempts by some members of the state’s congressional delegation to pass federal law compelling the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, Texas, of all places, could soon establish a national model for fracking transparency.

The Seattle Times editorial board sits literally across the street from Amazon.com headquarters. It has watched the famous online retailer grow and grow and grow. Today the newspaper editors call out their neighbor for the "slick strategy" it has adopted in dodging sales taxes "all across America." The company is "the internet's widest and deepest source of products," the editors write, "which makes it too big to be excused from its obligations." It's a sentiment sure to be shared among the Colorado lawmakers who tried and failed last year to begin collecting sales taxes on Amazon purchases made in the state.

The New York Times reports this morning on the unthinkable—that’s right, Texans may elect a Democratic governor. Republican incumbent Rick Perry argues that his pro-business,...