Tag: Rick Perry

The Story: On Tuesday, July 27, Texans in the 6th Congressional district, near Dallas, voted in a special election to the fill the House seat...

The Story: This week, in a two day television extravaganza, the top twenty candidates for the Democratic Party's nomination for President come together for a...

For a manic stretch of 2012, we all believed seriatim that Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain were the likeliest Republican nominee. And if you were honest about it, you’d admit that the media itself drove much of this process. We got interested in a candidate and inflated their prominence; then challenged them more aggressively and dug hard into their record; then moved on to the next one. Those were the 10 presidential campaigns, give or take, dominated by what that era called the mainstream media. And one of the reasons the political press got Trump so wrong is that his campaign didn’t work like that. When we saw his early polls, we thought he was the flavor of the month. His support didn’t rise and fall. But it seems to be a defining feature of the new movement politics. This is a snowball, not a narrative. Well, it could mean that the theory motivating most of the 20-plus candidates — that they should make their cases and wait for their turns in the sun of public attention — is just wrong.

I consider West Texas my home and enjoy occasional trips back for high school reunions and such, but due to the political winds blowing in such a different direction from where I live now, I’ve had second thoughts about returning. I am concerned that some of my friends, especially when lubricated with libations, might want to talk politics and I’d rather not. The Democratic Party once dominated here, but the last time more Texans voted for a Democratic presidential candidate than a Republican one was in 1976, when the Texanist was a ten-year-old and you were about to depart for northeastern climes. Only 27 out of a possible 254 counties voted for Hillary Clinton. Roberts County, way up at the tip-top of the Panhandle, is even said to be the most pro–Donald Trump county in the country. The winds in your current home blow solidly blue. Massachusetts went with Clinton over Trump 60 percent to 33 percent. The Texanist did not know that.) At the end of the day, we’re all Texans (even Texans who happen to currently reside in the Northeast), and we all hail from the place whose official motto is “Friendship.” As long as that mantle is lived up to, no matter the winds that fill your sails, we’ll all be better off. The Texanist foresees your visit with old West Texas friends going smoothly.

President Donald Trump has eased restrictions that have stifled innovation in the country’s power sector. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently revised standardson coal ash disposal in a move decried by inflexible tree huggers but welcomed by the utility companies for whom the legislation has proved unnecessarily burdensome – to the tune of a $30 million a year—and by states, who have been unfairly constrained by the strict federal standards. The initiative comes just a few weeks into Andrew Wheeler’s tenure at the helm of the EPA, and should ease conservatives’ concernsthat Wheeler wouldn’t share former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s zeal for overhauling the agency and scrapping useless regulations which have been handicapping American companies. The excessive regulations Obama held back crucial technological developments, such as high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) plants designed to make fossil fuels more climate friendly. This administration’s new, more pragmatic approach to energy policy and regulation will allow America to spearhead a fresh wave of innovation, developing ‘clean coal’ technologies to be used around the world. There’s a significant market for this technology, as demand for coal-powered energy is on the rise in developing nations, especially the emerging economies of Southeast Asia. Keeping in mind the 25% of people in developing countries who still live without electricity, the Trump administration has been making a global push for the wider implementation of HELE tech through a ‘Fossil Alliance’.Energy Secretary Rick Perry outlineda proposed alliance would bring together developed nations which already possess advanced HELE and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology with emerging market economies hoping to benefit from that expertise to industrialize more cleanly— including some of the biggest coal consumers in the world, such as India and Vietnam. The World Bank made the move to change its funding guidelines despiteBrazil and other emerging economies’ arguments that the developing world should be allowed to use whatever resources they deem necessary to catch up with advanced economies. As one activist for clean energy described it, these tax credits could “change the equation” by creating a viable carbon capture industry which will be able to sustain itself without government support in a few years. The latest policy development from the EPA is yet another encouraging sign that, while America takes its responsibility to protect the environment seriously, it is determined to do so without putting American businesses or developing countries at a disadvantage.

The Story: The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), an arm of the electricity industry, has published a "reliability assessment" that takes an optimistic view...