Sleepless in Midland

ERCOT -- Texas' fair weather friend

This seems like a you-had-one-job joke. Energy is reliable in Texas so long as the temperature is within the comfort zone, but not so much in extreme heat or cold. The Energy Reliability Council of Texas is a fair weather friend.

During this time of frigid temperatures -- falling to as low as one degree above zero in Midland -- energy has been anything but reliable as thousands of households have been without electricity.

Texans our outraged, and politicians are on alert. 'This is unacceptable.' Gov. Greg Abbott calls for reform of Electric Reliability Council of Texas:

“Reviewing the preparations and decisions by ERCOT is an emergency item so we can get a full picture of what caused this problem and find long-term solutions,” Abbott said.

Meanwhile, ERCOT helpfully explains:

ERCOT is restoring load as fast as we can in a stable manner. Generating units across fuel types continue to struggle with frigid temperatures.

They're probably doing the job the best they can. However, if the best they can do isn't good enough, it may be time for someone else to do the job.

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3:25 PM 2/16/2021

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Building a bigger wall - Gov Abbott expands list of excluded visitors to those arriving through border with Louisiana

Texas Governor Abbott is still at it. Last week Executive Order No. GA-11 mandated quarantine for travelers arriving at airports in Texas from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans.

He closed the roadway loophole with a new executive order GA-12 which expands the uninvited list to include the following:

Every person who enters the State of Texas through roadways from Louisiana,or from any other state as may be proclaimed hereafter, shall be subject to mandatory self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time of entry into Texas or the duration of the person’s presence in Texas, whichever is shorter.

Furthermore, his Proclamation of 3/30/2020 expanded the previous air travel order to include people arriving from the following cities and states:

State of California;
State of Louisiana;
State of Washington;
City of Atlanta, Georgia;
City of Chicago, Illinois;
City of Detroit, Michigan; and
City of Miami, Florida.

Don't mess with Texas.

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2:32 PM 3/30/2020

Build a wall -- Texas Governor orders people flying in from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or New Orleans subject to mandatory 14 day quarantine and face fine or jail time for violation

This is huge.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Executive Order No. GA-11 relating to airport screening and self-quarantine during the COVID-19 disaster which subjects airport entries to possible quarantine.

The press release can be found here: Governor Abbott Issues Executive Order Mandating 14-Day Quarantine For Travelers Arriving From New York Tri-State Area, New Orleans. Excerpt:

Those entering Texas as their final destination from the designated areas will use a form from DPS to designate their quarantine location. DPS special agents will conduct unannounced visits to designated quarantine locations to verify compliance. Failure to comply with this order is considered a criminal offense that is punishable by up to a $1,000 fine, up to 180 days in jail, or both.

And get this:

Each person covered under this order to self quarantine shall be responsible for all associated costs, including transportation, lodging, food, and medical care.

Don't mess with Texas.

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1:17 PM 3/29/2020

Vote yes for amendment prohibiting Texas state income tax

Texas voters are slowly turning Texas blue with the influx of new Texas residents and a determined effort by Democrats.

While the state is still mostly Republican it's probably a good time to make it harder for lawmakers to install a state income tax.

Next month Texas voters will have the opportunity to vote on amendments to the Texas constitution, and the Houston Chronicle helpfully summarizes them in Voter guide: 10 Texas constitutional amendments on Nov. 5 ballots.

Here's what they say about Proposition 4:

What it says: “The constitutional amendment prohibiting the imposition of an individual income tax, including a tax on an individual’s share of partnership and unincorporated association income.”

What it means: Texas has long maintained its anti-income tax position. Current law says that an income tax can be proposed but must be voted on before going into effect. In the past, voters have blocked such attempts at the ballot box.

Proposition 4 would change the state’s constitution and impose an explicit ban on an income tax. If legislators want to remove that ban at any point in the future, they would need another constitutional amendment to do it.

Supporters say this is a symbolic gesture demonstrating Texans’ commitment to a low-tax economy. Opponents say the anti-tax bar is already high, and raising it even higher cuts off a stream of revenue that the state could someday need.

The state of Texas has a high sales tax (around 8%). And that's something many of us don't particularly like. But bringing it down would be a herculean task. And if lawmakers ever did try to implement an income tax, it would be in addition to the sales tax, not as a replacement.

It's not to early to stop any state income tax in its tracks.

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2:36 PM 10/14/2019

Traffic Jams in Texas -- Austin is the worst

Houstonpress.com is boasting about Houston's ranking as 2nd worst traffic congestion among large cities in Texas in Houston Traffic Is Not Nearly as Bad as You Think. Here's their explanation:

First, the rankings in Texas. Austin is actually the worst at 25 percent, Houston is second at 23 percent followed by DFW (18), San Antonio (17), McAllen (17) and El Paso (15). Houston, Dallas and San Antonio saw 1 percent decreases in 2018 over 2017. The other cities remained the same.

The numbers represent percentage of wasted commuter time because of traffic congestion and came from The TomTom Traffic Index -- measured with this methodology:

The congestion level percentages represent the measured amount of extra travel time experienced by drivers across the entire year. We start by establishing a baseline of travel times during uncongested, free flow conditions across each road segment in each city. We then analyze travel times across the entire year (24/7) for each city – and compare this information against free flow periods to derive extra travel time.

An overall congestion level of 36% means that the extra travel time is 36% more than an average trip would take during uncongested conditions. Average times are of actual taken trips, across every vehicle in the entire network, 24/7. Travel times in free-flow (uncongested) conditions are not based on speed limits but on actual trips made.

Alas, the fair city of Midland, Texas, failed to make the population cut for inclusion. But most locals will agree that the biggest time waster of all in this city is school zones.

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3:00 PM 8/26/2019

The way Dallas Morning News sees West Texas

A left leaning newspaper in a left leaning metro area looks beyond it's boundaries and sees a cartoon. My word processor counted 1,013 words in this article, so if the old saw about words and pictures is close to accurate, that's worth one picture.

In Wonder whatever happened to traditional conservative values? Look no further than West Texas the picture Roy R. Reynolds draws if of a high school:

If West Texas were a high school, Lubbock would be the star athlete and Amarillo the class favorite. El Paso would be out behind the gym, smoking cigarettes with more dangerous friends named "Juarez" and "New Mexico."

Midland and Odessa would be the rich kids running student council.

How about the matter of perspective?

The matter of perspective is why West Texas cities, towns, farms and ranches need to band together to create a political force in the state. The state population is 29 million and growing rapidly, mostly in the urban centers on the eastern side of the state.

Actually, if one looks closely at the local government entities in Midland one sees a bluish hue. "Tax and spend" is the unspoken mantra. And with the annual high income stream from sales tax revenue -- which always seems to surprise them -- their main problem is how to spend the money.

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3:14 PM 7/29/2019

Planning to retire in Texas? Check out this ranking

There are people moving to Texas at a steady rate, and that's not including all those migrants massing at the Southern border just looking for a better economic environment than the one they left, or as it's called now, asylum.

So it's interesting to see this comparison chart. It purports to rank the 50 states for retirement, not necessarily for job prospects. Titled These are the best and worst states for retirement it gives us a full ranking of each state with six categories.

Texas is ranked 17 overall. The other categories are affordability (24), crime (37), culture (50), weather (4), and wellness (13).

The two that jump out at this denizen of West Texas are culture (50) and weather (4). So by their measure, Texas ranks dead last for culture. Boy! Tell that to all those local community theaters and orchestras in the state. Actually, the article says this about culture:

Culture was calculated using the number of arts, entertainment and recreation establishments per capita, restaurants per capita and adults 65 and older per capita from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Well, I've always said that few come to Texas for the food. But they are actually measuring the number for restaurants, not the quality of the food.

What about the weather for which they ranked Texas number 4? At the time of this writing, our little spot in the sun is experiencing a temperature of 94°F which is hot, but it's a little bit cooler than it has been. Once the temp gets over 100 you can really feel it, and bringing the temperature down isn't cheap.

Texas ranked #37 in the crime category. But anyone planning to come to Texas to commit crimes should keep in mind that only 25% of Texas prisons are air conditioned. (Source.)

Anyway, it was an interesting chart. BTW, Nebraska ranked number 1 overall, so there you go.

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3:53 PM 7/12/2019

Big Texas property tax reform bill won't reduce taxes but it might slow the increase

Governor Abbott campaigned on property tax reform and no doubt got a lot of votes just for that. But now that the bill is approaching his desk it's looking like the give and take between the parties wanting higher taxes or lower taxes has resulted in a compromise.

Dallas Morning News provides some detail at Texas House passes massive property tax overhaul, moving one step closer to Gov. Abbott’s desk. Their summary follows:

Here's the latest version of Senate Bill 2 as passed by the House:

3.5% revenue cap on local governments. This means cities and counties can collect only up to 3.5% more in property tax revenue than they did the previous year. The original versions of the House and Senate bills had a 2.5% cap. Local governments can exceed the cap if they hold an election and voters approve the additional tax hike. Currently, they can increase property tax revenue by up to 8 percent a year without the threat of an election.

Schools districts included under the cap, but only "symbolically." In the original versions of the bills, school districts were also included under the 2.5% cap -- which the House Ways & Means Committee changed to 2% last week. Burrows said that legally, the cap doesn't hold water in their bill and has to be addressed in school funding legislation. The Senate's version of the school funding bill includes a 2.5% cap. School districts make up more than half of a property owner's tax bill.

No exemption for rural and small districts. The original version of the bill excluded small cities and counties that collect less than $15 million in revenue. This was an important carrot for rural Republicans in the Senate to get on board. But the House committee cut the exemption. "All property tax bills big or small deserve property tax reform," Burrows said.

Exemptions for hospital and community college districts. The cap as originally written applied to special taxing districts, which include utility districts, community colleges and hospital districts. House Ways and Means carved out the latter two because of a concern that community college tuition would increase and because hospitals endure high medical inflation costs, Burrows said.

Passage of property tax overhaul tied to passage of House school funding bill. The House's No. 1 priority this session is a massive $9 billion bill that increases funding for schools, gives teachers raises and rewrites how school districts receive money. The bill ensures that if the school funding bill does not pass, the property tax bill doesn't go into effect. Burrows said this is significant because the school bill also includes property tax relief, and capping cities and counties alone isn't enough to make a meaningful impact.

Every year, our own city council here in Midland, Texas, puts an item in its budget for lobbying. It would be interesting to see how much money various municipalities spent lobbying to keep taxes high.

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10:46 AM 5/1/2019

Happy Texas Independence Day 3-2-2019

It's probably politically incorrect to display pride on Texas Independence Day. Tough luck, SWJ's.

The history of Texas was taught in state public schools at one time. Now there's probably a watered down version about a border dispute.

But that time in history was filled with tension for the residents of territory. And they had to flee for their lives until they had to take a stand and fight the good fight. After enduring some horribly atrocities, the Texans prevailed, and Texas became an independent nation.

Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Hooray for Texas, and happy Independence Day!

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2:48 PM 3/2/2019

Liberal Republican Seliger bumped from committee chair

In the last election for a Texas state senate seat, a conservative, small government Republican named Mike Canon ran against an incumbent liberal Republican named Kel Seliger. Seliger won.

As we all know, defeating an incumbent is difficult. But when asked, some of his voters contended that he was "for the children" as if his opponents were "against the children." One friend of mine voted for the incumbent Seliger with the lame excuse that a newcomer to the state senate wouldn't be able to get anything done.

My own vote for Mike Canon was based on my hope that as a low tax candidate he would support the governor's proposed measures favorable to property owners on ad valorem taxes. Those proposed measures are still hanging out there.

But Mr. Seliger was part of the opposition. Empowertexans awarded Seliger a "C" for 2017, his highest ranking during his career in which he earned an "F" overall due to his failure in the area of fiscal responsibility.

Anyway, this long introduction leads us to the most recent development. Seliger got bumped from the Senate Higher Education Committee of which he was the chairman. He was appointed chairman of a newly formed Agriculture Committee. Then Seliger made a rude remark on a radio show, and the next thing he knew, he was booted off that committee, too. Read all about it at Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pulls Sen. Kel Seliger’s chairmanship after Seliger suggested Patrick aide kiss his “back end”.

Well, as for my friend's opposition to a newcomer because he wouldn't be able to accomplish anything, sometimes an incumbent's accomplishments amount to less than nothing. Hopefully, Seliger's challengers will have better luck next time.

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4:03 PM 1/26/2019

Huge West Texas ranch on the auction block

This came from dallasnews.com. Link: Sprawling West Texas ranch up for grabs has more than 37,000 acres:

A huge West Texas ranch up for grabs is expected to fetch more than $40 million at sale.

The KC7 Ranch sprawls over 37,000 acres near Interstate 10 in Reeves and Jeff Davis counties in the foothills of the Davis Mountains. The historic property includes a nearly 10,000 square-foot lodge that dates from the 1890s. There is a rock barn and corrals plus a second house.

The property is being sold out of bankruptcy from holdings of Fort Worth oilman Thomas Darden. Dallas' Icon Global Group has been hired by the court to sell the property to the highest bidder.

The ranch was previously offered for sale for more than $50 million. Sealed bid sales for the ranch are due Nov. 30.

Icon Global Group of Dallas is the real estate agent in the transaction, and here's a peak at their web post for the property.

It certainly looks like a nice place. If were a billionaire I might be tempted to make a bid. But knowing there would be property taxes due to two counties might be enough to dissuade me. And one thing a buyer would have to take into the transaction is knowledge that it would be hard to unload.

Via San Antonio Express News.

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1:51 PM 10/18/2018

Lawrence Wright provides a colorful word picture of the first gusher in a primer about the Texas oil industry

Lawrence Wright did the historical research and brings it up to date for readers of The New Yorker. Read it at The Dark Bounty of Texas Oil. Here's a excerpt in the part about the early days with a colorful picture of the first gusher:

Around the turn of the twentieth century, near Beaumont—on the Gulf Coast, close to the Louisiana state line—there was a sulfurous hill called Sour Spring Mound. Natural gas was perpetually seeping to the surface, and schoolboys sometimes set the hill afire. Patillo Higgins, a disreputable local businessman who had lost an arm in a gunfight with a deputy sheriff, became convinced that oil was trapped below the mound. At the time, wells weren’t drilled; they were essentially pounded into the earth, using a heavy bit that was repeatedly lifted and dropped, chiselling its way through the strata. There was quicksand beneath Sour Spring Mound, and it confounded any attempt to bore a stable hole. Nevertheless, the persistent Higgins forecast that oil would be struck at a thousand feet beneath the surface—a figure he simply made up.

In 1898, Higgins hired a mining engineer, Captain Anthony F. Lucas, to help him dig wells at Sour Spring Mound. Lucas’s first effort delved only five hundred and seventy-five feet before the pipe collapsed. He decided to try a novel device called a rotary bit, which turned out to be more suitable for penetrating soft layers. The drillers at the site also discovered that by pumping mud down the hole a kind of concrete formed, which buttressed the sides. These innovations created the modern drilling industry.

Lucas and his team hoped to establish a well that could produce fifty barrels of oil a day. On January 10, 1901, at a thousand and twenty feet—almost precisely the depth predicted by Higgins’s wild guess—the well suddenly vomited mud, and then ejected six tons of drilling pipe clear over the top of the derrick. Nobody had seen anything like this, and it was terrifying. In the unnerving silence that followed, the drilling team, drenched in mud, crept back to the site and began cleaning up debris. Then they heard a roar from deep in the earth, from an era millions of years ago. More mud flew up, followed by rocks and gas and then by oil, which spouted a hundred and fifty feet into the air: a black fountain surging from the arterial wound that the drillers had made. It was the greatest oil discovery in history. For the next nine days, until the well was capped, the gusher spurted into the air a hundred thousand barrels of oil a day—an output that exceeded the production of all the other wells in America combined. After the first year of operation, the well, which Higgins named Spindletop, was producing seventeen million barrels a year.

It's a long article, and that was just a taste. The article published in the print edition of the January 1, 2018, issue was titled “The Glut Economy.” Apparently, they thought "The Dark Bounty of Texas Oil" would be more appealing to the web audience.

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3:04 PM 12/26/2017

Monument destroyers best not target Texas heroes

After watching videos of lefties toppling Civil War monuments one has to wonder why they haven't targeted Texas heroes. The Texas Revolution, when cast in a light least favorable to the winners, could be described as a war between whites and browns whereby the whites stole a large swath of land. By today's standards that could be made to sound like racism straight up. And here we are today with a president who ran partly on the promise of a border wall.

I joked with a friend in the early days of the Obama administration that it was a good thing Barack Obama didn't know much about history. Otherwise, he would be apologizing to Mexico for that business at San Jacinto and offering to give back Texas.

In any event, those people are probably right who suggest that if the left gets an inch in the Civil War monuments battle, they'll take a mile and go after America's founding fathers. If they come after Texas' founding fathers they'll likely hear, "Remember the Alamo," for the first time in their history-free lives.

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10:59 AM 8/17/2017

P.S. The "Come and Take It" flag was used in the Texas Revolution, too. We might see it again if lefties come for Sam Houston.

ACLU advising people not to go to Texas -- not bad advice for card carrying members of ACLU

There was a time long ago when the ACLU might have been counted on to defend classical liberal values:

Classical liberalism" is the term used to designate the ideology advocating private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade.

Those days are gone. Lately the ACLU has gone all-in for the lefty agenda. And now their boogeyman is the Texas law prohibiting city governments from passing ordinances that would prohibit police from inquiring about immigration status of suspects, i.e., the infamous sanctuary city law recently signed by Governor Gregg Abbott.

But ACLU's advice to people to stay away from Texas may not be such a bad thing. There has been an influx of folks moving to Texas from failing Democrat held states. And the fear is that they don't understand what made the states of their former occupancy so bad. And they might bring their politics with them -- a desire for a big state government with high taxes, heavy regulations, and oodles of freebies.

So anyone in the ACLU's audience who thinks that way should probably heed the advice and not mess with Texas.

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10:39 AM 5/10/2017

Proposed in Texas -- no property tax hike without voter approval

We touched on this yesterday when talking about a sales tax vote in Midland, Texas, last Saturday that got rejected by voters.

This time it's the movement to require voter approval of property tax hikes without them having to navigate through the obstacles set up by the legislature.

EmpowerTexans.com tells us about it in Legislative Priority: Give Voters A Say On Excessive Tax Hikes. Currently, only the school districts are required to seek voter approval of a tax hike over the rollback limit. For the other taxing entities, EmpowerTexans.com says this:

Under current law, taxpayers only have one option—a burdensome petition drive.

In both rural and urban areas, this onerous process requires that taxpayers collect an overwhelming number of voter signatures over a very short period of time – and hire lawyers to protect their validity – before a public vote on the proposed tax increase is triggered.

Politicians routinely instruct their staff to fight and discredit these efforts. They also spend taxpayer money on lawyers to resist holding public votes, forcing citizens to file expensive lawsuits.

Upon closer review, it becomes obvious that state laws pertaining to the citizen-petition process were designed to thwart voters in favor of money-hungry governments. These petition requirements should be replaced with automatic elections.

Texas Governor Gregg Abbott is very much in favor of property tax reform. Here's part of his State of the State where he talks about it in this Youtube video. In it he refers to Senator Bettencourt who can be found here.

Other advocates of giving more power to voters include Sarah Davis of Houston who has introduced several bills on the topic. One is HB 1144 which, if passed, would extend the restrictions on the school districts to all taxing units for proposed increases over the rollback tax rate.

"Rollback tax rate" -- weasel words, as that rate is set by the legislature which has its own budget challenges, and one might fear that they would be sympathetic to other entities dependent on tax revenue. But Ms. Davis proposed two other statutes which would peg the rollback rate to the consumer price index during the year preceding the proposed tax hike. That would be HB 1146 and HB 1147.

Other legislators have proposed similar statutes. Go to the list and do a page search for "valorem" to see them all.

All that having been said, hundreds of bills get proposed in each Texas legislative session, and only a fraction of them get passed. So we'll have to wait and see what they do with these important issues. Having Abbott on board certainly can't hurt.