A bizarre dognapping case is drawing to a close in Texas, with a contested Shih Tzu returned to its original owners -- and a mayor's political career in ruins.

Last summer, in the small town of Alice, Rudy and Shelly Gutierrez left their pet Puddles with Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez while they went on vacation. The next day, Saenz-Lopez called and told them Puddles was dead and buried. A few months later, a Gutierrez relative spotted the dog at a groomer's -- but Saenz-Lopez refused to return it. The mayor claimed the dog, who she re-named Panchito, had been neglected.

The Gutierrez family filed criminal charges and a civil suit. In January, Saenz-Lopez was indicted on felony counts of tampering with and concealing evidence (that being the dog); a hearing on those charges is set for Monday. In February, after the town's residents began circulating a recall petition, the mayor stepped down. In her resignation letter, she apologized for the trouble and said she did what she thought was best for the animal.

This Thursday, a District Judge ordered the dog returned to the Gutierrez family -- who reportedly "cried with jubilation." Less happily, Saenz-Lopez faces up to 10 years in prison.

Labels: criminal justice, friday dogblogging, texas

Those of us following the disaster on the Gulf Coast know the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave hurricane-displaced families temporary housing that was later found to be contaminated with hazardous formaldehyde. We also know the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dragged its feet before finally studying the trailer contamination and complied with FEMA's demands not to consider long-term impacts like cancer.

Well, it turns out the toxic trailer debacle is part of a bigger story about the ATSDR's failure to protect public health.

The Washington Independent just published a two-part investigation examining what it calls the agency's "questionable approaches" to communities with environmental health concerns. The first installment posted last week examined evidence of cover-ups in ATSDR's health studies of the Great Lakes region (initially uncovered by the Center for Public Integrity) and an eastern Pennsylvania community with unusually high rates of a rare blood cancer. (I've also been covering the Pennsylvania study on my Hometown Hazards blog.)

This week's installment looks at the agency's actions in two Southern communities -- Midlothian, Tx., and Athens, Ga. In Midlothian, the ATSDR considered health effects of air pollution from several industrial facilities at the request of local residents concerned about the rate of birth defects. The agency came up with "indeterminate" findings, but critics of the study -- among them a former CDC epidemiologist -- say the agency used faulty monitoring data from the state and failed to consider key pollutants.

The Athens case involves a health study requested by resident Jill McElheney, who was living across the street from a petroleum tank farm when her 4-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia; subsequent lab tests found their well was contaminated with toxic chemicals linked to the cancer. The ATSDR also came up with inconclusive findings in that study -- but failed to consider a facility less than 200 yards from the sick child's home, ignored air emissions, and declined to talk with the families of five other local children with leukemia who McElheney knew.

The series' conclusion?

The ATSDR's approach to public health studies of environmental sources has proven negligent in all the cases investigated by The Washington Independent. Some members of the local communities say the agency expends energy to make sure no health problem is found.

Labels: ATSDR, birth defects, CDC, FEMA, Georgia, leukemia, polycythemia vera, texas, toxic trailers

Sen. Hillary Clinton squeaked out a winner in the Texas primary showdown yesterday for lots of reasons, including strong organization and a slew of hard-hitting attack ads that drew blood.

The exit polls show four overlapping constituencies were largely responsible for the Clinton victory: seniors, Latinos and those without a college education -- all groups she won by a 2-1 margin -- and of course women, who made up 57% of the electorate and voted for her by an 11 point margin.

Lurking near the bottom of the exit poll questions, however, are some possibly disturbing numbers about the role race and gender played out in Texas.

First, gender. Almost one in four voters -- 24% -- said that gender was "important" in deciding who should be president. But that didn't work against Clinton -- indeed, 61% of those who felt gender was "important" voted for her, and only 39% of them went for Obama.

Race is a different story. Slightly less -- 19%, or one in five voters -- said that race was important in their decision. But of those who felt race was important, 52% voted against Obama and went for Clinton; 47% of those who felt race was "important" went for Obama.

In other words, gender seemed to help Clinton, but race seemed to hurt Obama.

This is in line with the results of exit polls from Super Tuesday, which found almost one in 10 voters openly saying Obama's race was a factor in not voting for him. Those saying Clinton's gender was a factor in opposing her was slightly less (8.5%).

And those are just the people who admitted it.

So the take-away from Texas appears similar to Super Tuesday: sexism and racism are both alive and well -- but race is having a greater impact, to Obama's detriment.

Labels: barack obama, Election 2008, gender, hillary clinton, polls, race and racism, texas

UPDATE: Here's another good Texas results page.

Like other hard-core politicos, I'll be closely following the results of tonight's primary in Texas. But before we get too buried in poll-watching and results-tallying, it's good to step back and look at two "big picture" stories coming out of the Lone Star state:

DEMOCRACY FLOURISHES WHEN PEOPLE HAVE CHOICES: Turnout in Texas has already hit record numbers. As the AP reported yesterday:

The election in Texas is more than half over before primary day. An estimated 60 percent, or 2 million of the 3.3 million total voters, cast their ballots early, Texas Secretary of State Phil Wilson said Monday.

Why the huge turnout? More than anything, it's because there's a real race on. Voters realize their ballot counts.

That backs up what election reform advocates have been saying for years, about the need to make elections more competitive by taking big money out of politics and checking other factors that favor incumbency and lower participation.

THE KATRINA FACTOR: We reported last week on the key role Katrina evacuees will likely play in Texas. Nobody knows the exact numbers, but tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents remain displaced, and the largest share are in Texas.

The irony: Katrina evacuees may play a decisive role in picking a Presidential candidate, even while the campaigns continue to ignore the Gulf Coast recovery.


Still interested in following the horse race? Here's my suggestion: refresh Burnt Orange Report every five minutes for updates, read The Texas Observer for insightful analysis, and listen to Freddie King, La Mafia, Lyle Lovett and Doug Sahm to get in the mood.

Labels: burnt orange report, doug sahm, Election 2008, freddie king, Hurricane Katrina, la mafia, lyle lovett, texas, texas observer, voting rights

The same day South Florida was paralyzed by a massive and still-mysterious power outage following a fire in an electrical substation, Texas narrowly avoided rolling blackouts after a sudden drop in wind in the western part of the state, where wind turbines are concentrated.

It's interesting to compare the immediate news coverage of the two events. The South Florida outage occurred in the service area of Florida Power & Light, which generates most of its power via fossil fuels (natural gas, coal and oil) and the rest via nuclear, and it led to the emergency shutdown of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant. So unusual is it for such a minor event to cause a blackout affecting as many as 2.5 million people that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is considering conducting its own investigation. Yet nowhere in the initial news coverage did we read that the blackout indicates the precarious nature of a traditional centralized power system dependent on fossil fuel-burning and nuclear plants.

Compare that with the report about the Texas near-incident that appeared in the Forth Worth Star-Telegram, which included this comment:

"This is a warning to all those who think that renewable energy is the sole answer [to the state's power needs]," said Geoffrey Gay, an attorney representing Fort Worth and other North Texas municipalities in utility issues. "We can't put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to any form of generation. We need to consider the cost and the reliability issues, in addition to the environmental impact."

In the same story, a spokesperson for the American Wind Energy Association pointed out that the solution is to locate turbines in different places, since the wind is generally blowing somewhere. But we find it interesting that news coverage of an averted blackout triggered by temporary problems with wind generation would raise questions about the reliability of all renewable energy, whereas coverage of an actual blackout in a system based on fossil fuel and nuclear energy didn't immediately raise similar reliability concerns.

Labels: blackouts, energy policy, Florida, texas, turkey point, wind energy

With the March 4 Democratic primaries looming in Texas, much has been made of the Latino vote -- a significant 25% of the Democratic primary electorate there.

But in a close race, the key block may turn out to be a relatively new demographic in the Texas political landscape: Katrina evacuees.

In the wake of the 2005 storms, over a quarter million people -- largely African-American, almost all from Louisiana -- were displaced to Texas. One of the biggest destinations was Houston -- the place where Barbara Bush, while touring the city's hurricane relief centers, famously said of those who had been uprooted, "This is working very well for them."

How big of a factor will Katrina evacuees be? As we note in our recent report on human rights and Katrina, the government isn't keeping good data on how many of Katrina's displaced are still in Texas.

The Washington Post comes to the same conclusion in a piece today, but noted that the number seems to be significant -- and could have a decisive impact on the primary's outcome:

No one knows how many evacuees have registered to vote in Texas or how many will show up at the state's odd mix of primary and caucuses next week, but in interviews across this sprawling city almost everyone indicated an enormous desire to participate -- adding an unknown and potentially pivotal element in a race that polls show is deadlocked between Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Overwhelmingly African American, the evacuees are likely to bolster Obama's already strong support among blacks, who by some estimates could make up as much as 30 percent of the Democratic primary turnout in Texas, which is expected to top 1.5 million. In some urban precincts, evacuees could account for 5 to 10 percent of voters. [emphasis added]

All the more reason for the Democratic contenders to put the Gulf Coast recovery on the 2008 election agenda.

Labels: barack obama, Election 2008, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, hillary clinton, Hurricane Katrina, Southern Politics, texas

An explosion and fire at a Texas oil refinery on Monday injured four workers, and news that the facility would be closed for as long as two months was a factor behind oil prices jumping to more than $100 a barrel. The ALON USA refinery near Big Spring (pop. 25,000) produces about 70,000 barrels a day.

Fortunately, no one was killed in the incident, which occurred on the Presidents' Day holiday. Only one of the injured workers remained hospitalized today and was reportedly in stable condition; a passing motorist also suffered minor injuries when the blast shattered her vehicle's windows. The Dallas-based company, which is majority-owned by ALON Israel Oil, said the investigation into the cause of the blast is still ongoing.

The explosion shook buildings miles away and sent a cloud of black smoke into the sky over Harris County. Nearby residents were asked to stay in their homes to cut down on traffic problems, but at least one woman told reporters she was heading to a friend's home in another community to avoid inhaling toxic fumes.

At this point, little information is available about what sort of chemicals were in the smoke. There were no announcements about potential toxic risks -- or the lack thereof -- from the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA's regional office, the Texas Governor's Office, the Department of State Health Services, or Howard County. ALON's press releases about the incident didn't address toxic risks, either.

But there's clearly the potential for the incident to take a toxic toll on the local community, given the pollutants associated with refinery operations. According to the facility's latest Toxics Release Inventory for 2005, the Big Spring refinery reported total on-site disposal or other releases of almost 170,000 pounds of various toxicants and carcinogens, including 1,023 pounds of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene; 43,233 pounds of benzene; 161 pounds of cumene; 3,560 pounds of cyclohexane; 5,064 pounds of ethylbenzene; 9,374 pounds of ethylene; 2,060 pounds of hydrogen fluoride; 7 pounds of mercury; 7,556 pounds of methanol; 20,497 pounds of N-hexane; 960 pounds of naphthalene; 75 pounds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; 43,375 pounds of propylene; 25,409 pounds of toluene; and 7,504 pounds of xylene.

Labels: environmental health, oil industry, texas

The Texas Supreme Court last week declined to intercede in a dispute between presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the state Democratic Party over Kucinich's refusal to sign a party loyalty oath. As a result, Texas will be allowed to print primary ballots without the candidate's name.

Kucinich objected to the oath stating that a presidential candidate would "fully support" the party's eventual nominee, crossing it out when he filed for a spot on the primary ballot. Kucinich has said he would not support any nominee who would use war as an instrument of foreign policy. After the party excluded him for his refusal to sign, Kucinich sued for ballot access with the help of a rather surprising co-plaintiff: longtime Texas voter and country music legend Willie Nelson, who had this to say about the brouhaha:

"Dennis Kucinich is a strong defender of the Constitution, the national security, and the civil liberties of the American people. He's right to challenge a blind loyalty oath to the Democratic Party because it's un-American. The irony is that the state Party is trying to exclude him from the ballot even though he's the one Democrat who's been the most loyal to this country and to what the Democratic Party should stand for. Dennis's loyalty is to the Constitution of the United States and to the American people -- not to the Texas Democratic Party."

The case now goes before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Kucinich's battle for the Texas ballot is the latest setback to his progressive candidacy. Last week NBC shut him out of its televised Democratic debate, even though it initially invited him to participate. Kucinich blasted the network -- and its corporate ownership -- in his latest Campaign Weekly Update video posted to YouTube:

"General Electric owns NBC, and General Electric is one of the largest nuclear power contractors in the world. They build nuclear power plants, and they also of course want to make sure that Yucca Mountain in Nevada remains a site for the dumping of nuclear waste so they have a place to put the waste that is created by the plants they want to build. GE also owns Raytheon, which is a major defense contractor, and of course they benefit and profit from war. That they have a major network in their portfolio only gives them an opportunity to enhance their power of being able to promote war -- even a war that was based on lies a few years ago -- and being able to promote an energy policy that has been proven to be very expensive and has cost us a lot of jobs, particularly in the industrial Northeast. GE, Raytheon and NBC have also contributed to candidates who are in the debate today. So they have an interest in excluding someone who disagrees with the promotion of war and the promotion of nuclear power, and they have an interest in narrowing the field to those who believe in their policies. This is a real danger to our democracy."

(Photos courtesy of dennis4president.com and www.willienelson.com.)

Labels: Election 2008, texas

A new Amnesty International report on death by lethal injection urges doctors and nurses not to participate in state-ordered executions in breach of their ethical oath to do no harm. It also examines the legal and ethical implications of lethal injection.

The technique involves injecting prisoners with massive doses of three chemicals: sodium thiopental to induce unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide to paralyze muscles, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. But medical experts have raised concerns that if inadequate levels of sodium thiopental are administered, the anesthetic effect can wear off before the prisoner’s heart stops, putting him at risk of excruciating pain as the chemicals enter the veins producing cardiac arrest. And due to the paralysis caused by pancuronium bromide, he would be unable to communicate his distress.

For these reasons, the American Veterinary Medical Association has decided that the chemical cocktail used for euthanizing dogs and cats should not include a paralyzing agent. Texas, which leads the nation in executions, has outlawed pancuronium bromide in the euthanasia of cats and dogs because of the potential for pain -- but it's still using the chemical to kill human beings.

"Medical professionals are trained to work for patients’ well-being, not to participate in executions ordered by the state," said Jim Welsh, Amnesty’s health and human rights coordinator. "The simplest way of resolving the ethical dilemmas posed by using doctors and nurses to kill is by abolishing the death penalty."

Since 1982, at least 1,000 people have been executed by lethal injection around the world: three in Guatemala, four in Thailand, seven in the Philippines, more than 900 in the United States (including about 400 in Texas alone), and up to several thousand in China, where executions remain a state secret. The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to review the constitutionality of lethal injections.

(Photo of lethal injection kit from Amnesty International)

Labels: criminal justice, death penalty, human rights, texas

A bullet pierced the window of KPFT, a Pacifica station in Houston, early Monday morning, Democracy Now reports. The bullet missed DJ Mary Thomas, who was hosting a zydeco music show at the time, by less than two feet. Station staff suspect that the shooting may have been more than just a violent objection to the play list: KPFT's transmitter was previously blown up twice by the Ku Klux Klan. Adding to their worry is the fact that the bullet found at the scene is typically used in AK-47 assault rifles. Police are investigating. Meanwhile, the station is soliciting donations to make repairs to its studio; for more information, click here.

Labels: gun violence, media, texas

Houston is a fast-growing city, and it uses a lot of electricity. Most of that power has come from natural gas to date, which seemed like a good idea when prices were low. But now natural gas prices have shot through the roof, and Houston (along with Texas) consumers are paying much higher utility bills than their neighbors.

The solution? Wind power, say city leaders, as reported in the Houston Chronicle:

Hoping to stabilize a $150 million annual electricity bill, Houston officials have negotiated a contract to ensure that a third of the city's power is generated by wind.

If approved, the contract would make Houston a leader among local governments across the country using renewable energy.

The mandate for wind as part of the annual 1.3 billion kilowatt hours needed to power city buildings, street lights and water plants comes from Mayor Bill White, who has made energy conservation a theme of his tenure.

"It puts us in a definite leadership position," said White, a former chief operating officer at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton administration. "We are ahead of the curve."

City Council could consider the contract as soon as next week.

Purchasing wind power also would reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the city’s electricity usage by 300,000 tons per year.

Labels: energy policy, texas

The Associated Press has identified five coastal areas of the United States that are particularly vulnerable to hurricane disasters -- and four of them are in the South.

The at-risk spots named by the AP are Florida's Lake Okeechobee, imperiled by the breach-prone Herbert Hoover Dike; Galveston, Texas, "sitting uneasily by the Gulf of Mexico, its residents limited to a single evacuation route"; New York City, "long spared a major storm but susceptible to a calamity of submerged subways and refugees caught in horrendous traffic jams"; North Carolina's Outer Banks, where experts warn that a Katrina-sized storm could wipe out 75 percent of the existing barrier islands; and Miami, "full of elderly people and others who might be trapped."

In an updated seasonal storm forecast released today, Colorado State University researcher William Gray predicted a 74 percent chance of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast in the season that begins tomorrow. He foresees 17 named storms and nine hurricanes -- five of them intense.

Meanwhile, a new Mason-Dixon poll released today finds that residents of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are unprepared for a serious storm, with 61 percent of those surveyed saying they have no hurricane survival kit and 16 percent saying they might not evacuate even if ordered to do so.

Apparently, not all of us have learned Katrina's hard lessons.

Labels: Florida, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch, north carolina, texas