Capital Highlights Week of July 15 – 19

Abbott demands probe into power outages

 More than 2 million Texans lost power when Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas coast, and Gov. Greg Abbott wants to know why. The Austin American-Statesman reported Abbott has ordered the Public Utility Commission to conduct an immediate study into why the Houston area has again been hit by widespread power outages.
“I want to find out, was there a structural flaw with regard to the electrical delivery system?” Abbott said. “Was that the cause of it? If so, what needs to be done to shore up, or was this a personnel issue of not having enough power personnel in all the right locations to get power back up?”
CenterPoint Energy is the primary electricity transmission company serving the Houston area. Its CEO, Jason Ryan, appeared before the PUC last week and was questioned about the outages.
“To our customers that not only have power out but have significant property damage from the trees we talked about coming up from the roots, our hearts go out to you and our hearts go out to our community,” Ryan said.
As of Sunday morning, CenterPoint’s website indicated 461,247 customers were still without power, nearly a week after Beryl made landfall.
To date, 67 counties have been approved for federal disaster assistance, while other counties may be included as damage assessments are concluded. Those counties in the initial list are: Anderson, Angelina, Aransas, Austin, Bowie, Brazoria, Brazos, Burleson, Calhoun, Cameron, Camp, Cass, Chambers, Cherokee, Colorado, Dewitt, Fayette, Fort Bend, Freestone, Galveston, Goliad, Gregg, Grimes, Hardin, Harris, Harrison, Hidalgo, Houston, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Lavaca, Lee, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Marion, Matagorda, Milam, Montgomery, Morris, Nacogdoches, Newton, Nueces, Orange, Panola, Polk, Refugio, Robertson, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, San Patricio, Shelby, Trinity, Tyler, Upshur, Victoria, Walker, Waller, Washington, Webb, Wharton, and Willacy. 

Forest service assesses tree damage after Beryl

More than 400,000 acres of rural forestland was potentially affected by Hurricane Beryl, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service, which has closed W.G. Jones State Forest in Conroe until a damage assessment can be undertaken. In addition, hurricane force winds potentially affected  as much as half of Houston’s urbanized area tree coverage, the service reported.
“We used a combination of on-the-ground observation, remote sensing and Forest Inventory and Analysis data to conduct a tree damage assessment for rural forests in East Texas and the Houston metro area,” said Aaron Stottlemyer, Texas A&M Forest Service Forest Analytics Department Head. 
Workers and others are urged to use extreme caution when clearing tree debris.

Old pipes lead to billions in lost gallons of water

The state’s most populous cities lost approximately 88 billion gallons of water last year because of aging pipes and extreme heat, The Texas Tribune reported. Unsurprisingly, the city that lost the most water, according to self-reported audits, was Houston, the state’s largest, at 31.8 billion gallons. Coming in second was San Antonio, which reported losing 19.5 billion gallons.
The main factors for the losses are leaks and water main breaks, problems more often associated with smaller towns with fewer resources to maintain infrastructure, The Tribune reported.
“What we have right now is not sustainable [or] tenable,” said Jennifer Walker, National Wildlife Federation’s Texas Coast and Water Program director.
An Austin-based think tank, Texas 2036, predicts the state will need to spend more than $150 billion over the next half-century on water infrastructure.

‘Real ID’ will be required by next May

Is your state-issued identification card, such as a driver’s license, a Real ID? Texans have until May 2025 to find out and comply with a federal law passed in 2005 in response to 9/11, the Statesman reported. The state in response began issuing Real ID compliant cards in 2016. These cards have a gold circle with an inset star located in the upper right-hand corner.
Right now, a Real ID card is not required to fly domestically, but that will change on May 7, 2025. After that, a Real ID or a passport will be required to board domestic flights. Anyone renewing their driver’s license now will receive an idea that is Real ID-compliant.
Passports are still required to travel beyond U.S. borders.

Saltwater fish release nears 1 billion

Hurricane Beryl slowed the official release of the 1 billionth saltwater fish into Texas bays, but it should happen soon, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The Texas Parks and Wildlife program has been releasing fish into Texas bays for the past four decades in order to replenish native fish populations.
The fingerlings are raised in local and state hatcheries. The billionth fish is slated to be a red drum fingerling — a highly popular game fish in Texas.

Paxton: House committee preparing to impeach him again

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton  said last week that a House investigating panel once again is attempting to impeach him, though its chairman said the panel is meeting for an unrelated matter.
The committee passed articles of impeachment in May 2023 that were passed overwhelmingly by the House. The Senate then voted by a large margin to acquit Paxton.
“Their bitter obsession with taking me down knows no bounds, and they will stop at nothing to remove me from office,” Paxton wrote last week.
Committee chair Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, said Paxton was mistaken.
“There is absolutely no truth to Mr. Paxton’s far-fetched fantasy that the House General Investigating Committee is meeting to talk about him,” Murr said in a statement.

Whataburger app serves as outage tracker

While CenterPoint Energy’s outage tracker was down, some Houston residents figured out that an app used by Whataburger, the iconic Texas burger chain, could be used to figure out what areas had power and what didn’t.
The Houston Chronicle reported the app allowed folks to look at the Houston area and determine what areas had power. If the Whataburger “W” normally orange logo was gray on the app’s map, that area likely had no power.
After a social media user posted the discovery on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday night after the storm, more than a million people had viewed the post. It is unknown how many used the information to head out for a burger or a taquito.

Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: [email protected]