From the Fort Worth Telegram: Looking to make up to $300,000 a year? These 10 Texas state jobs pay the most

 Some street level bureaucrats make a lot of money.

- Click here.

Here's the skinny: 

PSYCHIATRIST IV: $23,068-$24,222 A MONTH Agency: Texas Health and Human Services Commission

This position performs advanced psychiatric work under direct supervision of the state supported living centers medical director. Duties includes overseeing the examination and diagnoses of patients, administering psychiatric treatment and directing staff.

STAFF PHYSICIAN: $19,684-$24,222 A MONTH
- Agency: Texas Health and Human Services Commission

This position serves as a staff physician at a state supported living center, where they serve individuals with intellectual disabilities. Duties include diagnosing and treating individuals, Developing health care plans and participating in treatment processes.

LEAD CERTIFIED NURSE MIDWIFE: $149,000 A YEAR Agency: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

This position will work in the obstetrics an gynecology department at Clements University Hospital. Duties include overseeing and managing schedules for both inpatient and outpatient advanced practice providers, along with conducting annual staff performance reviews.

PHARMACY INFORMATION RESOURCES MANAGER: $164,000 A YEAR
- Agency: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

This position in the pharmacy information systems team in the department of health ancillary information resources. Duties include managing information resource sections, developing policies and coordinating on various projects and programs.

ASSISTANT DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: $11,836-$20,018 A MONTH Agency:
- Texas Department of Family and Protective Services

This position reports to the DFPS deputy commissioner and performs senior-level policy administration and managerial work. Duties include overseeing cross-agency functions such as providing oversight related to strategic initiatives and foster care litigation.

CHIEF AUDIT AND COMPLIANCE OFFICER: $171,000-$265,000 A YEAR Agency:
- Texas Department of Transportation

This position will work in TxDOT’s internal audit and compliance divisions. Duties include overseeing internal audit and compliance activities, as means to provide analyses, appraisals, recommendation and counsel to assist the Texas Transportation Commission.


DIRECTOR OF TRANSPORTATION OPS: $111,000-$189,000 A YEAR
- Agency: Texas Department of Transportation

This position oversees transportation operations function for its district’s highways and facilities. Duties include managing employees, contacting government officials and acts as a liaison with TxDOT’s traffic operations division

REGIONAL MEDICAL DIRECTOR: $13,020-$22,020 A MONTH

- Agency: Texas Department of State Health Services

This position serves as the regional medical director for the DSHS in El Paso. Duties include organizing public health services to counties without a local health department, directing regional programs and developing/maintaining relationships with local agencies.

ANTITRUST LAWYER: $12,249-$13,650 A MONTH
- Agency: Attorney General of Texas

The position will serve as an antitrust litigator who leads the state’s antitrust enforcement efforts. The antitrust divisions in charged with investigating and prosecuting violations of the Texas Free Enterprise and Antitrust Act.

CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER: $11,250-$12,083 A MONTH
- Agency: Governor’s Office

This position works in the administration division for the office of the Governor. Duties include performing senior-level security work, along with providing direction and guidance in strategic information technology operations.

From the Texas Tribune: Lawmakers Push Back on Railroad Commission Overhaul Proposals

This is from August, but it foreshadows a series of battles that will pick up this coming legislative session when the Texas Legislature considers the proposals made to it by the Texas Sunset Commission. Along with 25 or so other agencies, the Texas Railroad Commission is being evaluated. The various stakeholders involved with the agency are locking horns already.

- Click here for the article.

One legislator said he believed the entire review was unnecessary, and the criticism mean-spirited.

"When I went through this report, I thought to myself, 'Why are you so angry at the Railroad Commission?'" Rep. Dan Flynn told Sunset commission staff.

“Oil and gas industry is the heart and soul of the state of Texas, the Canton Republican added, "And for us to go and attack an agency that’s done a pretty good job, it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Though no lawmaker completely echoed Flynn, his spirited defense of the Railroad Commission underscored the difficulty of implementing change at the hulking agency in Texas, the nation's oil and gas king.

Sunset Commission staffers said they did not intend to be mean.

“We are not angry with the Railroad Commission,” said Ken Levine, executive director of the Sunset Commission. “We think in a lot of ways, they do a really good job. And when we spotted things where they weren’t, we brought it forward.”

From the Cancer Letter: Slamming the Door - How Al Gilman Taught Texas a Lesson in Science

I'm editing the 2306 slides for Article 3 of the Texas Constitution and ran across this article related to the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas which is the subject of the final section. This look sat the politics surrounding the institute, including the money grab that seems a natural consequence of making $3 billion available.

- Click here for the article.

And a taste of what's in it:

Planeloads of academics would come to Texas to review CPRIT scientific grants. Scientists who reviewed research proposals for the state-funded institute would later tell me that they had never served on a better peer review committee. For the first two-and-a-half years, the system worked smoothly.

There were no separate study sections for specific areas of research. The review committees were broadly constituted: basic, translational, clinical. There were no quotas for cancer type or research approach. There were no quotas based on geography. There were no quotas for science versus commercialization. The state law mandated that up to 10 percent of the funds were to be spent for evidence-based cancer prevention programs. The rest went to peer-reviewed science, including grants to companies, which were reviewed for both scientific quality and commercial potential.

Gilman walked into his office fully realizing that the job of CPRIT Chief Scientific Officer would entail working around bureaucratic absurdity and Texas-sized egos. But even being a seasoned academic politician, he could never have predicted that he would ultimately end up turning whistleblower in the name of defending of peer-reviewed science.

A year before his death from pancreatic cancer, Gilman sat down with me and provided a detailed account of his epic battle to protect public money from what he described as an arrogantly conceived, sloppily executed incursion. The stories of the ungluing of CPRIT and controversies at MD Anderson Cancer Center developed concurrently.

. . . The 11-member oversight committee provided no shield from political meddling. Indeed, Gilman used to say that only one of its 11 members knew that cancer was spelled with a “c.” (That wise man would be Joseph Bailes, an oncologist.)

And, finally, there was a proposal for a $20 million biotech incubator that was going to be located at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Through this proposal—and the role of Lynda Chin, a senior scientist and wife of that institution’s president, Ronald DePinho—the problems at CPRIT merged with controversies over interactions between MD Anderson leadership and private industry. Gilman’s resignation brought these controversies to the attention of scientists and the public.

“I built something I am proud of, and now it’s being taken apart,” Gilman said to me at the time. “I can’t work for people who are pushing their own interests at the expense of the interests of cancer patients.”

Gilman was disappointed but not surprised.

“A wise and experienced friend said to me: ‘This is always the way it works when you put a large amount of public money on the table. The vultures and the hyenas lie low for two or three years to see how the system really works. And then they come in for their feast.’”

KXAN: Gov. Abbott appoints, then pushes out acupuncture board member

The appointment process ain't always easy.

Who knew we had a Texas Board of Acupuncture Examiners.

- Click here for the article.

Gov. Greg Abbott thought twice after appointing a leader of a health care board because of concerns about the doctor’s history.

On May 12, Gov. Abbott sent out a press release detailing the appointment of Dr. Daniel Brudnak to the Texas Board of Acupuncture Examiners.

Dr. Dan Brudnak of Gorman is a private practice family medicine and acupuncture physician. He’s a fellow and diplomat of the American Academy of Family Practice and diplomat of the American Board of Medical Acupuncture.

On June 21, he resigned after details emerged from his past.

In 2011, the State Medical Board cited him for inappropriately prescribing stimulants and not keeping appropriate records.

The governor’s Press Secretary John Wittman said, “After our office was made aware of the seriousness of these violations, Dr. Brudnak tendered his resignation and we accepted it.”

In his letter of resignation, Dr. Brudnak mentioned his missteps.

Let's take a look at the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission

It's one of the many ways to get an idea of the number of executive agencies that exist in the state and the degree of influence the legislative branch has over them. We also saw these listed in the Fiscal Size-Up. Agencies are automatically terminated unless they are reauthorized by the legislature under the advisement of the commission.

- Click here for their website.
- Wikipedia: Sunset Advisory Commission.
- Weaker Party: Sunset Review.

For detail: How Sunset Works.

These are the agencies that will be reviewed during the 2016-2017 cycle:

- Bar of Texas, State
- Central Colorado River Authority
- Chiropractic Examiners, Texas Board of
- Counselors, Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional
- Dental Examiners, State Board of
- Employees Retirement System of Texas, Board of Trustees of
- Law Examiners, Board of
- Marriage and Family Therapists, Texas State Board of Examiners of
- Medical Board, Texas
- Nursing, Texas Board of
- Occupational Therapy Examiners, Texas Board of
- Optometry Board, Texas
- Palo Duro River Authority
- Pharmacy, Texas State Board of
- Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Examiners, Executive Council of
- Physical Therapy Examiners, Texas Board of
- Podiatric Medical Examiners, Texas State Board of
- Psychologists, Texas State Board of Examiners of
- Railroad Commission of Texas
- Social Worker Examiners, Texas State Board of
- Sulphur River Basin Authority
- Transportation, Texas Department of
- Upper Colorado River Authority
- Veterinary Medical Examiners, State Board of

Conveniently enough, the last sunset review looked at the Texas Department of State Health Services, which is the agency mentioned in the previous story about the birth certificates.

- Click here for their website.
- Click here for their review.
- Here is a direct link to the report.

Is the spoils system alive and well in Texas?

I posted a few items on the recently, but it keep coming back up on the public agenda.

The Houston Chronicle recently reported on the number of positions in Texas agencies that have been staffed by people with connections to elected officials - cronies they are sometimes derisively called. The positions are often not advertised, which is in violation of state law. A law which is seldom enforced.

Keep in mind that strategic decisions about who gets what job allows for the development of political networks that can come in handy when seeking higher office. There are reasons why this occurs - tangible benefits as well.

- Click here for the story.

The paper the editorialized that this suggests - as you all probably have always suspected is true - that is matter who you know rather than what you know. The problem is pervasive they say.

- Click here for the editorial.

. . . Texans should be glad to see their taxes spent on qualified employees instead of diverted into a spoils system, but the problem is more pervasive than elected officials hiring a few friends.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas was caught in 2012 handing out millions in grants without proper scientific and business reviews. It turned out that the recipients had made donations to the secretive CPRIT Foundation that boosted salaries for CPRIT officials. Closer to home, in 2013 the Houston Community College was caught up in a scandal involving a contract redirected to a politician's buddy. And earlier this year, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission came under fire for spending $30 million on scholarships for employees who had close ties to elected officials.

Even within the boundaries of the law, governments routinely grant tax exemptions or other so-called economic incentives that favor some companies over others. Sometimes these incentives are worthwhile, but they hardly take part in the sort of pure free-market philosophy that plenty of Texas politicians claim to endorse. The deeper you dig, the more it becomes clear that Texas isn't exactly a low-regulation state. We just have regulations that reward friends and punish enemies.

New upstarts, such as Tesla's electric cars, Uber and Lyft, and microbreweries, have had to fight regulatory structures that protect entrenched interests while discouraging new competition. Meanwhile, the young, the poor and the sick who could truly use help often find government assistance in Texas lacking.

So if you're a ambitious Texan who wants to lift yourself up by your bootstraps, the lesson taught by our elected officials isn't that you need to work hard, get good grades or have the best ideas. If you want to be successful in Texas, have the right connections.

And a good last name doesn't hurt, either.

From the Austin American Statesman: Texas officials gave $270M in bonuses with few rules, little oversight

For out look at the Texas Bureaucracy. The beneficiaries are those at the top.

- Click here for the story.

The Statesman analyzed payment data over the last seven fiscal years to provide the first comprehensive view of bonus payments to each employee at every state agency, except universities. The use of bonuses has risen sharply, the Statesman found, as payments more than doubled from $28.6 million in 2009 to $65 million in 2014.

The analysis found that agencies are largely free to dole out bonuses however they choose, for a variety of reasons, which are sparsely documented. Merit bonuses go unnoticed so long as agency commissioners or directors can meet their budgets approved by lawmakers or, for some money-making agencies, balance the cost with licensing fees.

Officials at several state agencies said bonuses are a handy tool to retain skilled workers whose wages have stagnated due to belt-tightening by the conservative Legislature. But while the data show many agencies use bonus cash to give small pay bumps to state workers whose health care and retirement costs are rising, the real winners are those at the top of the organizational chart.

“No one on the front lines is seeing these bonuses,” said Seth Hutchinson, vice president of the Texas State Employees Union, which represents more than 12,000 state employees.

The head of the General Land Office faces criticism over staff turnover

The new land commissioner - a member of Texas' plural executive - has been criticized for job performance since he took office earlier this year. This adds to the list. The Austin American-Statesmen sets the story up.

- George P. Bush trims more than 100 jobs from Texas land office.

At least 111 state workers have been fired, retired or have quit the Texas General Land Office — about 17 percent of the agency’s workforce — under the leadership of George P. Bush, whose so-called reboot has drawn criticism from his predecessor, who says the agency is suffering under “a purge.”

Bush, who was elected last November to his first public office, said this week that he’s fulfilling his campaign promise to make theGeneral Land Office more efficient.
“I campaigned as a fiscal conservative with proven experience in the private sector seeking to make government more efficient and responsive,” he told the American-Statesman, adding he’s taking a “surgical approach to reforming the agency.”

. . . But Dennis Ku, a former manager in the office’s disaster recovery unit, said many employees were shocked when they were told they no longer had jobs before being escorted out of the building by security.

. . . Ku said he’s worried the agency will languish because “they’ve gotten rid of the kind of institutional knowledge that’s been there a long time.” “If you look at who the leadership is at the GLO now, they’re mostly under 40,” Ku said. “They’re more enamored with Twitter and that stuff than actually doing a good job of running the agency.”

The San Antonio Express-News points out that the new hires are connected to the new commissioner's family and political supporters:

- Bush runs Land Office with campaigners, family friends.

Less than a year after being elected to lead the oldest state agency in Texas, Land Commissioner George P. Bush has dramatically remade the General Land Office by ousting a majority of its longtime leaders and replacing many of them with people with ties to his campaign and family.

Eleven of the top 18 officials on the agency’s organizational chart a year ago have been fired, forced out or quit, and more could leave soon under an ongoing overhaul that Bush has described as a “reboot.”

In their place, Bush has given top jobs to two of his law school classmates, two relatives of members of two Bush presidential administrations and at least three other people with ties to the family or other political leaders.

In all, Bush has hired at least 29 people who worked on his campaign or have political connections, according to a review of personnel records. The agency did not advertise any of the openings publicly.

State law requires all agencies considering external candidates for a job to post the opening with the Texas Workforce Commission. Newly elected statewide officials often ignore the requirement for some core positions — Attorney General Ken Paxton and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller already have been publicly criticized for it this year — but Bush’s hiring differs because of how far-reaching it has been, with the hires ranging from a temporary transition director to five campaign veterans hired permanently for the new position of “regional outreach coordinator.”

Houston Chronicle: Active role in father's campaign taking George P. Bush away from day job.

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has been out of the state or otherwise off of work nearly half of the time since his father entered the GOP race for president, records show, raising questions about whether the scion is fulfilling his pledge to remain focused on his first elected office.

Personal time - both related to the presidential race and for other reasons - took the commissioner away for the equivalent of 23 of the first 50 work days after father Jeb Bush announced his bid on June 15, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of records obtained under the Public Information Act. The total includes 15 full days off and dozens of smaller chunks of time off on other work days that add up to eight more days.

It is impossible to tell exactly how much of the time off was spent campaigning, because the commissioner's official calendar does not say what he did in those hours. Social media posts indicate he spent a significant amount of it on the trail, however, speaking at his father's announcement in Florida, publicly stumping for him in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, headlining a fundraiser in Texas and attending a campaign staff retreat in Maine.

The  Texas Tribune: Bush: Time Spent on Father's Campaign "Nominal"

Land Commissioner George P. Bush on Sunday night rejected the suggestion that his involvement in his father's presidential campaign has significantly cut into his official duties, saying the amount of time he has spent stumping for his dad has been "nominal."

In an interview with the Texas Tribune, Bush echoed his office's aggressive pushback throughout the day on a Houston Chronicle story that concluded he "has been out of the state or otherwise off of work nearly half of the time since his father entered the GOP race for president." The newspaper reported that Bush was away for the equivalent of 23 of the first 50 workdays after his father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, launched his 2016 campaign.

"I'm extremely disappointed by the findings," Bush said. "The evidence will strongly show that I've put my heart and soul into this position."

Governor's strike force reports on problems at the Texas HHS

The report criticizes a number of issues related to how the agency has been run recently.

- Strike Force Report.
- 8 key passages from the 21CT ‘strike force’ report.
- Health Commission Should Not Consolidate, Report Says.
- A Look Back at the Health Commission-21CT Contract.
- Popular state purchasing program lacks oversight, competition.

The Sunset Advisory Commission

This might help bridge the gap between the legislative and executive branches in Texas. As we've discussed in 2306 earlier this semester, the legislature established the Sunset Advisory Commission in 1977 to review each state level executive agency an determine whether it is to be kept as is, modified, merged with another agency or abolished. Each agency is set to expire unless it is reauthorized by the commission.

This is the basic question it asks about each agency:

“Does the agency and its functions continue to be needed and if so, what improvements need to be made?”

Here's background on the commission:

- Click here for the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission.
- FAQ's.
- Texas Sunset Act.
- Agency History.
- Government Code: Title 3, Subtitle C, Chapter 325.
- This is the list of all agencies subject to review.

These are the agencies under review this session, the links take you to the reports for each:

- Administrative Hearings Tax Division, State Office of
- Administrative Hearings, State Office of
- Aging and Disability Services, Department of
- Assistive and Rehabilitative Services, Department of
- Children With Special Needs, Interagency Task Force for
- Developmental Disabilities, Texas Council for
- Education Agency, Texas ( Limited Scope Review )
- Facilities Commission, Texas ( Re-review )
- Family and Protective Services, Department of
- Health and Human Services Commission
- Health Care Information Council, Texas ( Special Purpose Review )
- Health Services Authority, Texas
- Health Services, Department of State
- People with Disabilities, Governor’s Committee on
- Purchasing from People with Disabilities, Texas Council on
- Self-Directed Semi-Independent Agencies, Entry Criteria for ( Special Review )
- Soil and Water Conservation Board, State ( Limited Scope Review )
- University Interscholastic League
- Workforce Commission, Texas
- Workforce Investment Council, Texas

It's currently looking at two of the largest, The Texas Education Agency and the Heath and Human Services Commission.

Oral Arguments in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans

As we mentioned in class yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday about whether the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board violated the constitutional rights of the Texas Division of the Sons of Texas Veterans by not allowing them to have a specialty license plate with the confederate battle flag on it.

Here are links to stories regarding the arguments

- ScotusBlog coverage,
- NPR.
- Education Week’s School Law blog.
- The Wall Street Journal.
- Constitutional Law Prof Blog.

Click here for the transcript of the argument.

From the Texas Tribune: CPRIT Operations Moratorium Lifted Following Reforms

Another item we covered in 2306 when we read through Article 3 of the Texas Constitution is in the news:

State leadership decided on Wednesday that the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has restored enough public trust to resume grant operations and finalize remaining contracts following a review of the agency’s processes and major reforms passed in the last legislative session.

On Wednesday, Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus lifted a moratorium on new grants placed on the agency in December 2012.

In 2007, Texas voters approved the use of $3 billion in bonds to create CPRIT and finance cancer research and the development of cancer treatments and prevention programs for 10 years. The institute came under scrutiny last year when a state audit revealed in January that $56 million in grants had been approved without the proper peer review process. Lawmakers grilled former members of the CPRIT oversight committee during the 83rd legislative session and eventually approved Senate Bill 149, which adds more checks and balances to the agency’s grant-making processes to ensure adequate peer review. Lawmakers also budgeted $595 million for the institute in the 2014-15 biennium

.
Note the following appointees to the oversight committee:

State leadership has appointed new members to a CPRIT oversight committee, which guides the work of the institute and approves all grant applications. Perry and Dewhurst have each made their three appointments to the committee. Straus has made two and still has one pending appointment.

Perry appointed Angelos Angelou, founder and principal executive of AngelouEconomics and former vice president of the Austin Chamber of Commerce; Gerry Geistweidt, an attorney who has argued cases before the Texas Supreme Court, among others; and Dr. William Rice, senior vice president of clinical innovation for St. David’s Healthcare and the Central and West Texas Division of the Hospital Corporation of America.

Dewhurst appointed Ned Holmes, a businessman with experience in finance and real estate; Dr. Craig Rosenfeld, a physician and chief executive of Collaborative Medical Development, which develops treatments for neurogenerative and psychiatric diseases; and Amy Mitchell, a cancer survivor and attorney at Fulbright and Jaworski.

Straus appointed Pete Geren, president of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation, which provides grants to educational, health, human service and cultural nonprofit organizations in Texas, and Dr. Cynthia Mulrow, senior deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine and a member of the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

From the Texas Tribune: Dallas Hair Braider to Sue Over Regulations

One of the reserved powers of the state is the ability to set regulations for occupations.

These are contained in the Texas Occupations Code and overseen by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

A Dallas hair braider thinks the state's requirement that she have 2,250 hours of training and have a 2,000 square foot facility in order to teach hair braiding is not just excessive, but unconstitutional.

On Tuesday, she will file a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, alleging in federal court that the state’s rules violate her constitutional right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment. Brantley will ask the court to exempt her from the regulations and grant an injunction preventing the state from applying the rules to other hair braiders.

“This lawsuit means economic liberty for my community,” Brantley said in a statement. “Economic liberty is especially important for black women. This is our new civil rights movement.”

An official at the state regulating agency acknowledged that the rules for barber schools could be difficult for hair braiders to comply with.

Since its a 14th Amendment issue - this would proceed through the federal courts. Should be fun.

Ross Ramsey: A Weak Governor System, With a Strong Governor

The Texas Tribune writer points out that longevity and the cultivation of loyalists that he has placed throughout state government has given Perry far more power than is typical in the office. Its unlikely his successor will enjoy the same clout he developed, but he transformed the office while he held it:

Before Perry, half the stories about the doings in the state Capitol were either about the inherent weakness of the governor’s office or the ancient lore about how the lieutenant governor holds the state’s most powerful office.

The governor has no cabinet. He or she can appoint the people who populate the various boards and commissions, but only a third of them come up for appointment every two years, and the governor doesn’t have direct control over them once they’ve been posted. They can’t be fired — they can be made pretty uncomfortable, but that takes a lot of work — and they often behave as if they have their own brains and their own goals and ways of doing things.

That means that most of the people who head the executive branch of Texas government have never had full control over it. Other elected officials head some of the major agencies, and a powerful legislative branch can, with strong personalities in charge, control the agencies to some extent by controlling their budgets.

. . . After six years of Perry being in the governor’s office, virtually every appointee had him to thank for their post. And over his first decade in office, the governor seeded the executive branch with his former aides and their like-minded peers. They’re all over the place, with titles like executive director, general counsel, communications director and so on.

. . . Perry’s transformation of the office might be permanent. The agencies might naturally turn their ears to a governor for guidance after all these years out of habit.

It will take six years to replace all the appointees who owe their jobs to Perry, a third of the jobs turning over every two years. The people at the tops of all of those agency organization charts will linger until retirement — Perry’s legacy —and while they may be helpful to a new governor, they will not be indebted like they are to the old boss.

. . . Perry, because of his tenure and the methodical placement of former staffers throughout the government, changed all that, turning a weak office into a powerful one. It’s hard to remember how it used to be.

Was the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas due to lax regulations?

That question is making the rounds.

The Waco Tribune has a comprehensive look at the investigation thus far, and includes this:

Meanwhile, a hazy picture emerged Thursday of the fertilizer plant’s past regulatory issues. Because of the plant’s age, it was “grandfathered” and exempted from a TCEQ air permit until 2004. But it continued without the required permit until 2006, when the TCEQ received a complaint about strong ammonia smells in the neighborhood and served the company with a notice of violation.

That same year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined the facility $2,300, citing several deficiencies in its risk management plan. The plant got its TCEQ permit in late 2006 for the anhydrous ammonia storage, promising to mitigate any accidental releases of the substance offsite. Another permit for loading and storing dry fertilizer was granted in March 2007. The TCEQ had no records of inspections after January 2007.

The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas regulators did not consider the plant to pose a significant risk to the surrounding area.

The explosion came after years in which state and federal agencies overlooked the potential for what some say was a preventable catastrophe. “Last night’s tragic explosion points to the need for stricter regulations of plants that store and use large quantities of hazardous chemicals,” said Tom O’Connor, executive director of the National Council on Occupational Safety and Health, a union-affiliated nonprofit group.

Neil Carman, a Ph.D. chemist with the Sierra Club in Texas and a former state environmental inspector, said lax controls are putting people in danger in scores of Texas communities “A basic concern here is that the chemical ammonia, NH3, is very weakly regulated at the federal and state level, or else this accident would not have likely occurred,” Carman said.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality did not respond to questions about why they repeatedly approved the companies’ operations without addressing the risk of explosions.

The Huffington Post comments that one culprit is the reduced funds given to regulatory agencies to actually do their jobs:

According to the 2011 budget submitted to congress by OSHA, which provides most of the federal oversight for that industry, there are 7.5 million workplaces in the U.S. and only 2,218 inspectors to check them for safety violations. The number of employed nationally means that there is one inspector for every 57,984 workers. One analyst reported that means OSHA has the capacity to inspect a business work place once every 129 years. Fortunately, state level OSHA workers aren't as pressed and they can get to a facility every 67 years.

The Washington Post surveys a variety of issues related to fertilizer plants, including commentary on regulatory oversight:

. . . the operators of the West Texas facility thought an explosion was impossible. The Dallas Morning News obtained a copy of the facility’s internal safety review for fire or explosive risks. “The worst possible scenario, the report said, would be a 10-minute release of ammonia gas that would kill or injure no one.”

As for other oversight: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration tends to be understaffed and inspections are relatively infrequent. The Texas fertilizer industry has only seen six inspections in the past five years — and the West Texas Fertilizer Co. facility was not one of them.

Lobbying group for deer breeders want petition for fewer regulations

Here's an unusual lobbying effort tied into a growing segment of the state's rural economy. It also involves a question I had no idea existed. What is a deer exactly - legally that is? A public resource or livestock? Notice how much of the following hinges on which state agency oversees regulations concerning deer breeding.

Oversight of the industry could change significantly during this legislative session, as the Texas Deer Association — a lobbying group for deer breeders — pushes for measures to ease some regulations. The group says current oversight is constraining the industry, but environmental groups say the industry has overstepped its bounds by shifting its strategy away from conservation and toward support for the commercial hunting industry.

In Texas, it is legal to breed deer on private property with a permit. Although the deer belong to the state, breeders can sell them and run hunting operations, making the industry a major player in the state’s rural economy.

Gilbert Adams III, the president of the deer association, said there was a “perceived antagonistic relationship” between the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and deer breeders who feel that the department is too harsh in enforcing bureaucratic regulations like proper tagging.

One bill the association supports is House Bill 2092, by state Rep. John Kuempel, R-Seguin, which would change the industry’s regulating agency from Texas Parks and Wildlife to the Texas Animal Health Commission. Adams said the change would benefit the industry because the commission has more expertise in animal health and disease prevention.

“Deer breeding concerns more of an agricultural enterprise — it is a ranching activity,” Adams said. The commission’s members, he said, are “the animal husbandry experts in Texas.”

But Gary Joiner, the chief executive of the Texas Wildlife Association, said Texas Parks and Wildlife was better suited to oversee the industry because deer are not like the livestock that the animal health agency has traditionally overseen.

“Deer are a public resource, a native resource that should be protected,” Joiner said.

From the Texas Tribune: Report Backs Push for Board to Oversee Prisons

For our look at the criminal justice system in 2306 this week:

Citing potential cost savings to the state and a need to better protect the rights of inmates, a report released Tuesday is bolstering calls for an independent, external oversight board over the state’s prison system.

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, which authored the report, is pushing lawmakers to approve several bills that would increase supervision over the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state’s prisons and has not been subject to oversight since 2002.

“It should not be a hard sell,” said Ana Yáñez-Correa, the coalition's executive director. “We want to make sure they [the department] have the tools to succeed, but with money comes responsibility.” The report explains that this oversight would help TDCJ identify issues in its facilities "before they lead to expensive litigation, media scandals, or other human and fiscal costs."

The coalition is asking lawmakers to pass House Bill 877 by state Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, which would develop an independent body with comprehensive oversight over TDCJ facilities. The group would regularly inspect facilities like prisons and state jails, and issue reports and policy recommendations.

Click here for the report issued by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition. 

Catching up with the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas

Last we checked a moratorium was placed on the CPRIT's ability to award grants due to concerns about the procedures used to determine who got a grant and who did not. Concerns were raised that scientific peer review processes were not being used and that grants were handed out to companies that had connections with the CPRIT's board. This has raised questions about the viability of the program, which was approved - along with $3 billion in potential funding - by the voters in 2007.

The Texas Tribune reports that efforts are underway to make sure that projects that were underway when the moratorium was started are grappling with how to stay viable while oversight of the program is conducted.

Some background:
- CPRIT website.
- Interlocking tragedies: Armstrong and CPRIT.
- Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Oversight Committee.
- Austin's Angelou appointed to CPRIT oversight board.

From the Texas Tribune: Texas Lawmaker Seeks Overhaul of Water Board

More on one of the major topics of the current legislature - water development.

In this case, a legislator wants to overhaul the Texas Water Development Board:

The board, created in 1957, is overseen by six part-time board members, who serve on a volunteer basis after being appointed by the governor. But state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, wants to change the structure to three full-time members, also appointed by the governor.

Senate Bill 4, introduced by Fraser, would make those changes. According to a fiscal note for the bill, this would carry a price tag of nearly $1.3 million for expenses such as salaries and office space.

“I haven’t had a lot of luck communicating” with the six part-time directors, Fraser said at a committee hearing this week. The new structure, he said, would mirror that of the Public Utility Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. With full-time directors, “when there’s a question about something, I can pick up the phone and call,” Fraser said, and they can be at the Capitol in minutes.

This seems to be an effort to change and amateur part time board into a full time professional one. Is this part of a broader trend?

Rick Perry's influence on the bureaucracy

According to the Texas Tribune, it is considerable - which shouldn't be too surprising given his longevity in office.