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SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Some early breast cancer patients can safely avoid specific surgeries, according to two studies exploring ways to lessen treatment burdens.

One new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, examines whether removing lymph nodes is always necessary in early breast cancer. Another in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests a new approach to a type of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS.

The research was discussed Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

DCIS and active monitoring

Every year, about 50,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, where the cells that line milk ducts become cancerous, but the nearby breast tissue remains healthy. Many choose to have surgery, although it’s unclear whether they could instead take a “wait-and-see” approach with more frequent monitoring.

The new study, based on two years of data, suggests that such active monitoring is a safe alternative to surgery for many of these women, though some doctors will want to see if the results hold up over time.

“This is an option that patients should consider for their DCIS,” said Dr. Virginia Kaklamani of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, who was not involved in the research. “For a long time, we’ve had the feeling that we’re overtreating some patients with DCIS. This is a confirmation of what we suspected is happening.”

Taking a more cautious view, Dr. Monica Morrow of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who was not involved in the study, said a two-year study isn’t long enough to draw conclusions.

The finding is based on following more than 950 U.S. patients randomly assigned to surgery or active monitoring. All had low-risk DCIS with no sign of invasive cancer. They had the type of DCIS that responds to hormone-blocking drugs and many in the study took those drugs as part of their treatment.

After two years, the rates of invasive cancer were low and did not differ significantly between the groups, with about 6% in the surgery group and about 4% in the monitoring group diagnosed with invasive cancer.

Among patients in the monitoring group, changes spotted on a mammogram would prompt a biopsy. They also could opt for surgery at any time for any reason.

Some study participants didn’t stick with the treatment they were randomly assigned. So in a separate analysis looking at those who actually had surgery or not, the rates of invasive cancer were about 9% for the surgery group and 3% for the monitoring group.

The researchers will continue to follow the patients to see if the finding holds up over a decade.

Tina Clark, 63, of Buxton, Maine, joined the study after being diagnosed with DCIS in 2019. Randomly assigned to the monitoring-only group, she was able to avoid surgery and radiation during a time when she was raising a teenage nephew and going through the illness and death of her husband.

“I feel just so grateful and fortunate that I found this study when I did,” Clark said.

She has mammograms every six months to keep watch on the DCIS in her right breast, which has not advanced. The mammograms spotted a small cancer in her other breast in 2023, unrelated to the DCIS. She had a lumpectomy to remove it.

“If you’re diagnosed with low-risk DCIS, you have time to understand more about your disease and understand what your options are,” said study author Dr. Shelley Hwang of Duke University School of Medicine.

Lymph nodes and early breast cancer

Women having surgery for breast cancer often also have what’s called a sentinel lymph node biopsy where a few lymph nodes in the armpit are removed to check for spreading cancer.

But removing lymph nodes can cause lasting pain and arm swelling, so research is underway to determine when it can be avoided. A study in Europe last year showed that older women with small tumors could safely avoid the added surgery.

In the new study, researchers in Germany looked at whether women with early breast cancer who were planning to have breast-conserving surgery could safely skip having lymph nodes removed. They followed 4,858 women who were randomly assigned to have lymph nodes removed or not.

After five years, about 92% of women in both groups were still alive and free of cancer.

“Removing lymph nodes does not improve survival, and the risk of cancer coming back in the armpit is quite low when lymph nodes are not removed,” said Morrow, who added that some women will still need the lymph node procedure to help determine which treatment drugs they should take after surgery.

MCALLEN (AP) — The Texas Legislature can be full of surprises.

But for the last eight sessions, there has been one constant: state Rep. Armando “Mando” Martinez ’s proposal to establish a public law school in the Rio Grande Valley.

For the Weslaco Democrat, establishing a law school would open the door to more job opportunities for Valley residents, curb the “brain drain” of young professionals leaving the area to find higher-paying jobs in bigger cities, and provide much-needed legal support for one of the state’s poorest regions.

“A lot of the bright people that work in other areas of the state and across the nation come from the Rio Grande Valley,” Martinez said.

The legislation has had mixed support over the years but has never gained traction in the Texas Senate. The cost of opening a law school could be one factor for the lack of support, legal experts and advocates said.

However, after more than a decade of trying, that dream might become a reality without the Legislature’s help. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley is currently in talks with St. Mary’s School of Law to create a legal education program locally.

The talks are preliminary, said UTRGV spokesperson Patrick Gonzales, who added the university welcomes the opportunity to build upon those initial discussions.

If that program were to become a reality, it would be the culmination of yearslong efforts in the Valley, which is just one of several legally underserved areas in Texas.

In 2021, there was an average of one lawyer for every 310 Texas residents, according to an analysis by the State Bar of Texas. However, the average varied across the state. In the Valley, there was one lawyer for every 788 residents in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area and one lawyer per 738 residents in the Brownsville-Harlingen region. Meanwhile, Travis County, which includes Austin, had one lawyer for every 118 residents and Harris County, which includes Houston, had one lawyer for every 192 residents.

Luz E. Herrera, a professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law, was among the authors of a 2022 research paper that looked into the Valley’s legal needs.

The paper argued that access to legal education plays an important role in access to justice, pointing out that law schools can integrate legal services into their curriculum and encourage graduates to develop affordable services for low-income communities.

Herrera pointed out that most law schools have training programs for their students such as law clinics through which they provide legal assistance to low-income people within the community surrounding the school.

“Students get credit for doing that work,” Herrera said. “They’re providing free services to people who need it and they’re learning something about being a lawyer.”

She had pushed to create a legal education program in McAllen but was unable to secure funding for it. However, the A&M law school was awarded grant funding for a two-year pilot program with a local hospital for a medical-legal partnership that is set to launch next year.

Through such partnerships, attorneys work in a health care setting to provide legal help to patients.

An existing medical-legal partnership in the Valley is headquartered at the Brownsville Community Health Center through a partnership with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, a nonprofit that provides free civil legal services.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid works with low-income Texans in 68 counties, having served more than 17,000 clients and households in 2023.

The workload is heavy for the organization’s staff who work across 18 offices throughout the state. But that’s particularly true in the Valley that has the largest poverty population of any region they work in, according to Pablo Almaguer, pro bono counsel for TRLA.

“We are always understaffed and underfunded,” Almaguer said. “Whatever needs you see out there that might be noted in Texas as an average, that (need) would be greater in South Texas.”

Almaguer added there is a direct correlation between having a law school and meeting the legal needs of the community. As an example, he said if a hurricane were to hit the area, law clinics would be able to assist residents navigate guidelines to receive federal disaster assistance.

“There is a correlation between better legal services for the poor when there’s a law school in that area, geographically speaking,” Almaguer said.

A law school once existed in the Valley, if only briefly. It was named the Reynaldo G. Garza School of Law and operated from 1984 to 1993 with provisional accreditation from the Texas Supreme Court. It never received accreditation from the American Bar Association.

Bringing one back could bring lawyers and other professionals to a community, but it wouldn’t solve the systematic problems, said Pamela R. Metzger, executive director of the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.

“I don’t think it’s a fix-all solution,” Metzger said. “I think that it is a step but it’s not going to be a big enough step to the larger problem.”

Texas, like every other state in the country, struggles with legal deserts which are places where there aren’t enough lawyers to meet local needs, Metzger said.

However, Texas is unique in its struggle because of the vast distances between communities and the sheer number of counties because some jobs require a county or government affiliation.

To increase the number of attorneys in rural areas, Metzger said they needed to overcome the biggest challenges facing young attorneys such as large student loan debt that may only be paid back with a high-paying job in a major metro area. The other issue is attorneys need support staff to provide mentorship and guidance.

Metzger hopes state legislation will solve the issue of student loan debt by providing financial assistance to attorneys who work in rural communities and noted that the state provides similar assistance to physicians.

During the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers filed legislation in the House and Senate that would have established a student loan repayment program for attorneys who worked in rural counties.

Though the effort stalled, Metzger expects the debate will continue this session.

“We are hoping that this session, the Legislature will go ahead and fund those efforts and take the same care with making sure people’s legal rights are protected as it has with making sure that they’re getting the health care they need,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming “border czar” on Thursday, with the Democratic mayor expressing an enthusiasm to work with the incoming administration to pursue violent criminals in the city while Trump promises mass deportations.

The mayor’s meeting with Tom Homan, who will oversee the southern and northern borders and be responsible for deportation efforts in the Trump administration, came as Adams has welcomed parts of the president-elect’s hardline immigration platform.

Adams told reporters at a brief news conference that he and Homan agreed on pursuing people who commit violent crimes in the city but did not disclose additional details or future plans.

“We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longstanding New Yorkers,” he said. “That was my conversation today with the border czar, to figure out how to go after those individuals who are repeatedly committing crimes in our city.”

Homan said the two connected as career law enforcement officers and that he came away from the meeting with “a whole new outlook on the mayor.”

“I’ve called him out this past year, many times, about being more of a politician than a police officer. I was wrong,” Homan said during an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw on his Merit TV network. “He came through today as a police officer and a mayor that cares about the safety and security of his city.”

The meeting marked Adams’ latest and most definitive step toward collaborating with the Trump administration, a development that has startled critics in one of the country’s most liberal cities.

In the weeks since Trump’s election win, Adams has mused about potentially scaling back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies and coordinating with the incoming administration on immigration. He has also said migrants accused of crimes shouldn’t have due process rights under the Constitution, though he eventually walked back those comments.

The mayor further stunned Democrats when he sidestepped questions last week on whether he would consider changing parties to become a Republican, telling journalists that he was part of the “American party.” Adams later clarified that he would remain a Democrat.

For Adams, a centrist Democrat known for quarreling with the city’s progressive left, the recent comments on immigration follow frustration with the Biden administration over its immigration policies and a surge of international migrants in the city.

He has maintained his positions have not changed and argues he’s trying to protect New Yorkers, pointing to the law-and-order platform he has staked out throughout his political career and while running for mayor.

At his news conference Thursday, Adams reiterated his commitment to New York’s generous social safety net.

“We’re going to tell those who are here, who are law-abiding, to continue to utilize the services that are open to the city, the services that they have a right to utilize, educating their children, health care, public protection,” he said. “But we will not be the safe haven for those who commit violent acts.”

While the education of all children present in the U.S. is already guaranteed by a Supreme Court ruling, New York also offers social services like healthcare and emergency shelter to low-income residents, including those in the country illegally. City and state grants also provide significant access to lawyers, which is not guaranteed in the immigration court as they are in the criminal court.

Still, Adams’ recent rhetoric has been seen by some critics as an attempt to cozy up to Trump, who could potentially offer a presidential pardon in his federal corruption case. Adams has been charged with accepting luxury travel perks and illegal campaign contributions from a Turkish official and other foreign nationals looking to buy his influence. He has pleaded not guilty.

Homan, who was Trump’s former acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, also met this week with Republicans in Illinois, where he called on Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, to start negotiations over how Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to local media.

While meeting with Adams, Homan said, “We traded ideas, we traded, strategies. He told me what he liked and didn’t like about immigration policies. … There’s things we don’t agree on, but we agree on the most important things.”

Separately, New York City officials this week announced continued efforts to shrink a huge emergency shelter system for migrants because of a steady decline in new arrivals. Among planned shelter closures is a massive tent complex built on a federally owned former airport in Brooklyn, which advocates warned could be a prime target for Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Elsewhere, Republican governors and lawmakers in some states are rolling out proposals that could help Trump carry out his promised deportations.

HOUSTON (AP) – A federal court on Wednesday affirmed a federal judge’s 2021 ruling imposing a $14.25 million penalty on Exxon Mobil for thousands of violations of the federal Clean Air Act at the company’s refinery and chemical plant complex in Baytown.

The decision by a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects Exxon’s latest appeal, closing over a decade of litigation since the Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued the company in 2010.

“This ruling affirms a bedrock principle of constitutional law that people who live near pollution-spewing industrial facilities have a personal stake in holding polluters accountable for non-compliance with federal air pollution limits, and therefore have a right to sue to enforce the Clean Air Act as Congress intended,” Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center and a lead lawyer on the case, said in a statement.

From 2005 to 2013, a federal judge found in 2017, Exxon’s refinery and chemical plants in Baytown released 10 million pounds of pollution beyond its state-issued air permits, including carcinogenic and toxic chemicals. U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered Exxon to pay $19.95 million as punishment for exceeding air pollution limits on 16,386 days.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and considering other legal options,” an Exxon spokesperson said in response to the ruling.

Baytown sits 25 miles outside of Houston, with tens of thousands of people living near Exxon’s facility.

Exxon appealed and asked Hittner to re-examine how the fine was calculated, including by considering how much money the company saved by delaying repairs that would’ve prevented the excess air emissions in the first place. The company also argued that it had presented sufficient evidence to show that emissions were unavoidable.

In 2021, Hittner reduced the fine to $14.25 million — the largest penalty imposed by a court out of a citizen-initiated lawsuit under the Clean Air Act, according to Environment Texas. Exxon appealed again, challenging the plaintiffs’ standing to bring the lawsuit.

While a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Hittner’s 2021 decision on Wednesday, seven members of the 17-judge panel also said they would have upheld the $19.95 million fine.

“The principal issue before the en banc Court is whether Plaintiffs’ members, who live, work, and recreate near Exxon’s facility, have a sufficient ‘personal stake’ in curtailing Exxon’s ongoing and future unlawful emissions of hazardous pollutants,” the judges wrote in a concurring opinion. “We conclude that the district court correctly held that Plaintiffs established standing for each of their claims and did not abuse its discretion in awarding a penalty of $19.95 million against Exxon to deter it from committing future violations.”

The Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued Exxon under a provision in the federal Clean Air Act that allows citizens to sue amid inaction by state and federal environmental regulators. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality rarely penalizes companies for unauthorized air emissions, a Texas Tribune investigation found.

“People in Baytown and Houston expect industry to be good neighbors,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said in a statement. “But when companies violate the law and put health-threatening pollution into neighborhoods, they need to be held accountable.”

___

This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — SpaceX is launching a new mission: making its Starbase site a new Texas city.

Billionaire Elon Musk ‘s company on Thursday sent a letter to local officials requesting an election to turn what it calls Starbase — the South Texas site where SpaceX builds and launches its massive Starship rockets — into an incorporated city. Residents of the area known as Starbase submitted the petition, according to the company.

The area is on the southern tip of Texas at Boca Chica Beach, near the Mexican border. Earlier this year, Musk announced he was moving the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas.

“To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship, we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community. That is why we are requesting that Cameron County call an election to enable the incorporation of Starbase as the newest city in the Rio Grande Valley,” Kathryn Lueders, the general manager of Starbase, wrote in a letter to the county.

It’s not the first time turning Starbase into its own city has been floated. Musk proposed the idea in 2021 when he wrote a social media post that simply said, “Creating the city of Starbase, Texas.”

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., the county’s top elected official, said despite the talks of incorporation in 2021, this was the first time a petition was officially filed.

“Our legal and elections administration will review the petition, see whether or not it complied with all of the statutory requirements and then we’ll go from there,” Treviño said on Thursday.

More than 3,400 full-time SpaceX employees and contractors work at the Starbase site, according to a local impact study issued by Trevino earlier this year.

SpaceX’s rapid expansion in the region has drawn pushback from some locals. Earlier this year, a group called Save RGV sued the company in July over allegations of environmental violations and dumping polluted water into the nearby bay. SpaceX said in response that a state review found no environmental risks and called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

AUSTIN – The Texas Tribune reports that key Texas lawmakers are reviving legislation that would require election officials to respond within set time frames to requests to explain “election irregularities” from certain party officials and election workers.

If the complainants aren’t satisfied, the bill would let them take their requests to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, which would have to decide whether to investigate further and conduct an audit.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who authored the bill, said it will help clear up “any misunderstanding” about elections.

But experts and local election officials said Texas already has policies in place that have increased election transparency and security.

The bill, they said, could instead undermine voters’ trust if election officials have to prioritize an influx of meritless complaints. The measure would also add to the burdens on election officials who are already contending with a flood of public records requests, questions from residents worried about election integrity, and voter challenges, while also trying to comply with strict election deadlines set by state and federal laws, experts said.

“It’s difficult to see how this is anything other than just a really cumbersome administrative process that’s just going to in a lot of ways throw sand in the gears of election administration,” said Daniel Griffith, senior director of policy at Secure Democracy, a nonprofit organization that produces research and analysis focused on voting and elections.

Bettencourt first filed a similar bill in 2021 and reintroduced it in 2023. Both times, it passed in the Senate but not the House. Senate Bill 505, which he filed last month, is identical to his 2023 legislation.

The bill would allow candidates, county party chairs, election or alternate judges — election judges are tasked with supervising polling locations — and leaders of political action committees to request that election officials “provide an explanation to election irregularities or violations of the law and to provide supporting documentation” of such.

Bettencourt said problems during Harris County’s November 2022 election prove such a measure is needed.

The county, home to Houston, is the state’s most populous. During that election, the county’s elections department failed to provide sufficient paper to two dozen of the county’s more than 700 polling locations. There were also reports of malfunctioning equipment at various locations, long lines and polling locations that had late openings.

Citing the problems, multiple losing Republican candidates challenged the results of that election. A judge ordered a redo of the election for one race. After that election, Bettencourt championed legislation that abolished the Harris elections administration department and returned election duties to the county clerk, an elected official.

Bettencourt said that for months after that election, county election officials “refused to answer questions.” The bill would help prevent that, he said. He also pointed to more recent incidents in Dallas County, another Democratic stronghold, involving false claims by Dallas County Republican leaders who said that the voting equipment had not been certified by state officials. Bettencourt said “miscommunication” between the party and the elections office fueled the problems, and he thinks his bill would help in situations like that.

“This sets up an organized structure for people to ask questions, get answers, and then if the answers aren’t suitable or not getting any answers they can go to the secretary of state,” Bettencourt said.

The latest bill is part of a legislative package — which includes other election measures, such as penalties for election officials who fail to comply with election laws and one that would prevent the distribution of unsolicited voter registration cards — supported and written by seven other Republican senators: Brandon Creighton, Joan Huffman, Lois Kolkhorst, Mayes Middleton, Tan Parker, Angela Paxton, and Charles Perry. Several have been members of the Senate State Affairs Committee.

The committee discusses and helps decide which election legislation moves forward in the Senate chamber.
Bill requires election audits, fines in certain cases

According to the legislation, once party officials or election workers submit a request, election officials would have 20 days to respond. If that person isn’t satisfied with the response, the bill states, they can ask for more information. The election official at that point would have 10 additional days to respond further.

Then, if a requester is still not satisfied, they “may issue a request to the secretary of state for an audit of the issue.” Such a request for an audit must include copies of communications and responses provided by the election official.

The secretary of state will then determine if the information provided “sufficiently explains the irregularity identified,” the bill says. If the secretary of state concludes it isn’t, that office must “immediately begin an audit of the identified irregularity at the expense of the county or other authority conducting the election.”

The secretary of state’s office is already required to audit the elections of four counties that are randomly selected every two years. Elections in Harris County have been audited twice recently by the agency.

The Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment on the legislation.

In a fiscal note about Bettencourt’s 2023 bill, the Secretary of State’s Office anticipated multiple audits would require “substantial document review and analysis, labor ­intensive work, and travel to the applicable locations.” In addition, according to the fiscal note, the office would need six additional full-time employees.

Bettencourt told Votebeat a new cost analysis would have to be done next year as the bill moves through the legislative process.

There would also be additional costs to county taxpayers if the secretary of state finds violations of election law. In such cases, the office would then be permitted to appoint a conservator to oversee elections in the county, at the county’s expense. And if county election officials do not remedy the violations, they could incur fines starting at $500 per violation, the bill states.
How Bettencourt’s bill would impact election officials

Election officials are already required to keep detailed documentation for nearly every step of the election process. Human error, technical problems, and minor irregularities occur during every election in some form, and officials are required to identify the issues and respond.

Election administrators answer to bipartisan election boards and commissions. They have to respond to questions from members of the counties’ commissioners court, who set the budgets for election departments. Election officials respond to public records requests submitted by members of the public, which also have to be fulfilled within a specific time frame by law.

And the law already allows the Texas secretary of state, who is the chief election officer, to report any legitimate evidence of illegality or malfeasance to the Texas Attorney General’s Office for investigation.

Nonetheless, in recent years, election officials across the state report contending with streams of requests from organized conservative activists who have claimed laws aren’t being followed, or the process is flawed. No matter what information they provide, they said they are sometimes unable to satisfy people.

That’s why some election officials said, as it stands now, the bill’s effort to increase transparency would instead create additional hardships.

During the March 5 primary election, Bruce Sherbet, the Collin County elections administrator, was also preparing for a city school district election happening in May and the primary runoff election that same month. The county had another election looming in June.

Sherbet said he can’t fathom how election officials could handle more requests for information in the midst of such election preparations.

He added that depending on the type and timing of requests, some documentation may not be available for public inspection, may need redactions, or simply may not exist.

“I can see it as an invitation for abuse and both parties could be a part of that abuse,” Sherbet said. “Where does it stop? And where do you have time to do the job that you have to do?”

For his part, Bettencourt said his intent is not to create more work for election officials. He said that’s why the bill limits who can submit the requests to individuals involved with the election, including election judges and alternate judges. Those are the individuals responsible for supervising polling locations.

Those categories, though, still include substantial numbers of people. During the Nov. 5 election 117 judges and 117 alternate judges worked in Collin County. The bill would allow all of them to submit requests at any point during the election, Sherbet said. “It’s going to cause bigger mistakes to happen, or noncompliance,” he said.

He’s also concerned that this could further undermine trust in the process. The complaints and requests made to election officials would also become public record. Voters would have access to all of them whether or not they have merit.

“It’s not building confidence at all. What it’s doing is further harming the confidence of the election that we’re trying to turn a corner and get back on track again from the 2020 election,” Sherbet said.

WASHINGTON – Politico is reporting that Senate Republicans have discussed elevating Sen. John Cornyn to chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to party officials, a move that would hand Cornyn a prized gavel as consolation for losing his GOP leader bid and could help induce him to run for reelection in two years. The complication, and almost certain deal-breaker: Cornyn would have to leapfrog the Republican next in line to chair the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Cotton has privately made clear to Cornyn he would claim the position. Likely ensuring Cotton’s ascension to the chair is the raw politics of last month’s Senate Republican leadership race between Cornyn and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). A select rather than standing committee, the intelligence panel’s chair is chosen by the majority leader. And Cotton supported Thune on the private ballot, according to a third Senate Republican, and now Thune is poised to reward him rather than the man he defeated. A spokesperson for Thune declined to comment.

Asked if he expects to claim the gavel, Cotton on Tuesday said, “No comment.” On Tuesday night, Cotton spokeswoman Caroline Tabler said: “Senator Thune has told Senator Cotton he’s taking over as chair. He is hiring staff, working with Senator [Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) on the transition, and planning with Senator [Mark] Warner (D-Va.) for January confirmation hearings.” A Cornyn representative declined to comment. But I’m told the Arkansan has already started hiring staff and refused to be coaxed into letting Cornyn take the chair, which will be open because of Rubio’s appointment as Secretary of State. Cornyn approached Cotton to take his temperature about the post last month after the leader race, I’m told by a Republican senator, and Cotton responded by saying: “I’m going to be the chairman.” Cornyn said after his defeat in the leader race that he planned to seek a fifth term in 2026. Yet some of the Texan’s colleagues are more skeptical, in part because Cornyn could face a formidable primary challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

HOUSTON (AP) – A federal court on Wednesday affirmed a federal judge’s 2021 ruling imposing a $14.25 million penalty on Exxon Mobil for thousands of violations of the federal Clean Air Act at the company’s refinery and chemical plant complex in Baytown.

The decision by a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects Exxon’s latest appeal, closing over a decade of litigation since the Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued the company in 2010.

“This ruling affirms a bedrock principle of constitutional law that people who live near pollution-spewing industrial facilities have a personal stake in holding polluters accountable for non-compliance with federal air pollution limits, and therefore have a right to sue to enforce the Clean Air Act as Congress intended,” Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center and a lead lawyer on the case, said in a statement.

From 2005 to 2013, a federal judge found in 2017, Exxon’s refinery and chemical plants in Baytown released 10 million pounds of pollution beyond its state-issued air permits, including carcinogenic and toxic chemicals. U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered Exxon to pay $19.95 million as punishment for exceeding air pollution limits on 16,386 days.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and considering other legal options,” an Exxon spokesperson said in response to the ruling.

Baytown sits 25 miles outside of Houston, with tens of thousands of people living near Exxon’s facility.

Exxon appealed and asked Hittner to re-examine how the fine was calculated, including by considering how much money the company saved by delaying repairs that would’ve prevented the excess air emissions in the first place. The company also argued that it had presented sufficient evidence to show that emissions were unavoidable.

In 2021, Hittner reduced the fine to $14.25 million — the largest penalty imposed by a court out of a citizen-initiated lawsuit under the Clean Air Act, according to Environment Texas. Exxon appealed again, challenging the plaintiffs’ standing to bring the lawsuit.

While a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Hittner’s 2021 decision on Wednesday, seven members of the 17-judge panel also said they would have upheld the $19.95 million fine.

“The principal issue before the en banc Court is whether Plaintiffs’ members, who live, work, and recreate near Exxon’s facility, have a sufficient ‘personal stake’ in curtailing Exxon’s ongoing and future unlawful emissions of hazardous pollutants,” the judges wrote in a concurring opinion. “We conclude that the district court correctly held that Plaintiffs established standing for each of their claims and did not abuse its discretion in awarding a penalty of $19.95 million against Exxon to deter it from committing future violations.”

The Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued Exxon under a provision in the federal Clean Air Act that allows citizens to sue amid inaction by state and federal environmental regulators. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality rarely penalizes companies for unauthorized air emissions, a Texas Tribune investigation found.

“People in Baytown and Houston expect industry to be good neighbors,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said in a statement. “But when companies violate the law and put health-threatening pollution into neighborhoods, they need to be held accountable.”