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HOUSTON – Houston Public Media report that President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to slap 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada as soon as he takes office, as well as an extra 10% fee on all imports from China – the latter coming on top of tariffs Trump instituted on China in his first term and which were maintained by President Joe Biden. Those tariffs could have serious consequences for the Texas economy and for the Houston area specifically. “The impact would be quick, sudden, and sure, with inflation raging across the economy over the first several months,” said economist Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston. Hirs said the prices of Mexican imports would spiral everywhere from the produce departments of grocery stores to automobile dealerships. Then, there’s the 4 million barrels of crude oil per day imported from Canada.

“Generally, we count on that to run many of our refineries in the United States,” Hirs said, “and that would lead to an immediate increase in the price of gasoline and diesel. It would also lead to a price increase in crude oil in West Texas as well.” Mexico, Canada and China collectively accounted for more than 43% of Texas’ total exports of goods last year, or roughly $192 billion. Even that understates the dependence of Texas on those three countries, because it doesn’t include exports of services or foreign direct investment. Hirs said if Mexico, Canada and China respond with tariffs of their own, or by reducing their purchases of U.S. imports, it would send the U.S. into a deep recession. He pointed to how China responded to the first round of Trump tariffs. “We saw China retaliate in the first Trump years by refusing to buy U.S. grains, and as a result, it was devastation across the farm belt,” Hirs said. “Farmers lost their homes, lost their fields, lost their properties. Some lost their lives.” Much of that agricultural trade with China moves through the Port of Houston.

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A Delaware judge has reaffirmed her ruling that Tesla must revoke Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package

Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Monday denied a request by attorneys for Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors to vacate her ruling earlier this year requiring the company to rescind the unprecedented pay package.

McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million.

The rulings came in a lawsuit filed by a Tesla stockholder who challenged Musk’s 2018 compensation package.

McCormick concluded in January that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price.

Following the original court ruling, Tesla shareholders met in June and ratified Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, again by an overwhelming margin.

Defense attorneys then argued that the second vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out, were adamant that Musk is entitled to the pay package. They asked the judge to vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package.

McCormick, who seemed skeptical of the defense arguments during an August hearing, said in Monday’s ruling that those arguments were fatally flawed.

“The large and talented group of defense firms got creative with the ratification argument, but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law,” McCormick wrote in a 103-page opinion.

The judge noted, among other things, that a stockholder vote standing alone cannot ratify a conflicted-controller transaction.

“Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here due to multiple, material misstatements in the proxy statement,” she added.

Musk expressed his disagreement with the ruling in a post on X, the social media platform he owns. “Shareholders should control company votes, not judges,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, McCormick found that the $5.6 billion fee request by the shareholder’s attorneys, which at one time approached $7 billion based on Tesla’s trading price, went too far.

“In a case about excessive compensation, that was a bold ask,” McCormick wrote.

Attorneys for the Tesla shareholder argue that their work resulted in the “massive” benefit of returning shares to Tesla that otherwise would have gone to Musk and diluted the stock held by other Tesla investors. They value that benefit at $51.4 billion, using the difference between the stock price at the time of McCormick’s January ruling and the strike price of some 304 million stock options granted to Musk.

While finding that the methodology used to calculate the fee request was sound, the judge noted that the Delaware’s Supreme Court has noted that fee award guidelines “must yield to the greater policy concern of preventing windfalls to counsel.”

“The fee award here must yield in this way, because $5.6 billion is a windfall no matter the methodology used to justify it,” McCormick wrote. A fee award of $345 million, she said, was “an appropriate sum to reward a total victory.”

The fee award amounts to almost exactly half the current record $688 million in legal fees awarded in 2008 in litigation stemming from the collapse of Enron.

AUSTIN – KXAN reports that in one month, most Texas drivers will be able to skip the state’s annual vehicle safety inspection. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, a new law, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed in June 2023, will abolish the Vehicle Safety Inspection Program for non-commercial vehicles. Commercial vehicles will still be subject to the inspection requirement as usual. Having a safe vehicle will now be a personal responsibility, and while the change may save time, it won’t save money. The requirement will be replaced by a $7.50 inspection program replacement fee. Prior to the new law, an annual vehicle safety inspection cost $7.50. The Texas Department of Public Safety said the fee would be paid during the vehicle’s annual, required registration with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Newer vehicles not yet registered will incur a $16.75 fee to cover two years of registration.

AUSTIN – KVUE reports that with the Texas legislative session starting in less than 50 days, one Texas lawmaker hopes a new bill will finally connect the state through a high-speed rail line. Texas Rep. John Bucy, a Democrat who represents parts of North Austin and Williamson County, filed House Bill 483, which would propose an agreement between the Texas Department of Transportation and a private partner to create this rail line that would connect Dallas to Austin to San Antonio. “Connecting these major hubs of the most trafficked road in the state of I-35 with another means to get up and down, it makes just a ton of sense,” Bucy said. There is no direct funding attached to the bill to construct the high-speed rail, just an order for TxDOT to find a vendor to start construction on what Bucy says will be a long process.

Conversations about a rail line like this have emerged before, but nothing has ever come of it. “You look at the 80s and 90s, Texas was a leader in infrastructure, especially road infrastructure,” Bucy said. “We’ve really lost our focus on doing that, and as Texas continues to grow, Texans are suffering for it.” In addition to connecting these major business hubs and making commuting easier for those who work and live in two different Texas hubs, Bucy is hopeful the rail will lead to decreased crashes on the highway. “What should be six hours round trip turns into seven, eight, nine because of all the traffic, all the construction and the projects that are constantly happening on I-35, and that’s going to lead to tired, frustrated, distracted drivers,” Bucy said. “This would be a safe way to move people up and down I-35.” Since filing the bill, Bucy said he’s been overwhelmed with support from commissioners and other Texas lawmakers wanting to make this high-speed rail happen. Now the major endorsement he’ll be looking for this upcoming January is Gov. Greg Abbott. “If the governor got behind it as a leader in innovation with the state, having a high-speed rail would be a next big step in that,” Bucy said.

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Express-News reports that after a Houston doctor went viral on TikTok for advising patients to skip a U.S. citizenship question on certain patient intake forms, Gov. Greg Abbott appeared to threaten to rescind government funding for hospitals that fail to “follow the law.” Abbott issued an executive order on Aug. 8 requiring hospitals that accept Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Plan, to ask patients: “Are you a U.S. citizen?” On Nov. 11, Tony Pastor, a cardiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, posted a video on TikTok telling viewers, “We were told today that people do not actually have to answer the question.” The governor lashed out at Pastor’s employers in a Nov. 24 post on X, though his comments seemed to apply to all Texas hospitals that receive Medicaid funding.

“Hey Texas Children’s Hospital & Baylor College of Medicine this doctor is putting your Medicaid & Medicare funding at risk,” Abbott said in the post. “(You) better think twice & have crystal clear records. There will be consequences for failing to follow the law in the Order.” Pastor’s original post had been removed from his account as of Nov. 30. But he posted a video on TikTok on Nov. 26 in response to Abbott’s X post. “When the gov of Texas threatens you on twitter because he is mad you exercised freedom of speech,” Pastor captioned within the video clip. Several advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have said hospitals are legally required to ask the question — but patients are not legally obligated to answer it. The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District also released a flyer mirroring Pastor’s Nov. 11 statement. “You do not have to answer the citizenship question if you don’t want to. Your answer will not affect your care — you will not be turned away,” the flyer said. “You have a right to life-saving care, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.” Abbott did not immediately respond to Express-News’ request for comment.

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Express-News reports that Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller wants to see raw milk on grocery store shelves. Raw milk has not been pasteurized — the process of heating milk to a certain temperature to kill illness-causing bacteria. Miller said in an editorial on the state agency’s website that he grew up on a farm drinking milk straight from the cow, and he thinks others should be able to exercise their freedom to drink raw milk by making it more widely available. In Texas, people can currently buy raw milk from farms, farmers markets and the internet, but federal law prohibits its interstate sale, the editorial says. “Raw milk isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be available,” Miller said. “Just as we shouldn’t force people to consume something they don’t want, the government should allow people the right to choose what is best for their personal nutrition.”

Raw milk has been rising in consumer interest recently as a supposedly more natural alternative to pasteurized, homogenized milk with some health benefits. But raw milk can carry bacteria like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and Campylobacter, and consuming it can cause serious illness, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both agencies say pasteurization does not reduce milk’s nutritional value. Last month, a child got bird flu virus after drinking raw milk from California. “While raw milk contains the same number of amino acids, antimicrobials, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids as pasteurized milk; for some, it’s about taking the calculated risk to reap the benefits of milk in its purest form,” Miller said. The commissioner — whose job it is to over see the state’s agriculture, consumer protection, economic development and healthy living — acknowledged the health risks, but said they are risks worth taking. “It takes knowledge, care, and some good cowboy logic to handle raw milk safely,” he said. “Just because it’s risky doesn’t mean the option should be removed from the people either. I believe in personal choice and the freedom to decide what’s best for you and your family.”