Man charged with intoxication manslaughter in Texas crash involving 17 vehicles, killing 5 people

AUSTIN (AP) – A man was charged Friday with intoxication manslaughter after five people were killed and several injured in a late-night wreck in Austin, Texas, that involved over a dozen vehicles on Interstate 35, authorities said.

Authorities said that the five people killed in the crash that involved 17 vehicles Thursday just before 11:30 p.m. included three adults, a child and an infant. First responders said that 11 people were taken to hospitals.

Solomun Weldekeal Araya, 37, was charged with five counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault after the crash, Austin police said Friday. Police said he was in custody in Travis County Jail. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney. Jail records did not list an attorney for him.

Police have not detailed the circumstances that led to the wreck. Police said in an email Friday that they were still early in the investigation and had no further information available to release.

The southbound lanes of I-35 were closed following the crash, and they remained closed into Friday before reopening at about 1 p.m. The wreck left a stretch of the interstate littered with mangled vehicles and debris.

The collision was “very large and very complex,” police Officer Austin Zarling said at an early morning news conference.

Edgar Viera told the KXAN television station that he was at a nearby store when he heard the crash and went to try to help those involved.

“We didn’t have the proper tools to open the vehicles, so we just did what we could,” Viera told the station. “It was hard to see this.”

Ten-year-old East Texas girl, mother injured after shooting outside their house

TEXARKANA – A 10-year-old girl and her mother were shot in their sleep around 12:30 Friday morning in the 3000 block of Mason St. according to the Texarkana Police Department.

According to our news partner, KETK, police said they were alerted to the incident by neighbors who reported hearing several shots. When officers arrived, they learned both were injured and another house had been caught in the crossfire after several rounds were fired. The mother and daughter were taken to a Texarkana hospital, but the girl was then transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital later on for additional treatment.

As police investigate this case, if anyone has more information on this shooting they’re ask to contact Texarkana Police Department, or Texarkana Area Crime Stoppers.

Longview man sentenced to 100 years after sexually abusing child

LONGVIEW – Our news partner, KETK, reports that a Longview man was sentenced to 100 years in prison after being found guilty for multiple counts of sexual abuse to a child.

According to the Gregg County District Attorney’s Office, on Thursday Justin Eugene Howard was sentenced to 80 years for aggravated sexual assault of a child to run consecutively with a 20 year sentence for sexual assault of a child followed by 10 years of probation for indecency with a child by sexual contact.

Officials said that Howard’s convictions come from his continuous sexual abuse of a girl that began back in 2008, when the child was 6-years-old and it continued through 2020. The testimony at trial showed that Howard committed several sexual offenses against the child from 2008 to 2020. (more…)

East Texas representative proposes bill to protect children from explicit content

TYLER – According to reports from our news partner, KETK, an East Texas representative filed a bill in late February meant to protect children from sexually explicit material in public libraries.

State Representative Daniel Alders filed House Bill 3225 on Feb. 24, which would require public municipal libraries to restrict accessibility to sexually explicit material for minors.

“As radicals continue to target our children with obscene content tucked away in our children’s reading material, it’s high time for Texas lawmakers to take a stand and ensure our public libraries take the necessary steps to protect our children,” Alders said. (more…)

Malakoff ISD Superintendent lone finalist is Dr. PJ Winters

MALAKOFF — Malakoff Independent School District held a special board meeting Wednesday as the Board of Trustees named Dr. PJ Winters the lone finalist for their new superintendent.

According to our news partner, KETK, Dr. Winters brings over 20 years of experience in education to the job. He was a teacher for over five years working at Lukfata Public Schools and Marshall ISD. Then, he became an assistant principal for Jefferson ISD for over three years.

Winters became a principal at Big Sandy High School for a year before returning to Jefferson ISD, where he was also a principal for two and a half years. Afterwards, he started working at the university level and became a professor. At East Baptist University he spent over eight years working as an associate professor and later as the director of music education programs. On June 2022, Winters joined Malakoff ISD becoming director of elementary curriculum.

Winters will be staying with Malakoff ISD as the new Superintendent. The Malakoff ISD Board of Trustees voted him as the lone finalist 7-0. Once the required 21-day waiting period is over, he will formally take over the role.

Texas Tech officials trying to determine what caused explosion and fires

LUBBOCK – Lubbock fire officials said Thursday that they are still uncertain about what caused at least one underground explosion and several fires at Texas Tech University the night before that took out power and forced an emergency shutdown of the campus.

Emergency officials said they received several calls regarding a potential gas leak just before 7 p.m. on campus. Upon arrival, firefighters found flames shooting out of manholes, a Lubbock Fire official said during a press conference Wednesday. Video from the Texas Tech campus posted by local news station KCBD shows green flames spewing from one manhole. Officials at a second press conference Thursday said the discoloration was likely caused by copper and other electronic material underground.

Texas Tech Fire Marshal Mike Kennon said teams initially responded to three different fires on campus, but later determined that there were five fires in underground vaults. Officials also said natural gas is being removed from underground, but could not confirm whether it was what caused the fires.

“Was that a result of an explosion, or electrical or a fire, or was it the other way around?” Lubbock Assistant Fire Chief Nick Wilson said. “We know it was present. We don’t necessarily know why.”

Officials on Thursday did not confirm whether there was a single explosion or several, but said on Wednesday there was at least one underground explosion inside a manhole on campus near Engineering Key, a central portion of the campus.

Evacuations began in that area shortly after firefighters arrived, and power was either automatically or intentionally shut off to avoid exacerbating the fires and prevent any further damage. No injuries have been reported.

“An event like this can obviously cascade and cause a lot worse damage than we saw,” said Matt Rose, chief public affairs officer for Lubbock Power & Light. “That being said, we’re taking this very, very seriously.”

About 40% of the campus is still without power as of Thursday afternoon, officials said, and the explosion initially caused outages across campus and at the nearby Texas Tech Health and Sciences Center. Because a bulk of the damaged systems are underground, it is unclear how long repairs may take as officials wait for portions of the tunnels to be deemed safe for repairs.

Spring break for Texas Tech students was set to start Monday, however the university announced it will be closed for the remainder of the week. For students who had chosen to remain on campus during spring break but are now without power, Texas Tech has provided housing accommodations, and food was donated by H-E-B and other groups, as well.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

Man arrested for soliciting minor in Henderson County sting operation

HENDERSON COUNTY – According to reports from our news partner, KETK, a sting operation in Henderson County has led to the arrest of a man who was attempting to solicit a minor.

During the sting operation on Monday, an officer utilized an online dating messaging platform to target individuals who were seeking to have sexual relationships with minors. The officer created an undercover persona, portraying himself as a 15-year-old girl living in Henderson County. The officer’s profile on the website received direct messages from an account with the username “Rob.” During their conversations on the platform, the user believed that the officer was a minor living in East Texas. (more…)

East Texas teen dies in Terrell car crash, driver arrested

TERREL — A Wills Point teenager was killed during a car crash in Terrell on Tuesday.

According to our news partner, KETK, the Terrell Police Department received a 911 call at around 2:49 a.m. in regards to a crash detection notification from a cell phone in the area of State Highway 205 and Colquitt Road. When officers arrived, they found an orange 2020 Chevrolet Equinox that had struck a traffic light pole on the right side of the roadway.

The passenger of the vehicle, 19-year-old Bryson Malachi Barnes of Wills Point, was pronounced dead at the scene, Terrell PD said. The driver, Preston David Grosvenor-Reed, 18 of Royse City, was taken to a hospital for minor injuries. (more…)

Texas lawmakers are pushing harsher criminal penalties

AUSTIN – Texas lawmakers are pushing more than 100 bills to clamp down on crime, threatening to overcrowd the state’s jails and prisons whose populations have continued to grow after dipping significantly during the pandemic.

Lawmakers have proposed at least 121 bills that seek to increase criminal penalties by either creating mandatory minimum sentences or by elevating punishment, according to the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. That nonprofit organization has also tracked 90 bills that would create new felonies and 96 bills that would create new misdemeanors.

Those figures only include bills filed through Monday and are expected to increase once they account for the hundreds of bills lawmakers have filed this week in advance of Friday’s bill filing deadline. Still, the estimates show the state’s growing push towards more punishment.

“Ever since 2015 there has been a pretty steady, incremental growth in the number of crimes [lawmakers] create every session,” said Shannon Edmonds, president of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. That growth signals a “return to the law and order sentiment of previous decades,” he added.

Proposals include bills to crack down on organized retail theft, impose prison time on people who burglarize vehicles more than once and ban the possession of AI-generated child pornography.

Some proposals would provide local law enforcement officers with more tools to crack down on threats from new technology, including artificial intelligence, while other legislation would do little to deter crime and could strain the state’s already overwrought prisons and jails, experts said.

Texas’ prison population is projected to increase by about 10% over the next five years, according to the Legislative Budget Board, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice continues to contend with a staffing shortage.

County jails’ population is also increasing. As of February, their population was about 2.5% higher than the same time last year, according to data collected by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

Some facilities are so short staffed that inmates are sent out of state to Mississippi and Louisiana. About 4,100 Texas jail inmates were housed outside their county of arrest, as of February, according to commission data.

“It’s important to take into account the costs these bills bear on county jails because many of them are already stretched very thin,” said Marc Levin, chief policy counsel at the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice “If you raise things within the misdemeanor level, to a Class A misdemeanor instead of a Class B misdemeanor… you’re going to have more people sitting in county jail.”

Class A misdemeanors are punishable by up to one year in jail while Class B misdemeanors carry up to 180 days in jail. People convicted of felonies are usually held in state prisons, which currently house about 136,000 offenders.

Texas’ prison population decreased during the coronavirus pandemic to lows of about 117,000 people in January 2021. The number of people in state prisons has since grown, contributing to about 31% of the nationwide growth in the prison population over 2022 and 2023, according to a report published this week by the Prison Policy Initiative.

Session after session, Texas lawmakers introduce a slew of bills that increase criminal penalties, often in response to concerns from the public about crimes they have witnessed in their communities. It hasn’t always been that way. The late aughts saw efforts to reduce the state’s prison population by reducing sentences and diverting people away from incarceration. They fizzled around 2015, and since then, the number of new crimes that lawmakers create each session has increased, Edmonds said.In 2023, lawmakers created 58 new criminal offenses and 26 new punishments, a number higher than any of the legislative sessions over the previous 10 years, according to the prosecutors association.

This year, a handful of bills creating criminal enhancements or new crimes are in response to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s interim charges. At Patrick’s behest, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee studied the effects of organized retail crime — where a network of thieves steal large quantities of merchandise that they sell for cash, a growing concern nationally — and also identified ways to strengthen financial crime investigations.

Senate Bill 1300, filed by Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, aims to address the $422 million in stolen goods and approximately $21 million in sales tax revenue Texas lost to organized retail crime in 2022.

The bill would increase the penalty for such crimes, based on the value of property stolen. Current law designates organized retail theft as a Class C misdemeanor — which does not allow for jail time — when the property taken is worth less than $100. The bill would increase that to a Class B misdemeanor. As the value of property stolen increases, the punishment would rise, up to a first degree felony punishable by life in prison if the total value of goods stolen exceeds $300,000.

The committee advanced the bill to the full Senate this week, even though Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston, expressed concern that the bill would allow prosecutors to incarcerate impoverished families. A husband-wife couple in poverty could face jail time for stealing formula for their baby, even though the bill seeks to target organized retail theft rings, he asserted to lawmakers. Flores countered that prosecutors need discretion to determine whether to press charges.

Three other bills approved by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee this week target bank and credit card fraud, which bank executives said are occuring at alarming rates. And a bill by Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, creates a specific offense for stealing mail receptacle keys or locks, with stronger penalties for those who target elderly communities.

Other bills address auto theft, an issue Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told lawmakers has hit San Antonio particularly hard.

House Bill 727 heightens the punishment for burglarizing a vehicle when the person carrying it out has a firearm, burglarizes two or more vehicles, or uses a stolen vehicle to carry out the offense. Such crimes would be designated a state jail felony, which could lead to 180 days to two years in state jail. The bill was left pending in committee this week. Also discussed — but left pending in committee — was House Bill 548, which establishes a mandatory minimum of a year in confinement for a second auto burglary offense.

But property crimes are difficult to solve and increasing the punishment would not result in more car burglary cases getting solved, said Staley Heatly, county attorney in Wilbarger County. “It doesn’t necessarily seem like an effective tool to stop burglaries from happening,” Heatly said. “They’re difficult because people leave their cars unlocked, somebody comes by at night and rifles through the car and takes what they can. There’s going to be no witnesses, so they’re just exceedingly difficult to solve.”

Critics who spoke against the bill said burglaries are often carried out by youth who would not be deterred by an increased penalty.

Research shows that juvenile incarceration rarely produces positive results and that investing in intensive juvenile probation programs would be more successful, Levin said.

That argument was echoed during discussion of House Bill 268, which would increase the criminal penalty for making certain false reports, such as hoax calls threatening a call for mass violence against schools.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

Feds are opening more migrant detention centers in Texas

KARNES COUNTY – After watching news reports of seemingly random immigration raids and hearing White House officials encourage undocumented immigrants to self-deport, a Venezuelan family decided to heed the government’s advice and leave the United States for Canada a few weeks ago.

They were arrested trying to enter Canada, said their San Antonio lawyer, Laura Flores-Dixit.

Now the parents, who are in their 30s, and their two children, ages 6 and 8 — who through Flores-Dixit declined to be identified or interviewed — are among the first families to be jailed at a South Texas immigration detention facility that the Trump administration has repurposed to hold families after former President Joe Biden greatly reduced the practice.

The change at the Karnes County Detention Facility, about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio, is just one of a flurry of developments in recent weeks that’s drawing attention to privately-run immigration detention facilities that have long been criticized for poor conditions, weak standards and even weaker oversight.

When President Donald Trump vowed to deport a record number of undocumented immigrants, it was clear he would face a number of logistical challenges, starting with a limited number of federal agents to search for and arrest people — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency charged with the job, has just an estimated 6,000 officers tasked with monitoring and finding undocumented immigrants. ICE has received help from federal drug agents, Texas state troopers and other law enforcement agencies as it searches for undocumented immigrants.

The second challenge is where to hold the people they apprehend.

Texas is likely to play an outsized role in detaining immigrants because it already has 21 detention facilities that as of late February held 12,186 undocumented immigrants — reportedly the most in any state.

“Texas is the state that has had the largest number of immigrant detainees in the country for quite some time,” said Eunice Cho, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. “Texas is really the epicenter with respect to immigration detention in the United States.”

More facilities may be opening in Texas soon. The Trump administration plans to reopen a facility in Dilley to hold families as well — which would add space for up to 2,400 people.

Public records obtained by the ACLU through a lawsuit show that ICE has been contemplating expansion of a detention facility in Laredo and considering opening another in Henderson, near the Louisiana border.

Last year, Trump’s top immigration adviser, Tom Homan, said he would accept an offer from Texas state leaders to use a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a staging area for mass deportations. Since then, key parties have been largely mum about plans for the property, which the Texas General Land office purchased last fall.

Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, who made the initial offer to the Trump administration, said in a statement to the Tribune this week that Gov. Greg Abbott was leading conversations with the Trump administration about the property.

Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris told the Tribune that the governor looked forward to working with the president but did not offer additional details.

“The Governor’s Office remains in regular communication with the Trump Administration on effective strategies to secure the border,” Mahaleris said. “Under the Texas Constitution, any effort to lease or donate Texas land to the federal government must be conducted through the Governor’s Office and these conversations remain ongoing.”

Immigrants rights advocates are alarmed by the expansion of detention facilities and the resumption of detaining families. They say the private prison companies that run the facilities have an assortment of reasons to minimize costs and maximize profits — which for migrants can mean medical neglect and poor living conditions.

Employees at privately-run detention facilities have been accused of sexually assaulting migrants, violating their religious freedom and using punitive forms of incarceration like solitary confinement.

Immigration charges are civil offenses that don’t carry the same protections as those granted to people charged with a crime, said Edna Yang, the co-executive director of immigration advocacy group American Gateways.

“It’s really problematic,” Yang said. “With the jail facilities, there are several constitutional protections because you’re in a criminal process and criminal proceedings that aren’t the same in the civil context. Also a lot of the kinds of protections for individuals in criminal proceedings are enforceable whereas the civil detention standards are not enforceable — they are guidelines.”

No aspect of immigration detention draws as much condemnation as holding children.

The Trump administration resumed the practice last week when it sent 12 to 15 families to the center in Karnes, according to lawyers who began communicating with detainees this week.

The families detained at Karnes are a mix of nationalities and have been in the country for varying periods of time, said Javier Hidalgo, a lawyer with Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, known as RAICES, which is representing numerous families.

The families came from Colombia, Romania, Iran, Angola, Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Brazil, according to RAICES.

“It’s not just folks who recently arrived and are being put through expedited removal,” Hidalgo said. “It seems like the intent is more punitive, which runs exactly against the whole notion that immigration detention isn’t [the same as criminal incarceration] … Immigration detention is supposed to be civil detention — if there really is such a thing — and it can’t be punitive for deterrence.”

The Biden administration greatly reduced family detention but did not stop it entirely. Now advocates are worried the Trump administration will ramp it up to new levels, with Texas facilities becoming the hubs.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

East Texas Congressman Moran appointed to House Committee on Ethics

TYLER – Congressman Nathaniel Moran, who represents Tyler in the U.S. House of Representatives, has been appointed to the House Committee on Ethics by House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The committee has jurisdiction over the House Code of Official Conduct within the house, and is tasked with upholding integrity and accountability in Congress. According to reports from our news partner, KETK, Congressman Moran has been selected as one of the five Republicans to serve on the the bipartisan, ten-member panel.

“It is my honor to appoint Congressman Nathaniel Moran to the House Ethics Committee,” said Johnson. “His impeccable character, commitment to upholding the highest standards of Congress, and his unwavering dedication to public service make him perfectly suited for this role. I have full confidence that he will serve with integrity as we work to improve the American people’s trust in Congress.” (more…)

Police search for man after TJC student reportedly threatened

TYLER – TJC police are searching for an individual after a student reported being a victim of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on Tuesday. According to our news partner KETK, the victim alerted police on Thursday at 1:10 p.m., two days after the incident occurred. He said he had been approached while at the library near the quiet room. The suspect asked to speak with him in a quiet room.

“The student and the suspect went into the quiet room where they talked,” TJC PD said. “After a period of time, the student went to leave and the suspect pulled a knife from a front pocket, held it to the student’s neck area and said, ‘We are not finished talking.’” (more…)

Sulphur Springs man arrested after shooting victim in leg

SULPHUR SPRINGS – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the Sulphur Springs Police Department has arrested a man in connection to a Wednesday shooting on Putman Street.

Arrest reports show that Sulphur Springs police officers responded to reports of shots fired on Putman Street at around 2:59 p.m. on Wednesday. When officers arrived at the scene, they found a man who was shot in the leg and began applying medical aid. Witnesses at the scene identified the suspect, and one witness told officers that the person had taken their car and left the scene. Officers discovered a possible location for the suspect on Beckham Street. (more…)

An effort to set deadlines to plug orphan wells hits resistance

ODESSA — Abandoned oil wells have become an expensive and growing environmental threat in Texas, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars to remediate. Leaders of the oil and gas industry, state regulators and lawmakers, and policy experts agree there is a problem.

But they don’t agree on the specifics of how to solve it.

And an early attempt by a Republican lawmaker hit a major roadblock Wednesday when a Texas Senate panel told him to rethink his approach to solving the problem.

State Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston introduced a bill that sets deadlines to plug the more than 150,000 inactive wells in Texas during the next 15 years. It also gives regulators more authority over oil and gas companies to enforce plugging requirements and directs them to submit annual reports.

During the hearing, industry leaders said they could comply with Middleton’s proposal — at great costs — but suggested additional flexibility. Meanwhile, environmental policy experts and activists said the proposed timeline to plug wells was too lenient.

Members of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources were skeptical of both sides of the debate. And they repeatedly questioned whether new deadlines to plug wells would hurt smaller oil and gas operators. Middelton defended his bill.

He told the committee his proposal considered the financial strains it could put on smaller operators.

“But at the end of the day, we’ve got way too many inactive wells. What are we going to do about that?” he said.

The committee was not convinced by Middleton’s assurances.

“There are certainly concerns you heard from (the oil and gas) industry and members of the committee,” said state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, who chairs the committee. “So I would entertain that you…continue to develop the situation, see what you might put in front of us in the coming weeks that is something we can move forward with.”

Inactive wells do not produce oil or natural gas. They are considered “orphaned” when they have no clear owner or if the company in charge of them is bankrupt. In an annual report detailing its oil field cleanup efforts, the Texas Railroad Commission estimated roughly 8,300, or 5% of all inactive wells, are orphaned. In 2024, the Railroad Commission plugged a little more than a thousand of them, costing taxpayers $34 million.

The commission is the state agency tasked with regulating the oil and gas industry and has been charged with overseeing the blowouts.

Orphaned wells have become a conduit for water previously used for fracking, typically stored in deep underground rock formations, to burst onto the surface. Left ignored, these wells threaten groundwater resources and public health. The brine that leaks or shoots uncontrolled flows of water upward contains a colorless, odorless, incredibly toxic gas known as Hydrogen Sulfide or H2S. Water has blown through at least eight wells since October 2024, according to ranchers in the West Texas region.

Last fall, the commission, in a letter, said it could no longer keep up with the growing cost of plugging them. It asked lawmakers for an additional $100 million just to keep up — about 44% of its entire two-year budget.

Under existing law, oil and gas companies can request what the commission calls an extension to lengthen a well’s inactive status indefinitely, which means they won’t have to plug it. Operators can obtain extensions for individual wells or a blanket renewal for every inactive well in their portfolio.

Middleton’s bill would change that. Oil and gas companies would be required to plug wells that have been inactive for at least 15 years.

The legislation also allows the commission to grant exceptions so long as the operators that request one submit a plan to plug the well. The commission can evaluate different factors, including the number of the operator’s inactive wells, how long they’ve been inactive, and a plan to plug them before deciding. Called compliance plans, operators have until 2040 to fulfill it. The commission can also consider risks to public safety and the environment when evaluating wells that just turned 15. This is not the case under the law now.

Industry leaders representing operators statewide mostly assured lawmakers their members could comply. But it would hurt their bottom line.

Karr Ingham, an economist and president of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, said any bill setting limits would lead to damaging expenses. He said 20-25% of an operator’s inventory can consist of inactive wells.

“We want to make sure that this bill is as workable…for our folks as it could be,” he said.

Michael Lozano, who leads government affairs and communications for the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, said lawmakers should consider giving operators more time to prepare. Finding companies to plug the wells, he said, could be a challenge for them.

Environmental policy experts and landowners said the legislature should give operators shorter time frames to plug inactive and dried-up wells before they become problematic.

Virginia Palacios, executive director of Commission Shift Action, a nonprofit group that lobbies at the Capitol for stronger oil and gas industry policies, told The Texas Tribune she was excited a bill had been proposed, adding it needed stronger language. An ideal deadline would give operators 10 years to plug their inactive wells.

“It’s sort of like a soft touch on an industry that has been running a Wild West strategy on inactive walls for a long time,” she said.

Schuyler Wight, a West Texas rancher whose land is dotted with wells, some of which are leaking, did not support the bill. It is common in West Texas for oil and gas producers to operate on privately owned ranches. Wight said the Railroad Commission should make plans to plug wells public and alert the landowner when an operator conducts testing and if they are following through with plugging.

Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, applauded the bill, saying the group supports it. In an emailed statement, he said $55 million in fees paid by operators are given annually to state-managed plugging programs.

He said he does not support shorter time frames to plug the wells because operators need a “phase-in” period to comply with the law.

At the hearing on Wednesday, he appeared confident that operators could bear the brunt of any costs imposed by Middleton’s bill.

“It’s a duty to landowners, it’s a duty to the legislature, and it’s a duty to the industry,” Staples said. “Once these wells have reached beyond that point, they are plugged,” Staples said.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

Texas Senate unveils bill requiring voters to prove citizenship

AUSTIN – With unanimous Republican support, the Texas Senate appears poised to pass a priority bill requiring Texans to prove their citizenship before they could vote in state, local, and presidential elections.

Senate Bill 16, which would apply to new registrants as well as existing registered voters who did not provide proof of citizenship when they registered. That would include voters who registered through a voter registration drive or by mail, rather than while obtaining a Texas drivers license or state ID through the Department of Public Safety.

Voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship would be placed on a separate voter roll and could cast ballots only in U.S. House and Senate races. Voters on that list wouldn’t be allowed to vote for president under the bill, which experts say could invite a legal challenge.

The bill would create a new barrier to voting for some of Texas’ more than 18 million registered voters, and could diminish the rights of eligible voters who are not able to provide documents proving their U.S. citizenship.

It would subject election officials to potential criminal penalties, making it a felony punishable by jail time to knowingly register an applicant without first verifying that they are citizens. .

It would also require election officials to provide the state attorney general’s office a list of voters who have not provided proof of citizenship, and calls for the attorney general to prosecute any offenses if local officials do not.

The bill is part of an accelerating campaign by Republicans in Texas and nationwide to draw attention to the potential threat of noncitizen voting, which is already illegal and which rarely occurs in any significant numbers. Republicans control the Texas Legislature. All 20 GOP senators signed on as authors to SB 16. Similar bills have been filed in the House.

Last summer, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a press release boasting that the state had removed more than potential 6,500 noncitizens from its voter rolls. In October, an investigation by Votebeat, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune found that Abbott’s numbers were inflated and in some cases, wrong.

Most states currently do not require proof of citizenship for voters, but anyone registering to vote must attest under penalty of perjury that they are a citizen. A noncitizen who tries to vote faces severe penalties, including felony charges and loss of residency status. Voter registrars in counties across the country have processes in place to check that only eligible citizens make it onto the voter rolls.

Arizona is the only state with a long history of enforcing a proof-of-citizenship requirement. Other states have passed similar requirements, but their provisions vary, and some aren’t enforced pending the outcome of legal challenges. Republican lawmakers in other states, including Michigan, are considering amending their state constitutions to require documented proof of citizenship to register to vote.

In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in January added citizenship-proof legislation to his list of priorities for the Senate this session.

SB 16 is co-authored by Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican from Central Texas who championed Texas’ sweeping 2021 voting bill. It would replicate the split voter registration system used in Arizona, where people who do not show proof of citizenship to register to vote are placed on a “federal only” voter list and allowed to vote only in federal elections.

The Texas bill would exclude the federal-only voters from presidential elections, specifically saying voters’ choices would be counted only in races for U.S. senator or representative. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February ruled unconstitutional a similar provision in an Arizona law, a decision state lawmakers there said they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Arizona’s law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote was passed in 2004. It also prompted lengthy legal fights that continue even now. The “federal only” list emerged after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that under federal law, Arizona must allow residents who do not provide such proof to cast ballots in federal elections.

This system has disproportionately affected voters from historically marginalized groups in Arizona.

Arizona had 34,933 federal-only voters, who made up less than 1% of the roughly 4.4 million active voters eligible for the November 2024 election. A Votebeat analysis found that the list includes disproportionately high numbers of voters who live on Native land, on college campuses, and at the state’s main campus for homeless people. Such voters also were generally younger than the overall voting-age population in the state, and were less likely to vote this past November than voters who had provided proof of citizenship, the analysis found.

Arizona officials discovered last summer that for decades, the state mistakenly labeled some voters as having provided proof of U.S. citizenship, when in fact they had never been asked to do so.

The Texas legislative proposal is the latest of at least five bills requiring documented proof of citizenship that were filed in December. This one, however, is backed by 20 influential Republican senators, including some members of the State Affairs Committee, which reviews legislation and decides whether it moves forward in the Senate. The committee has in recent years voted to approve laws that would tighten voting access. This bill would require Texans registering to vote to provide — along with their paper application — documented proof of citizenship, in person or by mail, to their county voter registrar or to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which issues driver’s licenses.

The proposal says the following documents would be accepted as documented proof of citizenship: a U.S. passport; a passport card; a certified copy of a birth certificate issued by a U.S. state or territory; “United States citizenship papers”; identification issued by the U.S. agency responsible for citizenship and immigration; and for citizens born outside the U.S., a consular report of birth abroad. The list does not include tribal documents, which Arizona does accept.

As for Texans who are already registered to vote, the bill directs the Texas Secretary of State’s Office to by the end of the year, send all counties data of voters who had not provided proof of citizenship prior to September 2025. It directs election officials to document every effort made to check for such proof. If election officials aren’t able to find information about whether a voter is a U.S. citizen, the bill requires that they notify the person that they are qualified to vote only a “federal limited ballot” unless they’re able to provide proof.

The bill means that “everyone, whether you’re registered now or whether you want to register, has to comply” with the proof-of-citizenship requirement, said Daniel Griffith, senior director of policy at Secure Democracy Foundation. “So if you haven’t already, you have to provide this information, and you have to make sure that DPS or [a voter registrar] has noted that you have this information.”

A voter who has previously provided proof or has been verified as a U.S. citizen is not required to provide proof when submitting an update, change, or correction to the voter registrar, the bill says.

The provision could affect voters who registered prior to the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which created voter identification procedures, and the 2005 Real ID Act, which requires people obtaining a state-issued ID or driver’s license to provide proof of citizenship or proof of lawful presence in the U.S.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

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