Texas House excludes trans people from state records

AUSTIN – Dozens of trans people and their allies gathered in the outdoor Capitol rotunda Friday, chanting at the top of their lungs, “They will not erase us.”

The next day, the Texas House of Representatives preliminarily passed a bill that aims to do just that.

House Bill 229 strictly defines men and women based on the reproductive organs they were born with, and orders state records to reflect this binary. The bill, titled the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” lays out the “biological truth for anybody who is confused,” said author Rep. Ellen Troxclair, an Austin Republican.

The bill passed on second reading 86-36 after an at times tense debate, and is expected to be finally approved next week before going to the Senate, which has already passed several bills with a similar focus.

Surrounded by a cadre of Republican women, Troxclair said the goal of the bill was to ensure women’s rights aren’t “eroded by activists” as more people come out as trans and nonbinary. Democrats argued against the bill for almost three hours with Rep. Jessica González, D-Dallas, saying “it is harmful, it is dangerous, and it is really freaking insulting.”

If this bill becomes law, more than 120,000 trans Texans would be forced to be defined in state records by the sex they were assigned at birth, rather than the gender they identify as, even if they’ve already legally changed their birth certificates and driver’s licenses.

Saturday’s debate rehashed a deep fracture over sex and gender that has animated the Texas Legislature, and much of the country, for the last five sessions. In previous years, legislators focused on tangible questions of bathroom access, youth sports and gender-affirming care for minors.

This year, the proposals that have gained the most traction reflect a more fundamental question: what is a woman?

For conservative lawmakers, the answer is simple, and best defined by reproductive organs. For trans people and their allies, the answer is simple, and best left to an individual’s assertion of their gender identity.

Only one of those groups controls the Texas Capitol.

“We’re a state that believes in truth, and we’re a state that honors the hard-won achievements of women, the women who fought for the right to vote, to compete in sports and to be safe in public spaces, to be treated equally under the law,” Troxclair said on the floor. “But if we can no longer define what a woman is, we cannot defend what women have won. We cannot protect what we cannot define.”

In the bill, a woman is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova,” and a man is “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.” Democrats criticized this as overly simplistic, excluding trans people, but also intersex people and those who can’t conceive children.

“Any biologist knows there are variations in sex chromosomes, hormone levels and other traits … where an individual’s biological characteristics don’t align with typical male or female categorization,” said Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat from Houston. “The real question is, do you believe that all people have the basic rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of their own personal happiness?”

This bill aligns with an executive order from Gov. Greg Abbott, who declared in January that Texas only recognizes two sexes, male and female, and a non-binding legal opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said state agencies should not honor court opinions to change someone’s sex listed on official documents.

At the Capitol rally on Friday, Lambda Legal senior attorney Shelly Skeen said revoking these changed documents, and preventing people from changing them in the future, “affects every aspect of our daily lives.” Having a birth certificate or drivers’ license that reflects a different sex than their physical presentation, or that doesn’t align with their passport or other documents, could leave trans people in a legal limbo and potentially open them up to violence, she said.

It could impact the state facilities, like prisons, they are sorted into, the bathrooms and locker rooms they are supposed to use and the discrimination protections they are entitled to, Skeen said. Unlike other bills, like the so-called “bathroom bill,” this legislation does not have civil or criminal penalties for using a facility that doesn’t align with one’s sex.

Troxclair did accept one amendment, by El Paso Democrat Rep. Mary González, to clarify how intersex people, who are born with both sets of reproductive organs, fit into these definitions.

The chamber also preliminarily approved Senate Bill 1257, which would require health insurers that cover gender-affirming care also cover any adverse consequences and costs of detransitioning. The bill, authored by Sen. Bryan Hughes and sponsored by Rep. Jeff Leach, passed 82-37.

Leach said he brought this bill on behalf of people who were left with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills because their health insurance wouldn’t cover the costs of detransitioning.

“The illustration that I think best describes this is, if you take somebody to the dance and they want to go home, then you have to take them home,” Leach said during the debate on Saturday.

The bill says that any insurance company that covers gender-affirming care must cover all detransition-related costs for its members, even if that person wasn’t on the health insurance plan at the time they transitioned. Democrats filed more than half a dozen amendments to narrow the scope of the bill, critiquing the bill as a health insurance mandate. None of the amendments passed.

Last session, Texas lawmakers outlawed gender-affirming care for minors. Trans advocates worry that raising the cost of covering gender-affirming care will result in health insurers not covering the treatments for adults, either.

“If you can make it painful enough for providers and insurers, health care is gone,” said Emmett Schelling, the executive director of the Transgender Education Network of Texas. “It doesn’t just feed into gender-affirming care. It bleeds into health care that we all need, that we all deserve.”

Speaking on the floor Saturday, Rep. Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, said the Legislature was telling insurance companies not to cover gender-affirming care.

“The reality is this bill, however you couch it, is about eliminating the existence of trans individuals in Texas,” Johnson said. “Stop pretending that you’re for freedom. Stop pretending that this is about the kids.”

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

Texas abortion pill bill can’t be challenged in state courts

AUSTIN – In 2021, when Texas passed an abortion ban enforced through private lawsuits, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan sarcastically derided the architects of the law as “some geniuses” who’d found the “chink in the armor” to sidestep Roe v. Wade.

Four years later, those same folks are back with a new play to restrict the flow of abortion-inducing drugs into the state and a fresh set of never-before-seen legal tools that experts say would undermine the balance of power in the state.

Senate Bill 2880, which passed the Senate last week, allows anyone who manufactures, distributes, mails, prescribes or provides an abortion-inducing drug to be sued for up to $100,000. It expands the wrongful death statute to encourage family members, especially men who believe their partner had an abortion, to sue up to six years after the event, and empowers the Texas Attorney General to bring lawsuits on behalf of “unborn children of residents of this state.”

The bill has been referred to a House committee, where a companion bill faced significant pushback earlier this month.

That the Texas Senate passed a bill to crack down on abortion pills isn’t surprising. But the protections written into this bill, which says the law cannot be challenged as unconstitutional in state court, could have ripple effects far beyond the question of abortion access.

“This is absolutely unprecedented, what they’re trying to do here,” Joanna Grossman, a law professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, said. “I haven’t reviewed every law in Texas, but I think it’s safe to say this has never been tried.”

The bill as approved by the Senate contains many provisions that legal experts say might spark a lawsuit challenging it on constitutional grounds. But the bill also says it cannot be challenged in state court, an “outlandish, shocking” proposition, said Dallas attorney Charles Siegel.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in any statute of any kind, anywhere,” said Siegel, a partner at Waters, Kraus, Paul and Siegel. “It’s just crazy.”

The bill says no state judge has jurisdiction to rule on its constitutionality, and if they were to do it anyway, they can be personally sued for $100,000. The judge would waive their usual protections of governmental immunity and could not call on the Office of the Attorney General to defend them in court.

Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican from Mineola and author of the bill, said the law could still be challenged in federal court, but removing the state judiciary’s oversight of this law is within the Legislature’s purview.

“We make the rules,” he said on the floor of the Senate. “We set the jurisdiction.”

Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, called it a “flagrant, brazen transgression of the principle of separation of powers on which this country and state was founded.”

“It just seems to me that we’re holding the judicial branch of government in contempt if we’re going to tell them they can’t review our work,” Johnson said to Hughes. “And I’m surprised you’re not equally troubled by this.”

Legal experts said it’s baffling to argue the Legislature could pass a law that is unconstitutional and then prevent the courts from declaring it so. If that were an option, lawmakers would inevitably write that clause into every bill and do whatever they wanted without the checks and balances inherent to our system.

“Could the Legislature now pass a law saying every time you vote for a Republican, it counts twice, and if you vote for a Democratic candidate, it counts once, and then put in these provisions that make it impossible to challenge?” Siegel said.

Siegel said it’s possible a judge who feels this law is unconstitutional would hear that case, even if it meant getting sued, and he said many firms, including his, would likely stand up to defend them in deference to the rule of law.

“But then some other judge hears the lawsuit against the first judge?” he asked. “It’s just impossible to imagine. We’ve never had a system of law under which people get to sue judges for money over their rulings.”

The bill also proposes financially disincentivizing anyone from challenging the law in court, including an unusual provision to hold lawyers who bring these challenges liable for costs and fees, rather than the client.

While the abortion aspects of this bill are what gets the most attention, Siegel said it’s the changes to long-accepted civil procedure that’s most alarming to him.

“It’s just frightening as hell that anybody, any elected representative, would put these provisions in any kind of bill and that they would pass one of our chambers,” he said. “Any first year law student would recoil at this and think, ‘they can’t do that.’”

Under this bill, someone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, prescribes or provides” abortion-inducing drugs can be sued for $100,000. There is an exception for medications that are used for medically necessary abortions, and exempts the person who has the abortion from being sued.

Hughes did not respond to a request for comment. But speaking to the Senate, he said the bill targets pharmaceutical companies that aren’t doing enough to ensure their products aren’t being sent into states that have banned abortion. The bill allows for a lawsuit even if the abortion pills are not identified as the “actual or proximate cause of death,” and says a company that manufactures abortion pills can be held liable, whether or not it’s determined that their medication was used in the abortion.

But by expanding the private lawsuit mechanism and the wrongful death statute, legal experts say the bill is more likely to be used against individuals than corporations. Even without the promise of a $100,000 payout, there have already been wrongful death lawsuits filed against women who helped a friend get an abortion, and a legal challenge against a New York doctor who allegedly ships medications into Texas.

Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat, condemned the bill to the Senate as a “bounty hunter bonanza.” John Seago, the president of Texas Right to Life, tweeted that that “sounds like a good time. Sign me up!”

Seago’s group has spoken publicly about their plans to recruit plaintiffs, especially men whose partners had abortions without their knowledge. The bill says a lawsuit can be brought by the “biological father of an unborn child” even if the mother doesn’t want to bring the suit or she consented to the abortion. There is an exception if the pregnancy was conceived through sexual assault, although it does not specify how that would work in practice.

Building on the protections for plaintiffs built into the 2021 abortion ban, SB 2880 ensures someone who brings a lawsuit under this bill would have extensive opportunities to recover their attorneys fees and costs. It also makes it harder to transfer where the case is being heard.

The bill also makes it harder for someone who sues under this provision to be countersued. Some blue state “shield laws” for abortion providers specifically allow someone who is sued by another state to counterclaim for multiple times the cost of the suit they’re facing. But under this bill, filing a countersuit could make them liable for another $100,000.

“It feels like children squabbling,” said Liz Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “I sue you to infinity, you sue me to infinity plus one.”

By adding all of these new tools and legal mechanisms, the bill hopes to stem the tide of abortion pills that has flowed, largely unchecked, into Texas since the state banned abortion.

Whether it will work is another question.

“If they could have built a wall around the state in some way that would have stopped abortion pills, they would have done it,” Grossman said.

These pills come from out-of-state providers, international pharmacies and mysterious internet sources. They’re carried over the U.S.-Mexico border, mailed in innocuous packages and quietly distributed through in-person whisper networks.

Texas’ ability to stop each of those avenues depends on unresolved legal questions of when a state can exert its laws beyond its borders. Blue states have passed shield laws that purport to protect doctors who provide medications to people in states where the procedure is banned, and we’re only slowly starting to see the first challenges to those statutes.

This bill would amp up Texas’ power to enforce its laws on out-of-state providers, manufacturers and people who help move these pills into the state, but there’s only so much lawmakers can do without buy-in from other states.

“They’re asserting as much jurisdiction, as much extraterritorial application of their laws as they can get away with,” said University of Texas at Austin law professor Theodore Rave. “Whether other states will recognize that, I don’t think there’s any guarantee that they will. I think a lot of states wouldn’t.”

But whether or not this bill ends up passing into law, let alone being honored by other states, it sets out a whole new set of tools to tackle abortion pills — and a whole new set of unresolved legal questions.

“Texas has always been a place where anti-abortion strategies that are exported nationwide begin,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor and legal historian at the University of California Davis School of Law. “Even if this is the first we’ve seen of these strategies, it will not be the last. We can be virtually sure about that.”

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

Trump team mulls suspending the constitutional right of habeas corpus to speed deportations

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller says President Donald Trump is looking for ways to expand its legal power to deport migrants who are in the United States illegally. To achieve that, he says the administration is “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, the constitutional right for people to legally challenge their detention by the government.

Such a move would be aimed at migrants as part of the Republican president’s broader crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The Constitution is clear, and that of course is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller told reporters outside the White House on Friday.

“So, I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at,” Miller said. “Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”

What is habeas corpus?

The Latin term means “that you have the body.” Federal courts use a writ of habeas corpus to bring a prisoner before a neutral judge to determine if imprisonment is legal.

Habeas corpus was included in the Constitution as an import from English common law. Parliament enacted the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which was meant to ensure that the king released prisoners when the law did not justify confining them.

The Constitution’s Suspension Clause, the second clause of Section 9 of Article I, states that habeas corpus “shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.”

Has it been suspended previously?

Yes. The United States has suspended habeas corpus under four distinct circumstances during its history. Those usually involved authorization from Congress, something that would be nearly impossible today — even at Trump’s urging — given the narrow Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus multiple times amid the Civil War, beginning in 1861 to detain suspected spies and Confederate sympathizers. He ignored a ruling from Roger Taney, who was the Supreme Court chief justice but was acting in the case as a circuit judge. Congress then authorized suspending it in 1863, which allowed Lincoln to do so again.

Congress acted similarly under President Ulysses S. Grant, suspending habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, it was meant to counter violence and intimidation of groups opposing Reconstruction in the South.

Habeas corpus was suspended in two provinces of the Philippines in 1905, when it was a U.S. territory and authorities were worried about the threat of an insurrection, and in Hawaii after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, but before it became a state in 1959.

Writing before becoming a Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett co-authored a piece stating that the Suspension Clause “does not specify which branch of government has the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ, but most agree that only Congress can do it.”

Could the Trump administration do it?

It can try. Miller suggested that the U.S. is facing “an invasion” of migrants. That term was used deliberately, though any effort to suspend habeas corpus would spark legal challenges questioning whether the country was facing an invasion, let alone presenting extraordinary threats to public safety.

Federal judges have so far been skeptical of the Trump administration’s past efforts to use extraordinary powers to make deportations easier, and that could make suspending habeas corpus even tougher.

Trump argued in March that the U.S. was facing an “invasion” of Venezuelan gang members and evoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime authority he has tried to use to speed up mass deportations.

His administration acted to swiftly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua to a notorious prison in El Salvador, leading to a series of legal fights.

Federal courts around the country, including in New York, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania, have since blocked the administration’s uses of the Alien Enemies Act for many reasons, including amid questions about whether the country is truly facing an invasion.

If courts are already skeptical, how could habeas corpus be suspended?

Miller, who has been fiercely critical of judges ruling against the administration, advanced the argument that the judicial branch may not get to decide.

“Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that’s the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases,” he said Friday.

That statute was approved by Congress in 1952 and there were important amendments in 1996 and 2005. Legal scholars note that it does contain language that could funnel certain cases to immigration courts, which are overseen by the executive branch.

Still, most appeals in those cases would largely be handled by the judicial branch, and they could run into the same issues as Trump’s attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act.

Have other administrations tried this?

Technically not since Pearl Harbor, though habeas corpus has been at the center of some major legal challenges more recently than that.

Republican President George W. Bush did not move to suspend habeas corpus after the Sept. 11 attacks, but his administration subsequently sent detainees to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, drawing lawsuits from advocates who argued the administration was violating it and other legal constitutional protections.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Guantanamo detainees had a constitutional right to habeas corpus, allowing them to challenge their detention before a judge. That led to some detainees being released from U.S. custody.

Mexican-American singer Johnny Rodriguez dies at 73

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Country-music star Johnny Rodriguez, a popular Mexican-American singer best known for chart-topping hits in the 1970s, including “I Just Can’t Get Her Out of My Mind,” “Ridin’ My Thumb to Mexico” and “That’s the Way Love Goes,” has died. He was 73.

Rodriguez died Friday, according to social media statements posted by his daughter, Aubry Rodriguez. She said he died peacefully and surrounded by family.

“Dad was not only a legendary musician whose artistry touched millions around the world, but also a deeply loved husband, father, uncle, and brother whose warmth, humor, and compassion shaped the lives of all who knew him,” she wrote.

Rodriguez was named the most promising male vocalist at the 1972 Academy of Country Music Awards, and his debut album, “Introducing Johnny Rodriguez,” earned a nomination for album of the year in 1973.

Rodriguez was born in Sabinal, Texas, a small town about 60 miles west of San Antonio and about 90 miles east of the U.S.-Mexico border. He was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Federal probe started into Muslim-entered community near Dallas

Google will pay Texas $1.4B to settle claims

Grayson County felon sentenced to 15 years in federal prison

PLANO – According to a press release from the office of Acting U.S. Attorney Abe McGlothin, Jr., a Sherman convicted felon has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for a firearms violation in the Eastern District of Texas.

Mouaidad Mohamad, 30, plead guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm was sentenced to 180 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Sean D. Jordan on May 9, 2025.

According to information presented in court, on August 5, 2022, law enforcement officers responded to a report of shots fired in Sherman. They discovered that Mohamad had fired two shots from the window of a vehicle before forcing his girlfriend to drive away from the scene. Mohamad was located later in the day in the same vehicle, and taken into custody. Further investigation revealed Mohamad to be a convicted felon having several state felony convictions including robbery and burglary of a habitation. As a convicted felon, Mohamad is prohibited by federal law from owning or possessing firearms or ammunition.

This case was prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Sherman Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney William R. Tatum.

Texas struggles to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells

LULING — Just six minutes from 5,700-person town’s historic city center, where an old oil museum still nods to the boom days, the ground groans as oil workers pull steel tubing — each piece is longer than a bus — out of a well drilled in 1983 that stopped pumping profits last year. Rain pours on this quiet Texas field, but the crew doesn’t stop their steady pace.

The job has become all too familiar. They’re sealing one of thousands of unplugged orphaned oil and gas wells scattered across the state — abandoned holes left behind by companies that went bankrupt or just walked away. The last company to own this particular well was Geomeg Energy Operating Co., an Aransas Pass-based oil and gas company.

This March project was a snapshot of what plugging a well looks like: part routine, part roulette. Sometimes workers find corroded cement casings, pressurized gas, or unexpected debris that can turn a cleanup into a days- or weeks-long job.

“Even the simplest well can take time,” said Nicholas Harrel, a state managed plugger with the Texas Railroad Commission.

From the air, the wells look like pinpricks across the Texas landscape. But on the ground, they can erupt like geysers, leak methane, and threaten water supplies with toxic chemicals like hydrogen sulfide, benzene and arsenic.

Abandoned oil wells are piling up across Texas, posing a growing environmental threat and saddling taxpayers with cleanup costs that have already reached tens of millions of dollars. In West Texas, at least eight orphaned wells have blown out since late 2024, spewing brine, a salty liquid laden with chemicals from drilling, and toxic gas. One leaked for more than two months before it could be capped. Another has created a 200-foot-wide sinkhole.

“We have more orphan wells coming on than we are plugging,” Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick said. “We’ve exceeded our plugging numbers every year, but we still have more orphan wells that keep coming.”

Who’s responsible for cleaning up these wells, and what happens if Texas falls behind? Here’s what to know.

Orphan wells are oil, gas, or injection wells with no clear owner — either because the company went bankrupt or disappeared. These wells have been inactive for at least 12 months, meaning the wells do not produce oil or natural gas. Some of them are unplugged.

Texas has nearly 8,900 orphan wells, according to the Railroad Commission’s most recent list. Many are concentrated in oil-rich areas like the Permian Basin, including Reeves, Crockett, and Pecos counties. Pecos has more than 600 of them — the most of any county. Frio County, southwest of San Antonio, follows with close to 500 orphan wells.

Many were plugged with inappropriate materials or using practices that are now obsolete. Older wells — especially those drilled before the 1950s — are more likely to have been abandoned and documentation on who last owned a well can be hard to find.

The Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator, is responsible for ensuring that operators plug wells properly.

Once a well stops producing oil or gas, operators are supposed to plug their own wells within 12 months. But when they don’t — in some cases because they went bankrupt — the responsibility can shift to the state.

The agency then evaluates how dangerous the orphan well is — to the environment and public safety — and places the well on a list to be plugged by contractors the agency hires.

The Luling well was added to the Railroad Commission’s list in October 2024 — one of five wells scheduled for plugging in the area.

A big concern is air pollution, particularly methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and accelerates climate change. These wells often leak methane, as well as hydrogen sulfide — a toxic colorless gas that smells like rotten eggs. This gas is especially dangerous: it can cause headaches, dizziness and at high concentrations can be fatal.

For years, experts and ranchers have warned about the rising threat that unplugged wells pose to rivers, lakes and groundwater when they leak oil, gas, drilling fluids, and fracking wastewater, also known as “produced water” a toxic mix of salt, hydrocarbons, arsenic, radium and other naturally occurring chemicals. Unplugged wells can create pathways for those chemicals to migrate into groundwater zones.

A spokesperson with the Railroad Commission said they are unaware of any cases of groundwater contamination from orphan wells in Texas.

The risks aren’t just slow-moving — some are explosive. The common industry practice of injecting the massive amounts of fracking wastewater into deep wells can put pressure on underground geological formations. In some cases this pressure has led to increased earthquakes. In other cases, researchers have linked injections to well blowouts — sudden eruptions of water and gas that migrate underground until they hit an old well and burst from the earth.

Blowouts can happen in any well. However, orphan wells and older, plugged wells are less likely to withstand the pressure and blow. Last year in the West Texas town of Toyah, a well erupted and spewed a foul-smelling, hydrogen-sulfide-laced plume that took 19 days to contain. Residents had headaches and wore masks to protect themselves.

Harrel, the Railroad Commission well plugger, said that while the Luling well is a “non-emergency” well, meaning it did not pose an immediate threat, it was still a concern because fluid was rising in the well and could eventually threaten groundwater.

The Luling well is located in a field called Spiller known to have higher hydrogen sulfide levels. A 2024 study found that at least 20 wells in a Luling oilfield were releasing dangerous amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas. Residents report smells as far as Austin — 50 miles away.

The Railroad Commission operates a State Managed Plugging Program, which is partly funded by the Oil and Gas Regulation and Cleanup Fund that receives bonds, enforcement penalties and permitting fees paid by operators. However, critics say those funds often fall short of actual cleanup costs.

The agency has plugged more than 46,000 wells through the state plugging program since its inception in 1984. The commission said it has budgeted $22.75 million a year to plug 1,000 wells a year. For the past five fiscal years the agency has plugged an average of 1,352 wells per year.

But that money doesn’t go nearly far enough. The cost to plug just two emergency wells this fiscal year hit $9 million, nearly 40% of the state’s entire annual plugging budget, according to Craddick, the agency chair.

To keep up, the commission has increasingly relied on federal support. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2021, included a $4.7 billion nationwide injection to plug orphan wells on public and private lands. Through that law, Texas received $25 million in 2022 from the U.S. Department of the Interior and another $80 million in early 2024 to plug orphan wells. Combined with state funding, those dollars helped plug over 2,400 wells in 2023–24. However, federal funds are uncertain with changes in administrations.

Meanwhile, plugging costs have also skyrocketed. Just a few years ago, Craddick said it cost around $15,000 to plug a well. Today, the average is closer to $57,000, and that number jumps dramatically for wells with high water flow or hazardous leaks. For example, a blowout near Odessa in late 2023 took more than two months and $2.5 million to contain and plug.

The RRC warned last year that it can no longer sustain the growing cost and scale of the problem and requested an additional $100 million in emergency funding from lawmakers — about 44% of its entire two-year budget — just to keep up with the backlog, tackle urgent sites and cope with rising costs due to inflation. Lawmakers are considering this as part of the overall state budget.

The costs of plugging a well vary by region and are based on how deep the wells are, according to Harell. While the Luling well’s cost has not been finalized, according to the commission’s cost calculation information, the well’s cost will be about $24,000.

The agency prioritizes wells that are actively leaking or pose immediate threats to the environment, groundwater and people. They might be releasing toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide, flooding land with contaminated water, or dangerously pressurized. These wells must be plugged right away, regardless of the cost, according to the commission.

While Craddick noted at a hearing in February the state had 15 priority wells, a commission spokesperson said the number of priority wells fluctuates every day, with typically zero to five wells classified as emergency at any given time.

“If the fluid level in the well, the hydrocarbons and produce water in the well, gets up too close to that freshwater aquifer then it imposes a higher risk to contaminating that groundwater aquifer, so we wanna make sure that we get to those as wells first,” said Travis Baer, an oil and gas division district director at the Railroad Commission.

The Luling well is categorized as a 2H priority well — still high risk but not a full-blown emergency.

At the Luling field, red trucks and equipment surround a rusted pump jack, a mechanical device used to extract oil from an underground well to the surface. One of the trucks has two tanks that hold cement, another carries a cement mixer and a pressure pump.

The process starts with a site assessment: Crews glance at hand-held devices hanging from their neck to test for dangerous gases like hydrogen sulfide and determine the wind direction so they can position themselves upwind. Once the site is secure, three workers wearing hard hats remove equipment inside the 2,000-foot-deep well — steel rods and tubing used to carry oil or gas to the surface.

Almost two hours later, the workers were still pulling out tubing.

Baer, the division district director, said these materials are often salvaged and sold to help offset plugging costs.

Next, they assess the well’s structural condition and measure how high fluids have risen inside.

Once the well is fully evaluated, crews identify the underground zones that once produced oil or gas — known as perforations. A cast iron bridge plug (mechanical plug) is dropped down the hole, tightly sealed to provide a solid base and prevent fluids from leaking.

“This gives us a permanent bottom, it stops gas migration into our cement plug. So we know we’re getting the best plug on bottom to seal off the perforations in the zone,” said Randy Niedorf, a well plugger with the company Bulldog Oil Well Service.

Then, cement is pumped deep into the well. It flows to the bottom and rises up around the casing, sealing the wellbore and blocking any potential pathways for gas or liquid to migrate. Multiple cement plugs are installed along the well’s depth, including near groundwater layers, to ensure complete isolation of oil and water zones.

The final step is land restoration. Once the well is sealed, crews clean up the site. The Luling well was plugged in two days and all five wells in the area were plugged in about a week.

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

Houston autonomous vehicle company plans to have no drivers on Texas Highways.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports a Houston autonomous vehicle company plans to have no drivers in their self-driving trucks, making it one of the many businesses bringing the large, driverless vehicles to Texas highways. Bot Auto completed fully autonomous testing between Houston and San Antonio since last fall. The company plans to launch fully driverless operations for an initial four months. Bart Teeter, director of fleet and operational safety with Bot Auto, presented the company’s technology and trucks to local transportation and law enforcement agencies on Thursday at the Houston TranStar building. “One of the things that we’re very proud of is we’re a later entry into the market, and so we’ve been able to leverage the advances in A.I. that some of the companies that started before us didn’t have,” he said.

Teeter, who formerly worked at the Texas Highway Patrol, said safety is one of the reasons he advocates for these vehicles on Texas highways. Texas led the nation in fatal large truck crashes between 2018 and 2022, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Teeter believes that using these smart trucks to carry freight could help prevent further crashes caused by humans. “We like to brag, right? We’re Texans. Things are bigger in Texas. Well, the one thing I never really wanted to brag about was how big our crash problem is,” he said. Bot Auto spokesperson Jeremy Desel said the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment — documents encouraged by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for companies that develop and launch automated driving systems — will be released in the next couple of weeks. Teeter said the trucks will operate fully autonomously, without a driver, by the end of summer. It will not haul hazardous materials. Bot Auto was founded in 2023. It operates a fleet of driverless trucks and partners with other businesses to provide autonomous freight transportation.

Senate bill would allow kids as young as 15 to be sent to adult Texas prisons

AUSTIN – KERA reports a Senate bill currently being considered would change a Texas law to allow 15-year old offenders to be sent to state prisons for adults. The age currently is 16. That change would apply to felons already in the state juvenile system who commit a second felony, like assaulting staff, or for “delinquent conduct.” Senate Bill 1727 and a companion House bill are intended to help protect staff from violent juveniles. Brett Merfish, Youth Justice Director for the Texas Appleseed organization, said the suggested law change gives children fewer chances than adults. Texas has a “three-strike” rule for adult felons. “It doesn’t’ allow for considering this child hit an officer while they’re being restrained, or, maybe they had an outburst because of a mental health condition,” she said. “And let’s say they did kick or hit an officer, but there was no injury and the intent wasn’t to hurt them. It doesn’t allow for any of that. It just says, ‘Okay — assault on a public servant, you’re out of here, you are going to the adult system.’ ”

As of May 1, there were 29 juvenile inmates in the Youth Offender Program within Texas prisons. The Texas Juvenile Justice Department oversees young criminal offender programs and detention centers, including five correctional facilities and three halfway houses. About 700 juveniles as young as age 10 were in TJJD custody as of last summer, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Of those, about 80 percent are Black or Latino. Amnisty Freelen’s son, Joshua Beasley, Jr., was 11 when he first entered the juvenile system for spray painting a Paris, Texas church with other boys. A month after he turned 16, he was transferred to the Wayne Scott Unit adult prison. Six months later, in March 2023, he wrapped a sheet around his neck and died in his cell. “In the adult system, Josh is the youngest person to die,” Freelen said. She said youths in detention and detention officers deserve protection. Recently, a Dallas County juvenile detention officer was severely injured by a female in custody who was younger than 15.

Texas election judges could carry guns if bill okayed by House becomes law

AUSTIN – Texas House lawmakers debated gun rights and voter protections Wednesday afternoon related to a bill that would allow election judges to carry a weapon inside a polling place at any time.

House Bill 1128, by Rep. Carrie Isaac, R-Dripping Springs, allows an election judge, early voting clerk, or deputy early voting clerk who is serving as an election judge to carry a concealed handgun at an early voting or Election Day polling place as a means of protection for themselves and others. House lawmakers passed the bill 85 to 57 on Thursday, advancing it to the Senate.

This bill would codify a decision made by Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2018, where he ruled that since district judges can carry firearms to polling places and election judges had been given the authority of district judges, they should also be able to.

??Paxton’s opinion explains why a court would take his side in the decision, but it was not legally binding.

Election judges, who are generally civilians appointed by local party officials to head up a team of poll workers, have many duties, including settling election disputes and keeping the peace at the polls.

Isaac told lawmakers this bill was needed because the elections director for the Texas Secretary of State reported that during the 2024 election, workers endured bomb threats and physical attacks, including thrown water bottles. She said it’s becoming harder to retain and recruit poll workers because of this climate, so protections must be put in place at polling locations.

“Some workers even quit mid-election out of fear for their safety,” Isaac said from the House floor. “These are not isolated incidents. They are happening across Texas, and our workers are mostly volunteers giving their time to serve their communities. If we expect them to uphold the integrity of our elections, we must do our part.”

Critics of the bill questioned whether allowing an election judge to carry a weapon could be considered dangerous to the voting process.

“Do you really think arming someone with a firearm to combat someone with a water bottle is not escalating the situation?” Rep. Maria Luisa Flores, D-Austin, asked.

Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, D-San Antonio, asked why law enforcement couldn’t be at the polling locations to hold the peace instead of expecting civilian election judges to carry a weapon and potentially have to fire on someone and disrupt the entire voting process.

“Unfortunately, it takes time for law enforcement to arrive, and that is why we need someone there at all times for protection,” Isaac responded. “…Your concern is about the election. My concern is about an innocent person getting hurt.”

Discussion about intimidation also occurred as Flores mentioned a case in Beaumont in 2022, where a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting Jefferson County election workers from scrutinizing the identities of Black voters and, along with poll watchers, from shadowing Black people at voting stations.

“I think this type of conduct, if combined with a gun, is detrimental,” said Rep. Vikki Goodwin, D-Austin.

Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, pointed out that the bill isn’t malicious.

This bill would not change current laws banning the general public from bringing firearms to a polling location, and it would only allow election judges and those designated by them to carry guns, and not all poll workers, said Isaac.

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

What Texas executives really think about tariffs

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports, “Chaos.” “Nonsense.” “Absolutely terrible.” In public, at least, many business leaders have been somewhat circumspect since President Donald Trump announced sweeping worldwide tariffs on April 2, or as he called it, “Liberation Day.” But Texas executives were a bit more candid in a series of recent surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which invited them to comment on the tariffs anonymously. “A lack of a plan and the arbitrary nature of the tariffs are killing business,” said one manufacturing executive in computer and electronic product manufacturing. The Dallas Fed surveys hundreds of executives in the manufacturing, service and retail sectors each month about business conditions, inviting them to elaborate with anonymous comments. Last month’s surveys, conducted April 15–23, included a series of special questions on the impact of Trump’s tariffs.

Nearly 60% of the roughly 350 respondents from across the state said they expected higher tariffs to have a negative impact on their businesses this year; only 3.2% were expecting a positive impact. About 55% of those expecting a negative impact said they plan to pass at least some portion of the cost increases through to their customers. At the time of the most recent survey, Trump had announced a pause on many of the tariffs he had just proposed, after the “Liberation Day” proposals sent markets reeling and raised concerns about the potential for inflation and recession. But Trump was planning to proceed with tariffs on major trading partners including China, which was among the countries responding with retaliatory tariffs. “I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely terrible this is in the short term,” said another. “The daily changes in policy make it impossible to attract new business currently because we cannot quote it with accuracy.” An executive in professional services described the situation as “a self-inflicted pandemic all over again.”

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