In 2008, Larry Soward, one of three commissioners on Texas' environmental regulatory agency, cast the lone dissenting vote against licensing a controversial low-level nuclear disposal site in far West Texas.
Looking back now, Soward says, "it didn't take too much of a rocket-scientist" to conclude that the project — pushed by one of Gov. Rick Perry's biggest political donors — would ultimately be approved.
Dallas multibillionaire Harold Simmons' successful quest to build the Andrews County facility is encountering renewed scrutiny now that his political beneficiary is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Simmons has donated $1.2 million to Perry's gubernatorial campaigns since 2001 to become Perry's second-largest individual contributor, according to Texans for Public Justice, a state watchdog organization. He also has donated $100,000 to an independent political action committee that sought to wage a write-in candidacy for Perry in the Iowa straw poll this year.
And second, his state appointments have no problem taking tens of millions away from Texas schools to give it to oil refineries.
Three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry may grant some of the nation's largest refineries a tax refund of more than $135 million , money Texas' cash-strapped schools and other local governments have been counting on to help pay teachers and provide other public services.
The refund would mean more pain for some communities after a year in which state lawmakers had to grapple with a $27 billion shortfall and slashed spending on public schools by more than $4 billion. Nearly half the refund would be taken from public schools, and those in cities where the refineries are based would be hurt the most.
"We were already cut at the knees as it is, but more cuts? It's appalling," said Patricia Gonzales, a single mother of 13-year-old twins at Park View Intermediate School in Pasadena, a refinery town just south of Houston. Gonzales was just elected president of the school's new parent-teacher organization, which was formed this summer after the state budget cuts left the school lacking everything from pencils to paper towels.
Sorry, Texas schools. $4 billion in cuts to education isn't enough, we have to give tax refunds to oil companies and yank even more money from your budget. Tough. That's what Republicans do to public education: if you were meant to go to school, God would have made your parents rich enough to afford a private one.
Rick Perry's Inconsequential America rolls on...
Enjoy!
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