Down Ballot Races Heat Up In Texas

It looks like Democratic candidate for Agriculture Commissioner, Hank Gilbert, has pushed his opponent's buttons a bit.   Gilbert had a press conference last Monday where he revealed pictures of at least 20 gas pump inspection stickers (see above) that were were so old they showed the pumps hadn't been inspected since 1997 when Gov. Rick Perry was the Agriculture Commissioner.   Gas pumps are supposed to be inspected regulary by the Texas Department of Agriculture to make sure they are accurately dispensing gas and not ripping off consumers.   

Staples, the incumbent Ag. Commissioner, had claimed that the inspections were being done on a regular basis and 94% of pumps were in compliance.   Gilbert showed that to be a lie claiming,   "We found more than 20 stations in Tyler and Smith County that didn't have current inspections or had no inspections at all.   His number doesn't take into account the stations that are slipping by the wayside because TDA doesn't have enough inspectors on the ground to do the job the people of Texas need and state law requires."

Several newspapers and local TV stations carried the news about the uninspected gas pumps, and that seems to have upset Staples.   News media noticed that all 20 of the stations had been visited by TDA inspectors since Gilbert's news conference (and one inspector admitted they were ordered to target the 20 stations Gilbert had named).   Staples also had TDA attorneys send threatening letters to at least two of the TV stations that carried the story according to Gilbert campaign chief Vince Liebowitz.

Sounds like Staples is trying to cover up for not seeing that the inspections are done in a timely manner.   And using TDA lawyers to threaten the media is an outright abuse of power by the Commissioner.   Is Staples starting to run scared?   Sure looks like it.

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Meanwhile, Democratic candidate for Land Commissioner, Hector Uribe, is also trying to up the ante on his opponent -- Republican incumbent Jerry Patterson.   We already know about Patterson's attempt to sell off public land in the Christmas Mountains to private entities (even though when the land was given to Texas promises were made that the land would always remain available for public use).   Patterson doesn't seem to think he has to honor promises made on behalf of the citizens of Texas.

That would be enough of a reason to dump the current Land Commissioner -- to keep him from completing his nefarious plan to sell off the state land.   But now we hear that he's allowed five of Texas major bays and estuaries system get in peril because he took no action to protect them (which is his job).   I'll let Uribe tell you about it in his own words:

According to the National Wildlife Federation, five of Texas’ seven major bays and estuaries systems are in peril. Only the Upper Laguna Madre and the Copano / Aransas bays are considered healthy by the well-respected organization.

For the most part, the threat to our bays and estuaries is upstream.  Because our bays and estuaries are at the very end of the line of our state’s public rivers and streams, they’re last to share in the fresh water flow.

Although the bay and estuaries have no legal claim to a specific volume of fresh water flow, our current two-term, land commissioner could and should have been an effective advocate for our bays and estuaries. He has witnessed their deterioration and failed to intervene effectively. As a steward of our state’s natural resources it was his job to seek solutions and oppose the diverting of water from our state’s rivers and streams by developers.  As your next land commissioner I won’t be a passive witness to their destruction.

Texans want strong protections for Texas’ rivers and estuaries. For example, the National Wildlife Federation suggests that the issuance of the permits could have been opposed because the applications requested more water than was needed for development.

Fresh water flow is the lifeblood of our bays and estuaries.  As Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office I will ask the Texas legislature to recognize the importance of our bays and estuaries by allocating a sufficient flow of water to insure the health of our bays and estuaries for all time.  Since the water in certain rivers has not yet been allocated, I will also seek legislation that permanently sets aside flows from those waterways to preserve fish and wildlife habitats.

Finally, I will encourage our Texas legislators to enact legislation that regulates and restricts development along our major waterways and require all communities along our state’s waterways to adopt strict water conservation measures.

Hector Uribe