The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 108, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 9, 1998 Page: 2 of 32
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THURSDAY 9 IULY 1998
7<fe (ZcuiaMaK RECORD
opinion
page
Weak link in chain of justice
“YEAH, BUT CANADIAN’S a great place to raise
your kids.” Rarely is a disparaging remark about our
fair town not met with that phrase. It was not all that
long ago that the remark stumped me.
Think what I would about Canadian, but I had to
admit it was true. Canadian was a great place to raise
my kids. Lately, though, I’ve begun wondering how
true that old adage is.
I probably should be ashamed to admit—but I’m
(Z-Ott&c
RECORD
INCORPORATED FEBRUARY 1998
USPS 087-960
P.O. Box 898, Canadian (Hemphill) Texas 79014
Fax #: (806)323-5738
E-mail address: lrbrown@well.com
BEN EZZELL Editor & Publisher 1948-1993
NANCY EZZELL Editor & Publisher
LAURIE EZZELL BROWN
Editor
GRETA BASS Advertising Manager
STAFF:
Leslie Fry, Kim McKinney,
Mary Smithee, Gabriel Brown
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Laurie Ezzell Brown, Leslie Fry
Periodicals postage paid at the Post Office in
Canadian, Texas. Published each Thursday after-
noon in Canadian by Nancy M. Ezzell.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
The Canadian Record, Box 898, Canadian, TX 79014
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
$20/Year in Hemphill County
$25/Year in adjoining counties
$30/Year elsewhere
not—that I always read the Record's blotter...okay,
I read it first. I’d probably watch Jerry Springer, too.
The two have much the same allure as that of a messy
car accident. You don’t want to, but sometimes you
just have to stop and stare.
Domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon,
indecent exposure...wre’re hardly talking about a
Norman Rockwell here, folks. No place on earth is
safe from these ills. They’ve all been around since
Biblical times.
While these things are disturbing, they are hardly
wrhat distresses me the most. What really gets under
my skin are the arrest-able offenses that never see
the light of a courtroom. Those people we see in the
blotter who beat their spouse, or expose themselves
in a public place frequented by young children, w’alk
aw'ay without even the proverbial slap on the wrist.
I have to stop and wonder just where the weak
link is in the chain of justice around here—though I
have my suspicions. Maybe it is something that could
use some public scrutiny, if for no other reason than
the safety of our children.
JENNIFER BROWN
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
STATE REPRESENTATIVE WARREN CHISUM (R-Pampa) has
the smug look, these days, of a fox charged with guarding the henhouse.
As Chairman of the House Environmental Regulation Committee,
Chisum has managed to pick up substantial support from this state’s
biggest polluters. The relationship has been mutually beneficial.
A report published recently by Texans for Public Justice* informs
us that “grandfathered” polluters—companies whose aging facilities
are exempt from compliance with the state’s Clean Air Act, and from
permitting by TNRCC—spent $2.5 million from December 1995 to
March 1998 to cover political action committee expenditures in Texas,
and millions more to pay 359 registered lobbyists in Austin.
In the last couple of years, Chisum and four of his brethren on the
House Environmental Committee have received hefty contributions
from those grandfathered polluters. Chisum himself took $20,350 from
the polluters’ PACs and lobbyists, accounting for 30% of his total
contributions during that two-year period.
Governor George W. Bush wras the top recipient of this “dirty”
money. His campaign coffers have been enriched to the tune of $193,500
in contributions from PACs affiliated with grandfathered polluters.
What dividends have Texas citizens received from the smog lobby?
At least 43% of the state’s 2,500 industrial plants are grandfathered.
Annually, they emit nearly one million tons of “criteria” air pollut-
ants—emissions which the EPA uses to measure air quality. They also
contribute as much smog-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) as 18 million
cars.
Since the Clean Air Act was parsed in 1971, these grandfathered
polluters have had twenty-seven years to comply voluntarily with its
requirements. They have failed to do so.
Always willing to lend a helping hand to big business, the state has
responded by introducing a voluntary emissions-reduction program
called the Clean Air Responsibility Enterprise (CARE). So far, emis-
sions reduction pledges to that program account for only 2.5% of all
grandfathered emissions.
According to a report in the June 19th Texas Observer, other pol-
luter-friendly measures proposed by members of Chisum’s House sub-
committee include “tax abatements for grandfathered polluters which
wTould shift long-avoided compliance costs to taxpayers, and ‘stream-
lined’ permit applications that would minimize health-effects reviews
and public involvement.”
Only one member of the House panel has spoken forthrightly about
the grandfathered pollution problem. Wichita Falls Democrat John
Hirschi told the Observer in April, “We’re not only subsidizing pollution,
we’re encouraging it. The more polluting you do, the less it costs you to
produce it.”
Hirschi, you may correctly assume, is the only member of the House
Environmental Committee wrho accepted no money from the polluters.
A report filed by the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Pre-
vention and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club—entitled Grand-
fathered Air Pollution: The Dirty Secret of Texas Industries—details
the extensive damage done to our air by these companies. Rep. Chisum,
you may also correctly assume, was johnny-on-the-spot to defend his
toxic buddies, denouncing the report as “hysterical.”
Having had no great expectation of Chisum in his role as House
Environmental Chair, I have nevertheless been disappointed in his
failure to protect the vital natural resources of this state. N ever has that
failure been more apparent than it was during his committee’s recent
tour of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in Ochiltree
County—a charade unblemished by the sight or smell of a hog or a cow
or a waste-filled lagoon.
Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, believes that
campaign contributions are a major cause of air pollution in Texas. His
gloomy, but realistic, environmental forecast: ‘Texans won’t breathe
clean air until we clean up the state’s campaign finance system.”
He’s probably right. Some serious House-keeping on the Environ-
mental Committee might be in order, too.
I
T IS DIFFICULT to get a man to understand something
when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
UPTON SINCLAIR
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Ezzell, Nancy & Brown, Laurie Ezzell. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 108, No. 28, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 9, 1998, newspaper, July 9, 1998; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth520213/m1/2/: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hemphill County Library.