Public / private partnerships involving academic research teams and big business are, sadly, nothing new. But when public universities release favorable reports for the big corporations who hire them, the public should at least know who commissioned the research.
A recent case involves a study, released by the prestigious Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin last February, which found that fracking doesn't contaminate groundwater. Great, right? Now that a respected public institution did a scientific study, all the noise about the environmental devastation caused by fracking can be discredited and companies like, oh, say the Plains Exploration and Production Company can get back to the important work of growing our economy, with no risk for taxpayers of costly cleanups down the road.
But wait, what's this? The Study's supervisor and leader, Dr. Charles Groat, is on the board of the Plains Exploration and Production Company. According to State Impact Texas, it looks like he was paid almost half a million dollars by the company just last year, and he owns $1.6 million in company stocks. In fact, his total take is about $2 million from the company. Not bad for a university professor, and I'm guessing that with all those stocks he stands to make much more from increased fracking. Actually, one of the sites in his study is being drilled by the Plains Exploration and Production Company right now!
The New York Times reports that UT has promised (in a statement to journalists) to "identify a group of outside experts to review the Energy Institute’s report on the effects of hydraulic fracturing." That's fine, but this is just the latest scandal, and the only reason it's a scandal is because they got caught. Hmmm... wouldn't it be better if there was some kind of law that would force universities to give full disclosure on "research" of this sort?
That was exactly what the Texas legislature tried to do last year. The bill was originally introduced (as SB 1603) in 2009 by former Senator Eliot Shapleigh, in response to a similar case in which the Institute for Policy and Economic Development at the University of Texas at El Paso released a study showing the positive economic effects of the reopening of the ASARCO copper smelter, while ignoring the devastating environmental effects which were then contested. Who commissioned and paid for the report? You guessed it- ASARCO. And they used the study for credibility in a press conference and PR campaign.
The bill "requiring financial disclosure concerning reports prepared by public institutions of higher education for other entities" was reintroduced last year, as SB 1304. Passing both the House and the Senate Committees for Higher Education on zero nays and only one absentee in each, and with no objections from most Texas universities and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, it looked like a sure bet. Until, that is, it mysteriously died before it could be voted on by the House.
There was, however, one dissenting school: the University of Texas at Austin. Did they kill the bill? Who knows, but they were the only ones fighting it. Why would they do such a thing? Well, if you were to ask me, I'd say that if the public knows that certain financial backing creates a conflict of interest, the research is to some extent discredited. If the research doesn't hold sway over the public as being credible, the point of corporations funding university research all but becomes moot. With less corporate backers, UT loses $$ (around 472 million, but who's counting). We have established a motive.
And that brings us back to the fracking Groat scandal. Now UT's in the hot seat, and I think it would be a perfect time to revive SB 1304.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Texas "Swing"
In the July 19th post on the Burka Blog at Texas Monthly, Paul Burka writes about Obama's statement, made during a fundraising visit last week, that Texas will "soon" be a swing state. I agree with Burka's assessment on the subject- that it probably will become a swing state, we just don't know how "soon" that will be.
The Republican party has, for the last thirty or so years, been the white party, so what happens when Texas ceases to be a white-majority state? As Burka says, "The Republican base is aging. The average age of the party’s donors is 70. The average age of the 18,000 GOP state convention delegates was 58."
The demographics are changing and I think it will be really interesting to see what happens with a white minority in Texas. I have a hard time seeing how non-whites would possibly vote for a party actively working against them, but then, plenty of women and poor whites vote Republican so anything could happen. It's certainly not like the Democratic party has only common people's best interests at heart, either (though they do make less of a point to show outright disdain for them).
Burka makes two really good points concerning this.
1). For some reason, Hispanics don't turn out to vote in large numbers here in Texas.
2). Many traditional Hispanic values are in line with the conservatism of the Republican party. "Faith, family and patriotism" are particularly singled out.
I have noticed particularly this second phenomenon. Heck, one of my best friends is Mexican-American, and she views the Tea Party as a bunch of liberal wussies.
So, maybe if they play up their conservative values and Democrats' ties to big business and Wall Street, the Republicans could be the ones to "swing" back into favor with minority voters. If that happens, count on the Tea Partiers to swell the ranks of the Democrats and then we're back to where we started.
The Republican party has, for the last thirty or so years, been the white party, so what happens when Texas ceases to be a white-majority state? As Burka says, "The Republican base is aging. The average age of the party’s donors is 70. The average age of the 18,000 GOP state convention delegates was 58."
The demographics are changing and I think it will be really interesting to see what happens with a white minority in Texas. I have a hard time seeing how non-whites would possibly vote for a party actively working against them, but then, plenty of women and poor whites vote Republican so anything could happen. It's certainly not like the Democratic party has only common people's best interests at heart, either (though they do make less of a point to show outright disdain for them).
Burka makes two really good points concerning this.
1). For some reason, Hispanics don't turn out to vote in large numbers here in Texas.
2). Many traditional Hispanic values are in line with the conservatism of the Republican party. "Faith, family and patriotism" are particularly singled out.
I have noticed particularly this second phenomenon. Heck, one of my best friends is Mexican-American, and she views the Tea Party as a bunch of liberal wussies.
So, maybe if they play up their conservative values and Democrats' ties to big business and Wall Street, the Republicans could be the ones to "swing" back into favor with minority voters. If that happens, count on the Tea Partiers to swell the ranks of the Democrats and then we're back to where we started.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Scott Henson's commentary in the Austin American Statesman on Thursday calls for us to "Focus on improving lives, not making drug arrests, in East Austin." This is a well thought out and insightful look at the misplaced efforts of the Austin Police Department.
The author, who also writes a respected blog on the Texas criminal justice system and politics called Grits for Breakfast, is appealing to a local audience in a time of change and gentrification in East Austin. He assumes the reader knows where 12th and Chicon, on of the most notorious street corners in Austin, is.
He also enlightens us with some statistics. It looks like the APD's vast majority of arrests are going to...guess what? Possession of marijuana and drugs by young black men.
"The drug war has swallowed up modern American policing, courts, jails, probation rolls, and to a lesser extent than those other categories, prisons." This is obviously part of a much larger problem than just what is happening in East Austin (look to Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for a more in depth analysis).
But maybe we can understand a little more of America's misplaced aggression if we look at the microcosm of 78702. I lived in that zipcode for years, and had some pretty bad run-ins with the police there, and I'm white!
Once, I was coming home with some friends on East 7th and we were speeding. We got pulled over by the police- no big deal, that's fair right? Well, both my friends were black, and in no time, the police had handcuffed the friend who was driving and had him in the police car, ready to go to jail. He was not drunk at all, not uncooperative, but his English wasn't very good and he didn't understand that he had to sign the ticket. They called for backup, which came in the form of what I can only call a supreme jerk (well, the real word isn't fit to print here) named Sgt Vincent. He told me to shut up as I was trying to translate for my friend. He spoke so viciously that I actually thought he would hit me in the face.
Not one of the four policemen who came to East 7th that night spoke Spanish, which I found strange- it is no secret that many people who live in that neighborhood don't speak English.
I have never been treated so rudely for a routine traffic stop. It was surreal. So surreal that I got Sgt. Vincent's name, as I was going to complain to the APD about him. He was scary. "Do the Right Thing" scary.
White people!- we need to recognize that the way we are pulled over is not how it is for everyone. A friend of mine, young, black, with dreadlocks, had a girlfriend who lived near 16th and Chestnut. He was a teacher and a published author, and is going for his PhD now, but that didn't stop the police from pulling him over on average once every two weeks as he was driving to his girlfriend's house. They weren't always rude to him, but sometimes they were.
I can't help wondering what would have happened if I had been in the car with two white Norwegian friends who didn't understand English very well. Would the out of towners be handcuffed and threatened with arrest? Or would we all have had a nice laugh about their neat accents and our cultural differences?
When I followed up to register a complaint with the police department, there was no way to just say what happened. You had to file an official complaint, with your name and address, and without evidence, I was told there was nothing I could do. Just now I googled Sgt Vincent. He heads the Austin Police Association's board. I wonder how many other people have had run-is with him but are silenced by the lack of an effective complaint system.
It's hard to believe that policemen like Vincent and Leonardo Quintana exist only here in Austin. I wonder if, in examining the actions of police operating in East Austin, we can see a larger trend of racism and injustice in our nation's "peacekeeping" force.
The author, who also writes a respected blog on the Texas criminal justice system and politics called Grits for Breakfast, is appealing to a local audience in a time of change and gentrification in East Austin. He assumes the reader knows where 12th and Chicon, on of the most notorious street corners in Austin, is.
He also enlightens us with some statistics. It looks like the APD's vast majority of arrests are going to...guess what? Possession of marijuana and drugs by young black men.
"The drug war has swallowed up modern American policing, courts, jails, probation rolls, and to a lesser extent than those other categories, prisons." This is obviously part of a much larger problem than just what is happening in East Austin (look to Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow- Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness for a more in depth analysis).
But maybe we can understand a little more of America's misplaced aggression if we look at the microcosm of 78702. I lived in that zipcode for years, and had some pretty bad run-ins with the police there, and I'm white!
Once, I was coming home with some friends on East 7th and we were speeding. We got pulled over by the police- no big deal, that's fair right? Well, both my friends were black, and in no time, the police had handcuffed the friend who was driving and had him in the police car, ready to go to jail. He was not drunk at all, not uncooperative, but his English wasn't very good and he didn't understand that he had to sign the ticket. They called for backup, which came in the form of what I can only call a supreme jerk (well, the real word isn't fit to print here) named Sgt Vincent. He told me to shut up as I was trying to translate for my friend. He spoke so viciously that I actually thought he would hit me in the face.
Not one of the four policemen who came to East 7th that night spoke Spanish, which I found strange- it is no secret that many people who live in that neighborhood don't speak English.
I have never been treated so rudely for a routine traffic stop. It was surreal. So surreal that I got Sgt. Vincent's name, as I was going to complain to the APD about him. He was scary. "Do the Right Thing" scary.
White people!- we need to recognize that the way we are pulled over is not how it is for everyone. A friend of mine, young, black, with dreadlocks, had a girlfriend who lived near 16th and Chestnut. He was a teacher and a published author, and is going for his PhD now, but that didn't stop the police from pulling him over on average once every two weeks as he was driving to his girlfriend's house. They weren't always rude to him, but sometimes they were.
I can't help wondering what would have happened if I had been in the car with two white Norwegian friends who didn't understand English very well. Would the out of towners be handcuffed and threatened with arrest? Or would we all have had a nice laugh about their neat accents and our cultural differences?
When I followed up to register a complaint with the police department, there was no way to just say what happened. You had to file an official complaint, with your name and address, and without evidence, I was told there was nothing I could do. Just now I googled Sgt Vincent. He heads the Austin Police Association's board. I wonder how many other people have had run-is with him but are silenced by the lack of an effective complaint system.
It's hard to believe that policemen like Vincent and Leonardo Quintana exist only here in Austin. I wonder if, in examining the actions of police operating in East Austin, we can see a larger trend of racism and injustice in our nation's "peacekeeping" force.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Are Voter ID's the New Poll Tax?
In an article by staff writers ("Perry calls for Obama to apologize for attorney general's 'imprudent remarks'") published today, the Austin American Statesman reports on a hot topic this presidential visit: Attorney General Eric Holder's comment in a speech to the NAACP that the Texas voter ID law (currently being challenged in federal court by the justice department) is basically a "poll tax."
Poll taxes were used to keep blacks from exercising their voting rights during Jim Crow. Governor Perry says, “In labeling the Texas voter ID law as a “poll tax,” Eric Holder purposefully used language designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension. It was not only inappropriate, but simply incorrect on its face,” and he wants President Obama to apologize.
While the article is worth reading for basic informative purposes, in typical Austin American Statesman style, it leaves many of the questions a reader might have unanswered. It gives Governor Perry plenty of face time, but it doesn't give one reason why the Attorney General made these statements. In fact, if you were to just read this article, you would think he was out of his mind- who would challenge a law that simply asks voters to show an ID before voting?
So I googled why, and I was brought to this ABC article ( Voter ID: Poll Tax or Common Sense?). Apparently, 25% of African Americans don't have the type of ID necessary for voting, compared with just 8% of white voters. The IDs are free but the materials required to get one, such as a birth certificate, are not. To quote Jane Dailey, history professor at the University of Chicago, "The comparison is in the effects."
Let's look at the effects. According to the article:
"In the past decade Texas has convicted only six people of voter impersonation, the only type of voter fraud that its photo ID law would guard against. By comparison, the state estimates that 605,000 to 795,000 registered Texas voters do not currently have the ID required to vote"
Now it's beginning to make sense.What do you do when a law that is made with best intentions ends up excluding a population? Do you take a look at what the benefits are of the law, as weighed against the costs? Or do you, like Texas State Sen. Tommy Williams (white, male, Republican), one of the drafters of the law, brush off criticisms with an "I mean, it's (birth certificate) a very common thing that you have to have, and I don't really see it -- it's just one of the things of life." He says the law's aim is to "prevent in-person voter fraud, and to shore up people's confidence in our electoral system." Hmmm... I wonder which people he is talking about.
But then, if we were really serious at looking at all of our laws that in effect continue Jim Crow, we'd have a much bigger task at hand than one little voter ID law. And for that, we might need local politicians and media willing to admit that disenfranchising laws even still exist...
Poll taxes were used to keep blacks from exercising their voting rights during Jim Crow. Governor Perry says, “In labeling the Texas voter ID law as a “poll tax,” Eric Holder purposefully used language designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension. It was not only inappropriate, but simply incorrect on its face,” and he wants President Obama to apologize.
While the article is worth reading for basic informative purposes, in typical Austin American Statesman style, it leaves many of the questions a reader might have unanswered. It gives Governor Perry plenty of face time, but it doesn't give one reason why the Attorney General made these statements. In fact, if you were to just read this article, you would think he was out of his mind- who would challenge a law that simply asks voters to show an ID before voting?
So I googled why, and I was brought to this ABC article ( Voter ID: Poll Tax or Common Sense?). Apparently, 25% of African Americans don't have the type of ID necessary for voting, compared with just 8% of white voters. The IDs are free but the materials required to get one, such as a birth certificate, are not. To quote Jane Dailey, history professor at the University of Chicago, "The comparison is in the effects."
Let's look at the effects. According to the article:
"In the past decade Texas has convicted only six people of voter impersonation, the only type of voter fraud that its photo ID law would guard against. By comparison, the state estimates that 605,000 to 795,000 registered Texas voters do not currently have the ID required to vote"
Now it's beginning to make sense.What do you do when a law that is made with best intentions ends up excluding a population? Do you take a look at what the benefits are of the law, as weighed against the costs? Or do you, like Texas State Sen. Tommy Williams (white, male, Republican), one of the drafters of the law, brush off criticisms with an "I mean, it's (birth certificate) a very common thing that you have to have, and I don't really see it -- it's just one of the things of life." He says the law's aim is to "prevent in-person voter fraud, and to shore up people's confidence in our electoral system." Hmmm... I wonder which people he is talking about.
But then, if we were really serious at looking at all of our laws that in effect continue Jim Crow, we'd have a much bigger task at hand than one little voter ID law. And for that, we might need local politicians and media willing to admit that disenfranchising laws even still exist...
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