As 'Don't Mess with Texas' campaign turns 25, a tribute to one who helped create it

One of the men most responsible for one of America's most enduring public
service advertisement campaigns is being remembered today at 1 p.m. in Sherman.
Don Clark, a long-time TxDOT manager who oversaw the development of the Don't
Mess With Texas campaign, died Dec. 20.

Lindenberger on Don Clark's enduring legacy: http://dallasne.ws/emADNU

Wins on both sides accompanied good campaigning, scandals in 2010 political news

When Texas historians muse about the 2010 election, they'll probably concentrate on the Republican wave that washed through the state last month. Everywhere but in Dallas County, that is. Here, the county solidified its role as a Democratic bastion, despite some hard-fought local races.
 http://dallasne.ws/eNuxkm

Staff writers Rudolph Bush, Robert T. Garrett, Todd J. Gillman, Gromer
Jeffers Jr., Kevin Krause and Wayne Slater contributed to this report.

 

Legislative fight looms on class-size limit in elementary schools

AUSTIN – A quarter-century-old law that has held most elementary school
classes in Texas to no more than 22 students is on the endangered list as the
Legislature looks for solutions to the state's massive budget deficit.

Stutz: http://dallasne.ws/dX85nN

Texas manufacturing sector cools but remains positive

Conditions in the Texas manufacturing sector remained broadly positive in December but showed some signs of cooling off compared with the previous month, according to a manufacturing survey released Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Brendan Case reports http://dallasne.ws/gw1Pxq

Dry spell means Texas wildflowers may be less showy this year

A bountiful wildflower season is a game of inches – in rainfall, that is. And Texas, in the midst of drought-like conditions, could come up short this spring. The dry weather in December already has hopes for a repeat of the bountiful wildflower displays of 2010 in question.

Simnacher gets the projections from Wildflower Center: http://dallasne.ws/hMURTx

Ebb of stimulus funding could hit Texas workers hard

WASHINGTON – The federal stimulus payments that helped thousands of Texas workers ride out the recession will ebb next year, just as state legislators are likely to enact cuts that could hurt government workers and others who rely on public spending. The Recovery Act has sent about $16.5 billion to Texas state agencies since 2009. The biggest impact has been on public education, where more than 27,000 jobs were supported by stimulus funds between July and September 2010, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Dave Michaels reports: http://dallasne.ws/fTObn3

EPA to issue greenhouse gas permits in Texas

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency will announce today that it will seize authority from Texas for awarding clean-air permits because the state has refused to implement federal greenhouse-gas regulations. The announcement was expected for months, as Texas officials, led by Gov. Rick Perry, sued the EPA over the greenhouse rule and its legal basis for regulating such emissions. Even so, the notion of federal officials deciding how some 167 industrial facilities in Texas must comply with the rule is sure to spark new recriminations between Austin and Washington.


From Michaels in the DC bureau: http://dallasne.ws/eyI4ZE