Colext/Macondo
Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior
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Nos cuenta el socio Leland:
Scientists working on a comprehensive Texas 2000 Air Quality Study are
at a
loss to explain why smog-related air pollution in Houston, which already
boasts the nation's worst air, actually rises at night.
The study has also found that Houston sometimes has "ozone episodes" or
occasions when ground-level ozone jumps up to extreme levels without an
apparent cause.
The study, conducted by 150 scientists and engineers and 30 public,
private
and academic institutions at a cost of $20 million was commissioned to
document the meteorological and atmospheric complexities of the
pollution
problem, including how ozone and fine particulate matter is created and
travels to different areas of the state.
But Peter H. Daum of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.
said
the findings "hit us in the face." Scientists expect the ozone levels to
be
highest when heat and sunlight transform industrial and automobile
emissions into smog.
Houston residents have pointed to chemical plants that may pollute more
when normally watchful federal regulators and agencies take off for the
evening. Government officials have also theorized that large releases of
ozone-forming chemicals from industrial plants at night could be at the
root of the problem. But scientists haven't proven that.
The high night readings found by the study were found at the La Porte
Airport southeast of Houston, located between petrochemical plants at
Bayport industrial complex and along the Houston Ship Channel. A Baytown
plant was charged with causing one "ozone episode" last year, but
charges
were dropped after state officials admitted they didn't know what had
caused the high reading.
--------------------- SOURCE: "Scientists are puzzled by study showing
that
pollution rises at night," Dallas Morning News, October 17, 2000
October 18, 2000
What Happened to the Texas Children's Health Insurance Program? San
Antonio
columnist offers answers.
While it often seems the Texas news media have called a blackout on any
stories
challenging Gov. George Bush's version of Texas, a San Antonio Express
News
columnist is willing to ask hard questions about Bush's claims of
success in
Texas.
Foremost among those claims is the Children's Health Insurance Program,
or
CHIP, which got off to a very, very slow start in Texas. So this year,
because
the program went from nonexistance to abysmally small, Gov. Bush can
claim both
progress and compassion.
Express News columnist Carlos Guerra, however, has been asking the hard
questions that have come up in the debates, and he doesn't much like the
answers he is finding.
"Texas ranks 49th in health coverage for children," Guerra writes.
"Political
attack? Of course. But it is also true.
The CHIP program is funded through federal and tobacco settlement
money--not
state taxes. Although Bush blames the delay in CHIP startup on the
schedule of
the legislature, "but. . .Bush could have gotten CHIP signups under way
without
the Legislature," Guerra says. "As governor, Bush could have drawn up
plans
for enrolling kids, lined up providers and filed an amendment to Texas'
Medicaid Plan with the Health Care and Finance Administration, which
handles
Medicaid and CHIP nationally.
"With HCFA's approval, he could have started enrollment at once.
"But he didn't."
Guerra goes on to described the legislative shennanigans that surrounded
the
eventual approval of the program, with Bush fighting to exclude as many
children as possible, even fighting Republican legislators who said his
proposal was too draconian.
"Now that it is a national embarrassment, state officials are rushing to
sign
[eligible children] up," Guerra wrote. "Bush could have started signing
up
poor kids 15 months earlier.
"But he didn't"
SOURCE:
"Guerra: Bush created CHIP's poor enrollment," San Antonio Express
News,
Saturday, October 14, 2000.
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