Commencement services for the first graduating class of Westlake Academy, a community-owned International Baccalaureate (IB) public charter school founded in 2003, will take place on Sunday, May 23, at 2 p.m., at the Marriott Solana in Westlake Town Center. Governor Rick Perry will provide the Governor’s Address and U.S. Congressman Michael C. Burgess will provide the Congressional Address to the 24 graduating seniors of Westlake Academy, the first and only municipality in Texas to receive a charter designation. Also participating in the ceremony are Texas Education Agency Commissioner Robert Scott, State Representative Vicki Truitt, and Mayor Laura Wheat with special guests including Tarrant County Commissioner Gary Fickes, the Town Council/Trustees, former Board of Aldermen/Trustees, and former Westlake Mayor Scott Bradley.

“We are delighted to have Gov. Perry, Congressman Burgess, and Commissioner Robert Scott along with the other dignitaries and special guests attending and participating in this landmark occasion in the life of Westlake Academy,” said Tom Brymer, CEO of Westlake Academy and Town Manager. “Our seniors have worked hard, which is evident in their academic successes as well as in the passion and respect they have developed for the world around them. Without question, they are leaders of tomorrow, and we wish them the very best as they begin this next chapter in their lives.”

The 24 graduating seniors have been offered over $3.7 million in scholarships/grants, and 100 percent have been accepted to colleges and universities, including Baylor, John V. Roach Honors College-TCU, Bentley, Boston University, Brandeis, Drury, Emory, Pepperdine, Northeastern, New York University, Reed, Southern Methodist University, Cox School of Business-SMU, Honors College-SMU, Southwestern at Georgetown, St. John’s College, Texas A&M, Trinity, Texas Christian University, Tulane, Washington University, University of Sheffield in England, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, University of Texas at Dallas, and many others.

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Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday released a five-year strategic plan outlining the state’s “high-level roadmap” to deal with threats including natural disasters, disease outbreaks, terrorist attacks, gangs and violence along the Mexican border.

“Texas faces a diverse array of challenges to our safety and security, requiring a unique approach to preparedness, response and recovery efforts,” Perry said in a news release. “This plan was developed with the input of state agencies, law enforcement and emergency management personnel that form the homeland security community in Texas.”

The plan for 2010 to 2015 follows a similar plan released in 2005, which Perry said guided the state through hurricanes, flooding, the H1N1 flu outbreak and the ongoing threat of spillover violence from drug cartel wars in northern Mexico.

“It applies an increased understanding of the terrorist threats confronting Texas; and it reflects lessons learned in countering very powerful and dangerous criminal enterprises like Mexican cartels and transnational gangs,” Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said.

Perry touted the state’s increased focus on border security, including more than $230 million over five years to fund border security operations. He said the next five years would focus on investigating and prosecuting gangs, coordinating intelligence and enhancing public-private partnerships for security.

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House Republicans are taking their push to cut federal spending to a new level: On Wednesday, they’ll unveil a project that lets the public rank its priorities for showdowns over “wasteful or unnecessary spending.”

The “You Cut” program is one part election-year gimmick, one part direct democracy, and it’s intended to spotlight the spending side of the federal deficit problem.

Each week, House Republicans will post online five spending targets. Whichever gets the most votes online or by cell phone, lawmakers will try to force Congress to eliminate the following week.

Citizens will also be invited to suggest cuts. The lawmakers behind the effort, led by Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia, call themselves the “House Economic Recovery Working Group.”

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State leaders facing a growing budget shortfall will exempt prison operations, inmate treatment programs, state mental hospitals, and some education programs from 5 percent spending cuts, a person with knowledge of the process said Tuesday.

Leaders decided against whacking programs that maintain public safety, hold down future spending or improve the Texas economy. Their choices eliminate about one-fifth of $1.7 billion in savings that state agencies offered up, said the official, who isn’t authorized to speak publicly about the decision and did so only on condition of anonymity.

Even as final choices were being made, House budget chief Jim Pitts said that the gap lawmakers will have to close when they craft a new budget next year had reached $18 billion – billions more than the largest figure any state GOP leader has used so far. The Waxahachie Republican said that with a shortfall that large, the Legislature should consider allowing expanded gambling in the state.

“Gambling could help us on our budget,” Pitts said after his Appropriations Committee heard sobering testimony from revenue and budget experts. “I’m going to look at every revenue enhancer that we can get. If you go across the border [to] Oklahoma and Louisiana, you’re going to see Texas cars, and we need to grab that money.”

Together, the developments show how daunting the state’s fiscal situation has become. A deep recession and the 2006 decision to slash school property taxes by one-third, without identifying enough state money to pay for the tax cut, are driving the shortfall.

While leaders already are backing away from spending cuts that would be politically tough, House Speaker Joe Straus said the 5 percent cuts in many programs are “absolutely necessary but not nearly sufficient.”

Straus, R-San Antonio, made a rare appearance before the Appropriations Committee to urge colleagues to shun tax increases and bring “totally new thinking” to the state’s fiscal dilemma.

“We cannot afford business as usual,” Straus said.

He added: “The 5 percent we’ve requested is just the beginning.”

Straus, Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asked agencies in January to submit spending reduction ideas. The three leaders have been mulling suggested cuts since February.

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State budget officials are to appear this morning before a House committee to talk about sagging state revenues and the implications for the next legislative session.

“The situation is not good,” said Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who has asked representatives of Comptroller Susan Combs to testify before his Appropriations Committee.

State revenues remain “well short” of predictions, although sales tax receipts showed a modest gain last month, Pitts, the House’s chief budget writer, said Monday.

“The members of Appropriations need to know what they’re facing next session,” he said.

Pitts said sales tax receipts in April increased by 1.4 percent over the same month a year earlier, ending a string of 14 consecutive months of decreases.

“We’re now comparing this year to a bad year. April 2009 wasn’t good,” he said.

“But at least it’s in the up direction,” Pitts said of last month’s gain. “We hope it sustains.”

The 6.25 percent state sales tax is the state’s revenue workhorse, producing 57 percent of state tax money and about a quarter of overall funds, including federal money.

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The University of Texas has laid off 122 employees this year and could cut 80 more as part of a plan to trim $14.6 million, university officials said Monday.

Of the workers laid off so far, 72 worked in administration, mostly in information technology services, and 50 came from staff positions in academics, according to a statement by the university.

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UPS announced its fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles had expanded with the deployment of 25 next-generation hybrid electric delivery trucks to Houston.

At the UPS facility in Stafford, Texas, Governor Rick Perry was on hand to welcome the new vehicles to Houston. He was joined by state Sen. Tommy Williams and state Rep. Elect Ron Reynolds.

Currently, 50 UPS hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) operate in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. The 25 trucks deployed here are part of 200 new HEVs deployed recently to eight U.S. cities. The 200 new trucks will operate in Austin, Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Long Island, Minneapolis and Louisville.

“We’re proud of this large HEV deployment to major cities in the United States,” said Bob Stoffel, UPS Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Strategy, Engineering, and Sustainability, “This technology, where properly used, can yield a 35 percent fuel savings, the equivalent of 100 conventional UPS delivery vehicles.”

The 200 new HEV package cars are expected to reduce fuel consumption by roughly 176,000 gallons over the course of a year compared to an equivalent number of traditional diesel trucks. The hybrids also should reduce by 1,786 metric tons the amount of CO2 gases released annually into the atmosphere.

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A commission run jointly by Texas and Vermont, with a membership made up mostly of Gov. Rick Perry’s appointees, could decide this summer to make Texas the potential resting place for radioactive waste from 36 states.

The decision would benefit a single company, Waste Control Specialists, which is owned by one of Perry’s chief donors and has assembled an impressive lobbying roster.

The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission will meet, probably next month, to decide whether Texas can import radioactive waste from outside Texas and Vermont. In a political and geographical peculiarity, the two states are the sole members of the compact, which grew out of federal laws encouraging agreements between states to dispose of the low-level waste.

The commission consists of six Texans, all named by Perry, and two Vermonters.

Low-level waste does not include spent nuclear fuel, waste from nuclear weapons, tailings related to uranium mining and naturally occurring radioactive material.

Most of it is material or hardware from nuclear power plants or syringes, protective clothing, glassware and rags from hospitals and academic labs. The vast majority of it, if sealed in a drum, would be safe enough to sit atop and will lose its radioactivity within a century.

Disposal of the waste could be worth billions, and Waste Control Specialists, which operates a hazardous waste dump in Andrews County in far West Texas, is the sole company licensed by the Texas environmental agency to accept it. But none of the waste has been buried in Andrews as the company finishes overcoming hurdles at the state environmental agency to get full authority to bury it.

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For Immediate Release Media Contact: Lisette Mondello
May 10, 2010 (202) 224-9767
Kevin McLaughlin
(202) 224-0704

Hutchison and Cornyn Ask for Action on VA Hospital in Valley
Senators Tell VA Secretary That Inpatient Care for Valley Vets Needed

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) called on Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to add inpatient facilities to the existing and already expanding South Texas VA Health Care Center in Harlingen.

“While I applaud the VA for increasing outpatient services for our Valley veterans through the expansion of the Harlingen VA health center, the need for inpatient facilities for this growing population of veterans must be addressed. Veterans living in the Rio Grande Valley should not have to travel five hours or more to San Antonio for hospital treatments. The time is right to make the South Texas VA hospital a reality,” said Sen. Hutchison, Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee.

“From the first world war to today’s ongoing military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, South Texas continues to send their finest to the front lines. These veterans have made enormous sacrifices for our nation, and it is unacceptable that any of these brave men and women have to drive long distances to access high-quality health care. I am committed to securing adequate, local health care for these men and women to whom we owe our gratitude and full support,” said Sen. Cornyn.

The full text of Senators Hutchison and Cornyn’s letter to Secretary Shinseki is below.

The Honorable Eric Shinseki
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420

Dear Secretary Shinseki:

We write today out of continued concern for the lack of adequate VA inpatient health care services available to veterans in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas and to ask for your support. There are currently an estimated 100,000 veterans living in this region without adequate access to a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Based on current enlistment rates in the Valley and the increasing number of veterans choosing to retire in South Texas, this population of veterans will continue to grow.

For the most part, we have been very pleased with the VA’s expansion thus far of the Harlingen clinic to provide a broad range of outpatient care to area veterans, as well as its partnering with high-quality private inpatient hospitals in the region. These have certainly been welcome and significant improvements for the veterans of South Texas, who have waited far too long for the quality health care they have earned through their service. However, additional steps are required to fully address the health care shortfall for these veterans, particularly in the area of inpatient health care.

A number of veterans in the Rio Grande Valley are still forced to drive five hours or more to receive inpatient care at VA facilities in San Antonio or elsewhere. These heroes deserve, and their service demands, that we do more to properly care for them when inpatient care is required.

We believe the solution to this problem is simple and straightforward: adding new inpatient care facilities to the existing South Texas VA Health Care Center in Harlingen. We request your support for this common-sense approach.

Momentum continues to build in the movement to bring a new VA hospital to the Rio Grande Valley. Numerous state and local government officials and community leaders in the surrounding area have joined in strong support of this effort. We remain hopeful that you will support it as well. Thank you for your service on behalf of America’s veterans.

Sincerely,

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON JOHN CORNYN
U.S. Senator U.S. Senator

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) told members of the Dallas and Fort Worth chambers of commerce she plans to push for earmarks for Trinity River plans in both North Texas cities. The promise to support the river plans via earmark requests comes on the heels of long-time Trinity River Vision supporter House Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) announcing she will not ask for earmarks for Fort Worth’s planned river project this year.

“Sen. Hutchison talked about the nature of earmarks and how they’ve really been mis-represented in the press lately,” said Cantey Hanger Managing Partner Pollard Rogers, one of the Fort Worth Chamber members who traveled to Washington, D.C., to talk with legislators. “… She is going to support funding for the Trinity River Vision and the Trinity River project in Dallas and she said the most effective way to get funding for specific projects like these is through earmarks, but earmarks have to be transparent.”

A delegation of Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce representatives visits Washington, D.C., every other year to meet with legislators, but this year the Fort Worth Chamber joined with the delegation of Dallas Regional Chamber members for the trip.

A total of 33 chamber members from Fort Worth and 12 from the Dallas organization traveled to Washington, D.C., April 20-22. The purpose of the trip is generally to build relationships with elected officials and to hear the latest news, according to Chamber Director of Communications Andra Bennett. The chambers do not present board resolutions or position papers during the visit.

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