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About 9% of the total taxes in Texas and Louisiana for fiscal 2013 are from severance taxes for extraction of oil and gas, according to Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government. For Alaska this is 78% and for N. Dakota 46%. A prolonged oil slump will reduce growth in the oil producing states including Wyoming and Oklahoma. Rainy day funds in N. Dakota and Texas will help meet spending for the next 2 years.

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Republicans are divided in Texas in 2023 which could turn it over to Democrats. One forgets that Texas is the state that a Democrat LBJ Lyndon Baines Johnson was from and his base of support, first vice president under John Kennedy and then elected president. LBJ signed legislation for amending Social Security to create Medicare and Medicaid. He also passed Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning segregation and in 1965 enfranchised black voters. The WSJ in this editorial sees the divisions between Republicans in the House and the Senate over the impeachment of Attorney General Paxton as signs that Texas has one party dominance for too long. It says this could turn the state to a Democrat majority in 2024 as it was under LBJ in 1960, who helped create programs revered by all Americans.

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This early by May end heat wave in Texas and Louisiana with temperatures reaching 102 degrees.

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In Houston, 17,000 people are settled in shelters after the devastating flood waters hit the city. Dallas Convention Center houses 5000 people evacuated from homes. The Bayou areas of Houston were hit hardest. The Texas National Guard of 12,000 was fully deployed with 18,000 National Guard personnel from other states. Experts say the Houston floods are unprecedented in the U.S. for the number of inches of rain that hit the city. 

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Senior communities in Sun City, Georgetown, Texas, near Austin, give the area the fastest growth rate in the US. 

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The gap between WTI Texas Intermediate and Brent crude widens in March 2015 creating arbitrage opportunities.

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Exxon is reaching a deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources, to give it a foothold in the West Texas Permian Shale Basin.

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States that will count in US Congressional races and deciding who controls both Houses of Congress includes the big states Texas and Florida, New York and California.

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The title may not reflect the content of this report on Admiral Giroir who heads the U.S. coronavirus testing effort. He is a pediatrician who worked for hospitals in Texas before heading a vaccine project at Texas A&M University.  Internal politics led to his resigning from the effort to build a vaccine development capability with pharmaceutical companies at Texas A&M. Most of the rest of this report shows a physician who is determined to pursue big projects such as the one he is tackling today. President Trump appointed him to lead FDA, and to be the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. With the missteps of Secretary Azar testing suffered in the early months of the crisis as reported in the WSJ. Adm. Giroir has taken a leading role since  this period. He also heads the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps of 6200 staff playing a vital role. On March 13 he was asked to lead the effort in testing.  He comes to this role with experience in the field of vaccines realizing that "the challenges are not just biological but engineering." New technology would be needed to make massive amounts of vaccine. His idea is that transformational efforts are needed. His idea for a billion dose per month facility in Texas did not work, yet he worked on it for about 5 years from 2010 to 2015 at Texas A&M University, at one point being the vice chancellor. He was selected by Texas Governor Perry as chairman of the task force in Texas in 2014 to oversee the effort to fight the Ebola virus. He now is in a position to bring all his experience and aspirations to tackle the coronavirus, cutting through much of the red tape and bureaucracy, and pulling together the effort combining science of pharmaceutical companies with the technology of manufacturing billions of vaccine doses in a record time. Today he sees capacity for testing reaching 40-50 million tests a month by September 2020.   ...

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This report in DW.com presents a situation where supply of oil runs out as demand way exceeds supply as shale oils in US are depleted, and no new reserves are found. A story in WSJ last week reports that the salty water from shale oil extraction is injected back into reservoirs at a rate that creates serious problems in the Permian Basian of the US including East Texas. The IEA forecast in 2026 shows about 97 million b/d of production and demand slightly exceeding this in both 2030 and 2050 which would suggest defossilization has not taken place. Yet the US pullout from defossilization under DJT is sure to be reversed by future governments in as short as 3 years, and the current DJT policy is simply a response to the cost of living concerns of the majority of Americans. The scenario that fossil fuels will be required forever is promoted by the oil companies and by OPEC+ including Russia. But this situation will reverse as the cost of living crisis and the low wages and incomes, loss of factory jobs, low savings, health care inflation, is tackled under the DJT administration and the US economy becomes stronger with lower inflation.  This scenario of  steady oil demand can be reversed if China and India and Europe push ahead with renewable energy and technological change as is happening today, and will not be seriously impacted when the US joins the battle with its renewable energy push in 2028. This is not just an optimistic scenario, it is a balanced one as private industry in the US will sense this and move ahead with development of new technologies for renewable energy so as not to fall behind and to pioneer on their own. That is the history of innovation in the US for the last 100 years and will not change. ...

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The votes in the Iowa Ames Straw Poll shows a shift to more conservative politicians. Ron Paul gets 4,671 votes and comes in second in the Ames Straw Poll. Bachmann who campaigns hard in the state wins 4,823 votes and comes in first, but just 152 votes ahead of Ron Paul of Texas. Turnout is large, with 16,892 votes cast. Pawlenty, a two term governor of Minnesota falls behind and gets 2,293 votes. Rick Perry, three term governor of Texas, gets more write-in votes in Iowa than Mitt Romney.

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Chevron will sell its current global headquarters in California and offers workers to move to Texas. 

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The U.S. and India see a surge in coronavirus cases. Per day cases surged to 40,000 on June 25 in U.S. and 17,000 in India. Alabama, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, California, Florida are seeing a surge in new cases. Texas, California and Florida all recorded more than 5000 cases each. In California cases for hospitalization surged 32% with more than 4200 in hospitals.

India now has 490,000 cases with death toll of 15,301. Indian Railways cancelled all bookings. In the U.S. Texas is paused reopening plans.

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New hotspots for coronavirus in the U.S. include California, Illinois, Florida, Texas and Arizona. Cases are close to 200,000 in California.

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Super Tuesday happens on March 5 as Republicans vote in 15 state primaries including Texas and California. A Senate seat in California vacated by Diane Feinstein and a Republican house seat in the Central Valley of California will also hold Democratic candidate selection.

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Arizona, Utah and South Carolina are 3 states that are cited by the US Labor Department for not adopting any portion of the Occupational and Health Safety Emergency Standard for health care workers. The Labor Department says that by not adopting these standards for social distancing, mask use and paid time off for vaccination, these states are risking the health and safety of health care workers. OSHA sent letters to these states revoking the states abilities to run their own occupational health safety programs.

Texas is one of the states where governors are opposing the Biden vaccine mandate. Airlines based in Texas, both Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, say they will follow the Biden vaccine mandate for federal contractors, as they are required by law to abide by the president's order.

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Pipelines to Corpus Christi have reached capacity as US energy production reaches record levels says this report in WSJ. In the first half of 2023 2 million barrels a day passed through this pipeline. About half of the 4.1 million barrels a day the US shipped abroad were loaded onto tankers on this part of the Texas coastline. This oil helped Europe during the shortages after the closing of access to Russian oil supplies. Because Corpus Christi has terminals that make it cheaper to ship oil out it has become a dominant hub in the US for shipments overseas. It is the closest deepwater port to the Permian basin in West Texas and New Mexico. Corpus Christ is also transitioning to a future where hydrogen is produced for energy by applying for $8 billion from president Biden's renewable energy infrastructure package.

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Austin, Texas and growth in "middle skill" jobs which offers ways to increase jobs growth in the U.S. in 2012-2015.

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The U.S. economic recovery is happening, but a key question is how to handle the surges and hotspots such as today in western and southern states of California, Texas and Florida.

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Rick Perry faces criticism from Republican candidates Romney, Bachmann, Huntsman and Paul at the Republican presidential candidate debate in Tampa on September 12, 2011. Perry defended his remarks on Social Security by telling viewers- "slam dunk guaranteed that program is going to be in place." Romney suggested Perry had been served four aces for his jobs record in Texas. And Santorum accused Perry of providing education assistance to illegal immigrants to attract the Latino vote. Perry defended his remarks on Fed chairman Bernanke printing money amounting to treasonous behaviour.

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Closing the Dilley Dtention Center in Texas in June 2024 will free up $2 billion for use to free up an additional detention beds in other places. As Biden closes the border with Mexico he will need additional detention space so that migrants can be returned to Mexico or their home country.