Austin recently had an all-time record heat index of 118 degrees.<\/p>\n
I’m surely not alone in noticing that summers here have become more and more humid with each passing year.<\/p>\n
Scientists agree that pollution from burning fossil fuels is making extreme heat more frequent and intense. Scorching summers affect everyone, but they hit hardest for older adults, children and outdoor workers and families who must choose between cooling their homes and buying food.<\/p>\n
A slow permitting process is creating a bottleneck that’s slowing down the deployment of clean energy such as solar and wind.<\/p>\n
Congress should pass clean energy permitting reform to loosen that bottleneck, bring clean energy online faster, and cut pollution as fast as possible.<\/p>\n
Active and retired teachers will comprise the members of this commission. Unfortunately, like almost every education commission the state has created, this commission does not include students who are the recipients of this \u201cimproved\u201d education.<\/p>\n
How could any organization exclude knowing what their clients\/customers want?<\/p>\n
I urge the Abbott to include students on his commission who also have ideas for delivering education more effectively.<\/p>\n
Stuart Greenfield,\u00a0Austin<\/p>\n
I was born and raised in Texas. I have lived most of my life in Texas. Before the recent push to deport immigrants from Mexico without legal status, we welcomed them.<\/p>\n
They came here to escape poverty and violence, and we welcomed them. Many of these immigrants contributed to our economy, and as long as they did the work, did not cause any trouble, we wanted them here.<\/p>\n
If we really don’t want immigrants here, we should have been deporting them as fast as we could a long time ago. Since we didn’t, we set a precedent that as long as they were an asset to the community, they could stay.<\/p>\n