By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw its finding that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of Americans. Perry on Wednesday sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, asking her to retract the finding until the science and data forming the basis of the conclusion can be validated and verified.
Perry said recent allegations that some scientists manipulated data to provide proof of global warming require the EPA to review the science that lead to the agency making its conclusion.
The EPA announced Monday that greenhouse gases were a public health threat and that the pollutants should be reduced, if not by Congress then by the agency responsible for enforcing air pollution.
Exoneree sues Innocence Project of Texas lawyer
A DNA exoneree unhappy with a $1 million attorney's fee is accusing his ex-lawyer of participating in an illegal kickback scheme with an Innocence Project of Texas official.
Steven Phillips, who spent nearly 25 years in prison for a sexual assault and burglary he did not commit, amended a lawsuit filed in September to add Jeff Blackburn as a defendant.
Phillips alleges that Blackburn, chief counsel of the Texas innocence group, steered cases to a Lubbock attorney who successfully lobbied the Texas Legislature to increase compensation to the wrongly convicted.
That attorney is Kevin Glasheen, who represents 13 wrongly convicted Texans receiving millions of dollars in state compensation. Glasheen said Wednesday he is not paying Blackburn any money in Phillips' case.
South Texas native new Brownsville Catholic bishop
The Vatican has chosen a South Texas-born priest to be the new bishop of the Brownsville Roman Catholic diocese. Bishop Daniel Flores has served as auxiliary bishop of Detroit's Roman Catholic archdiocese for the past three years.
After his ordination to the priesthood in January 1988, the Palacios Texas, native held various posts in the Corpus Christi diocese, including parochial vicar of the Corpus Christi Cathedral.
He also held positions in the Galveston-Houston archdiocese before his Detroit assignment. He'll be installed as the sixth bishop of the Brownsville diocese on Feb. 2. The 48-year-old cleric succeeds Bishop Raymund J. Pena, who has resigned as required by the Vatican after his 75th birthday.
Perry names 6 to new state Holocaust panel
Gov. Rick Perry has chosen a chairman and five other members to sit on the newly created Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission.
The panel created by the 2009 Legislature will work with groups, museums, survivors and liberators to preserve information about genocidal events, such as the Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews and other minorities
Named to chair the panel is retired Houston businessman Peter Berkowitz, past chairman of the Holocaust Museum Houston board.
Also selected for the board are:
- Texans Against Genocide co-founder Laura Allen McCarthy of Richardson
- University of Texas at Dallas Holocaust studies director Zsuzsanna Ozsvath of Richardson
- Austin College senior director of development and special campaigns David Schulz of Plano
- New Life Christian Ministry pastor and founder LaSalle R. Vaughn of San Antonio.
All will serve terms to expire Feb. 1, 2015.