By KERA News & Wire Services
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-988998.mp3
Dallas, TX – Officials say the so called Old Potato fire in Bastrop, the latest wildfire in hard-hit central Texas, is less damaging than initially estimated.
John Nichols, with the Texas Forest Service, says the fire has destroyed 320 acres, not 1,000. Once experts got on the ground, they could more closely examine details of the destruction instead of making estimates from a distance.
Nichols expects the current 50 percent containment should increase by tonight.
Nichols: the winds are very gentle right now, there's a little bit of a breeze. But it shouldn't be presenting any particular problem. Yesterday at this time you had a little more wind conditions and that's what part of the problem was.
Nichols says no one has been injured in this blaze and while 28 of 42 homes in the area were evacuated, no structures burned.
Texas State Tax Revenues Bounce Back
The state's chief revenue estimator says Texas tax revenues have bounced back to levels nearly equal to pre-recession levels.
John Heleman briefed the state House Ways and Means committee on Wednesday. He said taxes on retail sales, motor vehicles and oil production are near 2008 levels. Only natural gas taxes are lagging, mostly due to low prices.
The state's Rainy Day Fund, which is financed with oil and gas revenues, is expected to reach roughly $7 billion by the next legislative session in 2013.
The committee received the update as it monitors the state's economy. State revenues are performing as expected.
Lawmakers also asked about raising the business tax exemption from $300,000 to $1 million. Heleman said that will cost the state $150 million over two years.
Perry raises $17.1 million since mid-August
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has raised $17.1 million since August 13, and has $15 million in cash on hand.
That's according to an anonymous aide for the Republican presidential candidate.
Almost all of the money is for use in the GOP primary election. About $50,000 was raised for a general election fund in case Perry wins the GOP nomination.
His chief rival for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, brought in $18 million during his first three-month fundraising period. Romney's expected to come in below that for the fundraising quarter that ended Sept. 30.
Spark may have started Texas plant fire
An official says an electrical spark may have started a large North Texas chemical plant fire that forced school evacuations and kept residents inside because of the risk of harmful gases.
Scott Pendery is CEO the Magnablend, which owns the plant. At a news conference Tuesday, he said it wasn't known what might have produced the spark and what chemicals were involved in Monday's blaze in Waxahachie, 30 miles south of Dallas.
Authorities reported no injuries, but Pendery said two workers were referred for treatment of stress-related symptoms as a precaution. Environmental officials have said they did not find elevated levels of toxic chemicals in the air.
Pendery said Magnablend manufactures custom chemicals for a variety of industries, mostly in oil and gas. Officials said workers were mixing chemicals when the fire started.
Texting study finds slower driver response times
New findings from a Texas study show texting while driving is more dangerous than previously thought.
Researchers say reading or writing a text message behind the wheel can more than double a driver's reaction time. The study, released Wednesday, was conducted by the Texas Transportation Institute.
Findings showed reaction times slowed from one to two seconds with no texting activity, to three to four seconds while texting. It found very little difference in response times between a driver composing a message and reading one.
Researchers studied 42 drivers between the ages of 16 and 54 on a test-track driving course in vehicles equipped with a flashing light and a monitoring system.
The Governors Highway Safety Association says 34 states have adopted texting and driving bans.
Groups sue to block oil pipeline
Three conservation groups are suing to halt preliminary work on a proposed 1,700-mile-long oil pipeline from the tar sands of western Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
The lawsuit to be filed Wednesday in federal court in Nebraska contends that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service broke the law by allowing Canadian pipeline operator TransCanada to start preparing the route for its Keystone XL pipeline.
The groups say federal officials allowed TransCanada to clear a 100-mile pipeline corridor through the Nebraska Sandhills, despite a federal law barring projects from launching before they receive approval.
The project would cross the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies groundwater to Nebraska and seven other states.
The lawsuit also names the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.