The Texan Podcast - Daily Rundown - April 18, 2024

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

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Howdy folks, today is Thursday, April 18th, and you're listening to the Texans Daily Rundown. I'm the Texans Assistant Editor Rob Lausches, and here is the rundown of today's news in Texas politics. Following an impassioned town hall in Dorchester over a proposed cement kiln plant, Lt. Gov Governor Dan Patrick has called on a state agency to reject the requested permit for the project's parent company. Black Mountain Cement applied for an operating permit with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

a few years ago, and since then, local opposition has mounted. The 600-acre project will come alongside the creation of a nearby quarry from which to mine the materials. Concerns over kilns run the gamut of its produced waste contaminating the surrounding environment and water supply, the aesthetic consequences of one or more large smokestacks, and the sulfuric acid and dust emitted from those smokestacks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency originally stepped in and stopped the project, but recently it gained new life with the TCEQ. The agency considered the

permit application at a March 25th hearing, but no official action has since been taken. This week, Patrick came to Grayson County for a town hall with residents on the issue, an event that lasted an hour and a half. The lieutenant governor left with a clear side. Quote, based on everything I have reviewed and my time with the local community, I am firmly opposed to granting this permit. There is simply too much risk to the county and its citizens, end quote. Patrick wrote to TCEQ chairman John Nierman on Tuesday. In a 427-page order, Judge Graham Jack of the Corpus Christi Division of the Southern District of Texas found the state in contempt for violating previous orders related to the state's foster care system and ordered the state to pay $100,000 in fines.

The order, which notes its exceptional length, includes extensive testimonies from children involved in the case, stating the court's opinion that the stories of these children need to be told. Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecil Irwin Young will be fined $50,000 a day for each of the two orders of failed compliance and inadequate investigations into the foster care system. Governor Greg Abbott is also named as a defendant in the case. The ruling has since been blocked by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and thus the fines will not continue to accrue for the state. At multiple points in the order, Jack detailed the inability of the Provider Investigations

Program to comply with previous remedial orders, which the order asserts hardly demonstrates good faith. The order includes descriptions of testimonies and investigations into Young's handling of the Texas child foster care system. Jack's order notes that she, quote, has failed to establish that she has substantially complied or made good faith efforts to comply, end quote, with the previous compliance measures. In May 2019, Harris County Sheriff's deputies stopped Emile Woods on Interstate 10 near Houston for following too closely behind a box truck. Although Woods was not cited or charged with traffic violations or criminal activity, the officers seized approximately $42,000 under a process that has drawn a class

action lawsuit alleging the county is routinely violating constitutional provisions through its civil asset forfeiture procedures. The Institute for Justice represents Woods and others in a class action lawsuit citing multiple instances where they allege Harris County is violating the Texas Constitution's Bill of Rights. Harris County Sheriff's deputies stopped Woods and questioned him, at one point placing him in their police vehicle. After searching Woods' car, Deputy Sergeant R. Wade and his partner seized the cash, saying they believed the money to be connected to illegal drugs, although they did not find illegal drugs in the vehicle. They did not confiscate Woods' gun and only gave him a card with an incident number.

Texas does not require a post-seizure probable cause hearing, but 27 days after the seizure, Harris County filed a civil asset forfeiture case to retain the money. Woods said he was not served by Harris County until June 2021. The class action lawsuit alleges that civil asset forfeiture added $15.9 million to Harris County law enforcement budgets and $7.7 million to the district attorney's office between 2018 and 2020. Thanks for listening. Be sure to visit thetexan.news and subscribe to get full access to all of our articles, newsletters, and podcasts.