The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - November 22, 2024

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Learn more about today's sponsor by visiting: uslege.aiShow off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Texas Offers Border Ranch Land for Trump's Mass Deportation EffortAbbott Issues Executive Order Against Chinese Communist Party's Harassment of Dissidents in TexasLt. Gov. Dan Patrick Announces Texas Dementia Research Institute as Legislative PriorityState Board of Education to Approve Elementary School Curriculum Emphasizing Character Traits, PatriotismGov. Abbott Directs State to Accept Mexico’s Rio Grande Water Supply OfferTexas Nuclear Power Workgroup Suggests New State Authority, Low-Interest Loans to Spur DevelopmentTexas Lawmakers File Health and Food-Focused Bills for 2025 Legislative SessionTexas A&M Board Approves Removal of 52 Programs, Including LGBTQ Studies MinorVideo: Rep. Drew Darby Talks Education, Property Taxes, House Speaker’s Race

Cam, thanks for breaking it all down and answering all of our questions because we had a lot. Well, yeah, it's one of those things where you're sitting there for a couple hours just going through. Tracing everything. Tracing all the documents back and you got 30 tabs open. And then once you finally get everything together and you hit the close button, you're like, oh, that feels so good. Yeah. You killed it. That's awesome.

Okay, well done. Chalkies do contain red dye 40, so, which makes a lot of sense. They're literally the reddest food out there. Yeah, it stains your mouth. Yeah. Howdy, folks. Welcome to another episode of the Weekly Roundup. I'm here with Cameron and Brad, just me and the boys today. We have a lot of folks who are sick this week which sucks to be sick the week of thanksgiving um but maslin's back we're not swimming on our own here in terms of tech so if the camera is

not recording or something goes wrong she can fix it with the greatest of ease and i don't have to worry about it which is so nice yes our table is clear of Post-its. Oh, that's true. Yes. We left them on the table last week, Maz, for the video, for them to be in the video. Yeah. It reminded us of you. But we're back at it.

Bradley, where are you in the world right now? I am back in Ohio right now seeing family and friends for the holiday you'll be delighted to know that there is snow on the ground outside how much? oh not much just the dusting

but it's snow? and it's white? yep that makes me so excited oh man I saw somebody And it's white? Yep. Yep. That makes me so excited. Oh, man. I saw somebody, which I don't know if this was this year or not, but saying that Paris got some snow. I don't think it's now.

There's no way. But they were showing people skiing down Sacré-Cœur, like next to the big cathedral down the hill. I was like, that's so cool. I love Texas, but that is one thing I miss about winter is some snow. Yeah. You never got snow in Sacramento, did you? No. Yeah. I did get snow when I was going to school in Kansas though. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't fun. Oh yeah. But the Kansas snow is a little intense. Yeah. It wasn't like the soft powder right it's blizzard yeah well like hard

ice yeah yeah you know where you're slipping and sliding and you can't drive it's just a hazard as opposed to fun and manageable and navigable yeah you're not taking skis out or you could but you're gonna probably break your neck there's not a whole lot of sledding going yeah a whole lot of sledding yeah that's right well we are a week away from Thanksgiving. As of today, we record on Thursday. That's exciting. Also means we're a week away from when this podcast drops from Black Friday. So Cameron, something very important for folks to know about Black Friday. Oh, really? That the Texan is offering subscriptions 50% off. No way. I know. 50%? 50%! Everybody, go subscribe. If you're listening to this, you're a week out from getting that deal. It's pretty sweet. And it'll go Cyber Monday too.

So be on the lookout. We'll spam you with all sorts of info on that. But especially if you've not subscribed, it's a perfect time to do so. No better time. Quite literally. Yeah. 50% off. Yeah, I'm telling all my friends. That's what actually, when I do my Christmas shopping Black Friday, and so that's when I'm getting all my friends and family. Oh, yes. 50% off.

Text and subscriptions. Your California family saying, hey, guys. Absolutely. They need to know what's happening. They need to know what's happening in Texas. Yes. As they should. As they should.

But folks, just keep that in mind. It's going to be exciting. You'll get all sorts of emails from us and it'll be awesome. Yeah. But you've had a busy week as well. You were a guest on another podcast. I was. I got out of the office.

You did. Which is not typically my MO. Yeah. Typically I'm just here doing this. Typing away. Typing away. but this was the sweet tea the sweet tea i know um ariana over at tbpf had me on this weekend it was super fun we um i mean it's a fun like pop culture politics kind of crossover okay is the uh i'm really

gonna butcher her premise but that's kind of the premise of the podcast. Give us a little teaser of some of the topics you guys talked about. Trump in Texas. Trump in Texas. Obviously. Okay. How the Texan was founded. Super fun to talk about.

One of my favorite conversation topics. Zach Bryan. Zach Bryan. And his ex-girlfriend, Brianna Chicken Fry. We talked about that. What was the hot take uh sweet teapot on that on that it was more just divulging all the info we went through it talked through it whose side was everyone on oh brianna see that's the problem right there that's that's the problem

where's the male perspective where's you know what there was none there was absolutely no male perspective talked about that um we talked about so many things why can't i remember other things You know what? There was none. There was absolutely no male perspective. Talked about that. We talked about so many things. Why can't I remember other things? But it was like a 30-minute podcast, and we hit on five or six topics, which was super fun. So yeah, I don't know when that will go live, but it was great, and I feel so happy to have joined her. I'm in tune now. Thanks, Cam. Cam, you were on a podcast last week. I was, Texas Talks.

Tell us about that podcast. Well. I listened in. It was very good. Yeah, we just covered all the things coming up in the text ledge. This was, we recorded it before the bill filing day. So it was more speculation about what could happen. Yeah. Rather than the actual bills.

But it was released after bill filing day yeah so it's kind of funny it was kind of fun but yeah it was uh it was good to talk about a variety of different uh issues you know we talked uh public education school choice um uh taxpayer-funded lobbying all sorts of stuff so So it was really fun. Texas Talks. You can listen to me blabber away. Talk about Texas. Talk about Texas.

That's right. Thanks for having us on podcast, people. We love to join. Brad, you been on any podcast lately from Ohio? Well, I did ours that will go up Monday. That's true. Yeah. What's our topic?

Post-election breakdown. Everything that happened after, during and after the election in Texas and where gains were made for which parties. Yeah, pretty deep dive, I think. Absolutely. Well, we're all just hopping around. Okay. Well, before Brad really, really gets on me here, I'm going to get into the news. We'll jump into the news here.

Brad, the GLO made an announcement that General Land Office is the GLO this week concerning border security and the Trump administration that comes in January. What was this announcement? So the state of Texas has offered about 1,400 acres of land in Starr County to the federal government so that the Trump administration can build facilities there that it will use to then stage the intended mass deportation that the Trump administration is planning on implementing. That offering came in a letter from General Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, and she wrote, in part, my office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration, and Customs Enforcement, or the U.S. Border Patrol, to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation's history. The Trump administration has said, or the Trump campaign, soon-to-be administration, has said it will begin mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants, and it will first

begin to prioritize violent offenders, anyone who has committed a crime here that is here illegally beyond just coming in illegally. So they'll start with, I'm sure, the borders are the, the soon to be appointed borders are that currently named borders are, uh, Tom Homan is going to be leading the effort on, uh, he's actually joining governor Abbott, uh, next week for a press conference, um, about, I'm sure related to this also includes Don Buckingham there as well. So I think they're going to roll this out more formally. But yeah, this is probably the Trump administration's top priority. He's made a lot of promises about securing the border and particularly removing these violent offenders. And this is Texas trying to facilitate that as much as they can.

And the latest in a long stringing illegal immigrants elsewhere in the country and forcing these other states to feel the burden that Texas has. Texas is the Republican elected officials are very excited about the Trump administration to, to, you know, take office and begin this kind of, of effort. So we'll see what kind of bumps in the road they run into. You know, any mass operation like this is going to have run into problems, but you know, we'll see how that pans out. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're starting to see many of the major news outlets cover this as after Homeland has been selected and the acquiring or providing of this land has been announced. I would just urge the readers to be discerning of the type of language that is used.

You know, we've seen lots of rhetoric related to these deportation efforts and placing these individuals in these transition areas, calling them camps and, you know, trying to create associations with some more malevolent things of the past. So I think people, if they're trying to read up on this, trying to get all their sources, just be discerning about how things are being framed, because this is going to be a highly contentious issue. Oh my gosh. Well, and that's, I think, where even from the Texans perspective, we are so careful about the verbiage we use and the language we use in order to be as accurate as possible and not imply certain connotations in that same way, right? I mean, that's a huge part of why we exist. So absolutely and always be discerning of the

media that you consume. Bradley, thank you for that. And that will be very interesting to watch just continually these border states have to contend with how this will work operationally, who's fronting different portions of the responsibility for the effort. It's going to be very interesting to watch. So even come the legislative session, that's definitely something we're going to have our eyes on is how this partnership between the federal government and Texas will continue to work with mass deportation as a priority of the Trump administration. Cameron, let's talk about an executive order from the governor. He issued in an effort to protect chinese dissidents in texas from coercion and harassment by the people's republic of china and it's governing chinese communist party the ccp something that i think

a lot of folks are familiar with tell us about it yeah so abbott over this past week has issued a few different executive orders related to China and the CCP and the People's Republic of China. This one that we wrote an article about is related to, like you mentioned, the efforts to protect Chinese dissidents. And Abateo will direct the Texas Department of Public Safety to identify individuals working on behalf of the, quote, foreign adversaries and bring criminal charges against people who act on their behalf. The state will work with law enforcement to track and report acts of, quote, transnational repression while developing ways to counter such threats. And Abbott's EO and his press release actually identifies some of the issues that brought this issue to light, essentially. And he points to the Department of Justice that had announced it had unsealed arrest warrants

and had charged eight individuals with, quote, conspiring to commit interstate and international stalking, and they were working as agents of the People's Republic of China. There was also mention of the People's Republic of China's Operation Fox Hunt that was used to, quote, forcibly repreciate Chinese citizens worldwide. And something I'll mention wrapping up here on this is in the very first redacted that I wrote for the Texan, it was about the TikTok bill that was brought up in Congress. That was your first redacted? Very first one.

Oh, wow. And the reason I bring it up is because in that piece, a lot of the conversation that was happening at the time was related to China's involvement with ByteDance and ByteDance being the Chinese company initially that had owned TikTok before it spun off its American subsidiary to manage America's TikTok. You know, it's all these layers upon layers. And so people are interested in a deep dive on China's involvement within the tech industry and their surveillance efforts. You should go check out my very first edition of redacted i'll just read a little bit from it here because i think it's interesting and worth knowing is china has a

quote whole society approach to their intelligence gathering where they have wide-ranging internet laws that require tech firms to help the government with, quote, intelligence work. And it has been reported as a sweeping intelligence onslaught that not only targets businesses, but includes stealing American scientific and technological secrets. So this has been a, not just an issue for surveillance and security, but also regarding trade and commerce and the economy. I'm sure as everyone knows, a lot of American manufacturing has been offshored to Chinese manufacturers because they can produce products much cheaper because they don't have the same labor laws that we do have here in America. And so we've seen over the course of

preceding decades is these scientific and manufacturing proprietary processes being offshored to China, but then the Chinese government essentially stealing those secrets and spinning off their own companies. And it's a big issue that America is dealing with and a big issue Trump has talked about a lot. This brings in the whole conversation of increasing tariffs and things like that. So very complex, nuanced subject, but something that is going to be talked about a lot more, especially with this EO, especially with Trump coming into office. China is going to be a big focus. Absolutely. Well, we'll definitely keep an eye on that. And what else happens is

legislative session and ahead of the session. Well, yeah, because another thing related to China is the China land ownership bill. Yeah, ownership bill that got filed again this past week. Installed out last session. Installed out last session. So that'll be another fight we'll see in the tech sledge this upcoming session. So a lot of things related to China coming up this week, and it won't be the last of it. Absolutely. Cameron, thank you.

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summaries and instant notifications based on your unique needs. Come check us out at usledge.ai. That's U-S-L-E-G-E dot A-I. Bradley, you're going to cover a story from Mary Elise for us as she is not feeling super well. But the lieutenant governor announced a legislative priority of his for this next session. Tell us about it. So Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick proposed launching a new taxpayer-funded research program to be called the Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas. DIPRIT for short. Yeah, right. And its purpose is to draw in leading dementia researchers and companies to the state, kind of centralize the working operations on this and the research trying to, you know, find a cure to dementia.

It is modeled after the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, also known as CIPRIT. So CIPRIT was created in 2007 after it passed the legislature, was given $3 billion in funding from the state. And then 12 years later, another $3 billion was approved by voters in a constitutional amendment. So it has led to a pretty, it seems to have been pretty successful.

Texas now has the highest rated cancer research hospital in the world, University of Texas MD Anderson in Houston. And so they're trying to replicate what happened with Ciprit here only on dementia. Patrick said, just as we are leading on cancer research, Texas can be a world leader in combating dementia, finding treatment, and one day finding a cure. Now the criticism of this is that it's not the government's role to finance something like this. You know, I'm sure there's going to be a little bit of a fight over this during session, but State Senator Joan Huffman is leading the effort in the Senate.

Patrick said he had talked to former Speaker Tom Craddock, who's still a member in the House, about this. So, you know, I think they'll get something across the line. The question is, what's in the details? What does this look like? Is it just a carbon copy of SIPRIT or do they have to make different tweaks in order to get across the line? We shall see how it turns out. But this is going to be one of Dan Patrick's, it looks like, 39 bill priorities in the Senate next year. So the two chambers reserve one through a certain number of bill numbers to basically establish as their priorities for the session.

Last session, the Senate had one through 30, the House had one through 20. But when they announced when the two chambers announced the numbers this year, when bill filing started, the numbers that were reserved were in the Senate one through 39. And in the House one through 150. I think we might have mentioned that on the last podcast. So that's a drastic increase on the House side. It's also an increase on the Senate side. But yeah, that looks like there's going to be 39 priority bills in the Senate, one of which is going to be school choice. Again, we'll see how that is set up and what the the blueprint

is for there for that and then the bill number one in each um in each uh chamber is going to be the budget so that's how it works and we'll see where patrick puts this bill among those 39? So just to throw some nuggets out there of information. So what's interesting is in the press release, I believe it says dementia and especially Alzheimer's touches so many families today. It's a heartbreaking, devastating disease. And the federal government has allocated billions, multiple billions of dollars throughout the years to studying Alzheimer's research and dementia. But there was a story that came out in September of this year regarding the issues related to how Alzheimer's research has been conducted. And there's been questions raised about some of the Alzheimer's research being fraudulent and edited in such a way that it would continue the stream of funding to some of these research organizations.

So I just think that's an interesting sort of wrinkle to think about is moving forward, if we're going to be allocating funding from the state government to researching dementia and Alzheimer's, there's questions that have been raised about the validity of the current research that is supposedly helping find a cure for Alzheimer's. So a lot of issues related to how science funding is currently being conducted. That's been brought to light through a number of different articles, been brought to light by RFK Jr. being a prominent voice as part of the Trump campaign, him being nominated for HHS. So there's going to be a fight about it here at the state level. There's going to be

a fight about funding for research at the federal level. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Throw that extra context in there. Yeah. And of course, that does not necessarily mean that the same would happen on the state level. It's just interesting to note. And I think anytime there is that kind of partnership between government and e-research, that, you know, that risk is certainly there. So good to keep in mind. And people can go read this on science.org. The article is called Picture Imperfect, with the subheadline, Scores of Papers by Prominent Neuroscience and Top NIH Official Fall Under Suspicion. So people can go check it out for themselves. Awesome. Thanks, Cam. Always adding extras. Always adding extras. We love it.

This is interesting. It is. Well, Cameron, we're talking to you next anyways. So we're just going to pivot here. The State Board of Education is scheduled to vote this week on a state-created curriculum. You and Holly Hansen wrote a piece together this week detailing the situation. Tell us about it. So this has been something I've covered for a couple months now. I spoke with TEA Commissioner Mike Marath. Which folks go, you know, read that article for sure. When it was first announced that they were going to be rolling out this state-sponsored curriculum essentially and spoke with some of the creators and organizers of this new curriculum and now the SBOE, State Board of Education, has finally taken up the question of should they adopt it or not and that's happening this week. The curriculum dubbed Blue Bonnet Learning was developed in response to 2021 legislation that tasked the TEA with creating

free online high-quality instructional materials that will be state-owned and available for voluntary adoption by public school districts and public charter schools. Blue Bonnet Learning materials are being developed by the TEA in collaboration with a 10-member advisory board. That includes Rice University Professor Marvin McNeese, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, and Dr. Ben Carson, who we've interviewed here at the Texan. And like I mentioned, we talked here at the Texan with the TEA, told us back in August that over the course of the curriculum piloting,

it received, quote, thousands and thousands of pieces of feedback. The SBOE has since held meetings to elicit additional feedback from the public. And we actually saw the first movement on the adoption. There was going to be a series of preliminary votes to judge the feelings on the board. There was an effort to block the adoption, which was blocked. A block to the block. Yeah, when that first came out, your camera was like, wait, what's going on? And so the SBOE, their board is primarily made up of conservative Republican members, some further on the right, some more moderate. That effort to block the adoption failed by an 8-7 margin, so very close.

It is currently scheduled to be put up for a final vote on Friday, the day this podcast will be released. And so by that time, if you're listening to this, hopefully we'll have a final verdict on that and we'll have an article up on the website for everyone to read. Yeah, absolutely. Are you riling a poncho over there? I was just hanging out.

Hanging out. We have a little furry addition to the podcast today. He's very much wanting attention. Cameron, thank you. Bradley, Governor Abbott announced a directive related to water supply in South Texas. What was it? Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to accept Mexico's offer of allowing 120,000 acre feet, 120, yeah, 120,000 acre feet of water to pass from the San Juan River into the Rio Grande that Texans will be able to use. There, there'd been a lot of problems getting sufficient

water supply into the Rio Grande from the tributaries that run off into Mexico, particularly the two reservoirs that are closest to Brownsville across the border. And there have just been not a lot of rain. And so Mexico has been keeping more water than it should over the last five years based on this very old 1944 water treaty between the two countries. Mexico is on pace to be 1.3 million acre feet of water behind its 1.7 million acre feet commitment every five-year period under this treaty. And that period spans from 2020 to 2025. So the annual allotment from Mexico under this treaty is 350,000 acre feet of water. That is 350,000 acre feet of water that they have to let run into the Rio Grande from their reservoirs in order for Texans to use it for agriculture, water supply, all kinds of stuff. So there's been a brooding fight over that. There were,

I think, 11 tech sludge lawmakers led by Terry Canales, Democrat from Edinburgh. They wrote a letter to the Biden administration asking for the Fed's assistance in negotiating something to force Mexico to supply its promised water under the treaty. That admin didn't go anywhere or didn't respond. The letter didn't go anywhere. And so now Abbott is directing the TCEQ to approve this settlement that is significantly less than what they are promised under the treaty, but it's at least something. And this is caused by the dire situation where especially agriculture,

but other businesses as well, like sugar mills, the last sugar mill in the Rio Grande Valley closed because it did not have sufficient water supply stemming from this problem. So there is a catch to this settlement and farmers in Texas are not happy about this, that it is going to come at the expense of next year's water supply. So it's a it's a big problem and this additional amount of water is coming from a different reservoir that is not connected to the water treaty and so that part of Mexico got sufficient rain so much so that this reservoir is over 100%

is filled at over 100% capacity. So this is a big problem. This is not the last chapter in this is more of a makeshift solution to tide them over until, until I guess, you know, more rain comes. Yeah. And this is an easy topic, I think for just like for me, you know, our eyes to gloss over on. It's a very weedy topic, but it's incredibly important. And you'll see the legislature time and time again take movement on these kinds of issues specifically related to water supply and a lot of South Texas at the forefront of the discussion, too. So watch it, you know, as a potential legislative topic. It always is every session. Water, water, water. Yeah. Bradley, thank you. Cam, this is a very spicy story. Well, for our office, as we were trying to parse through the details. Yeah. And our office meaning you. You're being very humble about it. But the UT System Board of Regents recently made a move to essentially relieve tuition payments for a certain bracket of students. That's correct.

Tell us about it. So I'll just get into it here. University of Texas System Board of Regents, they, again, this is coming out on Friday. They would have already given final approval if it goes through but it appears like it will but they had by the time of recording they have given preliminary approval to take what they call the next significant step in expanding the school's promise plus program which provides tuition free education to like you mentioned a certain bracket of low-income students the approval would create a quote immediate infusion of 35 million dollars as part of this promise

plus endowment in addition to increased funding the program would be expanded to establish a new quote baseline of a hundred thousand dollars for these eligible students. So expanding this bracket to relieve some of the debt that could occur when students are trying to go to college, you know, it costs a lot of money. Yes. So the big question that we are sort of discussing is like, where's this money coming from? Yeah. Right. And has this program existed before? before like is this coming out of nowhere but doing some research on this go all the way back to 2016 then UT Austin president Gregory Fens hopefully I'm pronouncing that right he committed 7.5 million dollars annually to increase financial aid followed by an additional five million in 2018

to launch the texas advanced commitment which provides full tuition assistance for students from families earning up to thirty thousand dollars in guaranteed aid for those earning up to a hundred thousand dollars and this funding included a recurring five million dollars from the available university fund which is approved by the UT System Board of Regents. So where does this available university fund come from? Well, there's another source of funding called the permanent university fund, which is a constitutional endowment established in 1876, which is supported by income from 2.1 million acres of state-owned land in West Texas,

primarily through oil and gas royalties, rental income, and other surface activities. The Texas Constitution dictates that the permanent university fund must support the UT and Texas A&M University systems with its income divided between the available university fund and bonds for construction and capital projects. So we have the overarching permanent university fund, which then funnels down to this available university fund and the separate bonds for investments. And the available university fund provides funding for UT institutions and administration ensuring the purchasing power of its assets while adhering to strict guidelines for investment in the 2024-25 biennium appropriations for the available University Fund it's estimated at approximately $3 billion, representing a $393.7 million increase from the previous biennium. Of this total, $2 billion is allocated for the UT System, and then $ established a $160 million endowment from this permanent university fund to expand financial aid for low and middle income students starting in fall of 2020.

This endowment will support that Texas Advance commitment covering full tuition for families earning up to $65,000 annually and providing assured tuition support for families earning up to $125,000. So that was at the UT Austin. The Promise Plus program was created in 2022 for which funding was established by what they call prudent investments by UT system financial officers that produced higher than expected returns over the past fiscal year. And when they created this Promise Plus program endowment, it was extended to aid tuition assistance at other UT System schools, including UT Arlington, UT Dallas, El Paso. You get the gist. So I know I dumped a lot on you right there, but the existing permanent university fund through the acres of land they own in West Texas that they earn money from through their investments in the oil and gas industry is funding this tuition assistance program.

So through this funding channel goes through to the Board of Regents who approves it for a variety of different things. This is just one aspect of it, this tuition assistance program, that they have expanded over the course of six, seven, eight years now. Yes, of yes of course wow so there's a lot going on needless to say and it's very complicated but it's I think I'd encourage folks to go read your article um obviously when you see a you know quote-unquote free tuition floated as a new program at UT you're like okay we're not everything like this is not actually free where's the money coming from right it might be free for the students and the families but Where's the money coming from? It might be free for the students and the families, but where's the money coming from?

Well, it's coming from this already established permanent university fund that gets this money from investments that it's made in the oil and gas industry because it owns the land in West Texas. Yes. That was such a succinct way to put it. Yeah. Great. Well, folks, go read Cameron's piece. Cameron, thanks for breaking it all down and answering all of our questions because we had a lot well yeah it's one of those things where um you're sitting there for a couple hours just going through tracing everything

tracing all the documents back and you got 30 tabs open and once you finally get everything together and you hit the close button you're like that feels good yeah you killed it that's awesome okay well done bradley coming to you the governor and the puc released a new report on nuclear power in texas so what did it find so the texas advanced nuclear reactor working group released its 78 page report on the stagnation of nuclear power in the state. It makes multiple recommendations to kickstart expansion of the industry within Texas. Among those are establishing a low-interest loan program to fund a large chunk of the capital costs of building a nuclear power plant. This is similar to the Texas Energy Fund that was approved last session and has just issued or approved the projects that will be able to get these loans. That is mainly

for natural gas power. So other recommendations are create a non-regulatory entity to facilitate a coordinated vision of development in the industry, develop a central clearinghouse and point of contact for nuclear industry permitting, found a Texas Advanced Manufacturing Institute, have a better PR campaign around Texas and attraction of development of this nuclear power. Establish higher education programs that funnel students toward the industry and then creating a grant based system aimed at lessening the cost burden associated with building up a corresponding supply chain for these nuclear plants. POC Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty, who's been leading this, he said, quote, Texas has long been the energy capital of the world. And today we have an incredible opportunity to build a world leading advanced nuclear industry that will deliver safe, reliable power for generations to come. What's changed in the nuclear industry that's caused this revived interest? So for decades, Texas already has two large-scale nuclear power plants, one in Glen Rose and then one in Bay City. And those provide generally very reliable baseload power for those large population areas. But the cost to build those is so high in the regular,

not just the cost to put steel in the ground on it, but also the cost of dealing with regulations from the federal government has been so large that just has dissuaded any investment for these new, for any new large-scale power plants. But things kind of changed recently with the development of small modular nuclear reactors. And A, the lower upfront cost, the smaller size that is more manageable. This has caused the industry all of a sudden to get bullish on the development of new nuclear power. We saw Governor Abbott last year announced alongside Dow Chemical that they would be building a SMR at their Seadrift plant down on the coast, and that will power them. And also,

they'll be able to sell electricity back into the grid during times of high stress. So it's really a groundbreaking phenomenon that's being caused by this SMR development. There was just a nuclear conference in, I think in Austin this week where they talked about this. So they feel like this will allow, this opens the door for development of nuclear power where it didn't exist before because of the economics.

And it really is all, especially in ERCOT, everything is about a price signal and incentives. And so if there's no price signal or incentive there for this stuff to be built, it won't be built. But now that calculus is starting to shift and starting to change. So this is a long-term plan. It's not going to happen overnight like that, but state leaders and the industry itself is very bullish on the ability to build this and create a larger footprint of nuclear power in the state. Absolutely. I would love to see further acceleration in the development of nuclear reactors.

Just imagine a mini nuclear reactor in your backyard, self-sustaining power. Can you believe? How about a nuclear reactor powered car what i'm trying to think of what year that would have been uh like you know all the future futuristic movies as kids what what year that would have been at that point we're yeah 2030 we're nearing 2030 i'm trying not to think about it too much you know how i okay do you guys feel like this is millennials that like the 70s are 30 years ago see i wasn't alive that's but but but like the 70s are 30 years ago. See, I wasn't alive. But like the math, if somebody refers to the 70s,

you're always like, yeah, it's about 30 years ago. No, it's 55 years ago now. Wow. That's crazy. It's crazy. It's nuts. It just makes me feel that much older. It's just crazy.

We're so far past the 2000 turn of the century that, uh, anyway, I just think about it a lot. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm alone on that. It's okay, guys. Um, but Cam, we're coming to you. Okay. Let's talk about some bill filings. Why not? Yeah. I think it's timely. A number of health and food focused bills have been filed for the upcoming legislative session. Give us a little insight on what was filed. I can do that. Okay, that'd be great. Because I got pretty excited to comb through all the new bills. And I was very excited about trying to see if there was going to be an increased focus on health and food related issues. Because like I mentioned earlier, RFK's appointment, or nomination rather, for being the secretary of health and human services.

You know, people expect him to go in there and really shake things up. And so I want to see, will that be mirrored here in Texas by some of these bill filings? And so one of the things I look for was vaccine related legislation. And because last year was a big showdown over COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and we got some more bills related to that. Senator Bob Hall followed a bill prohibiting the selling of food products that contain any ingredients that received an mRNA vaccine. We saw Briscoe-Kane filed legislation to require informed consent from a patient before a

healthcare provider can administer the COVID-19 vaccination. Brian Harrison filed a bill to strengthen the private employer vaccine mandate bill that would prohibit private employers from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. So again, another year, we're going to see some more focus on vaccine mandates when it comes to the food system you know there's been lots of scrutiny about additives and chemicals artificial chemicals whatever it may be in our food system and so i wanted to check out to see texas legislators are focused on that as well. And I came across a bill, Rep. Caroline Harris-DeVila. She filed a bill that prohibits school districts and charter schools from including certain harmful food additives,

such as brominated vegetable oil and red dye number three in free or reduced-price meals provided under the National School Breakfast and Lunch Program. I thought that was very interesting. Do you know if red dye number three is what they use in Takis? I wouldn't know. I haven't looked at the ingredients of a Taki. You keep going. I'll let you know. But another very interesting bill was Senator Charles Perry filed legislation to ban the sale of, quote, cell cultured protein. And for those unfamiliar, cell cultured protein, according to the FDA, is, quote, the ability to take a small number of cells from living animals and grow them in a controlled environment to create food made from cultured animal cells. So this is lab-grown meat. If people are familiar with the health and wellness space or food science space,

it's been a big topic. And a few other states have taken up the issue, such as Florida and Alabama, who have already banned the sale of these lab-grown meat cultivated sale products. So we've seen it in other states. We're going to see it brought up here in Texas. It'll be interesting to see if there's a fight over that. I've heard arguments on both sides of the issue. Just some other interesting things came across in terms of labeling certain products,

if they originated in the state or not. Another big thing, if you're interested in the health and wellness space, people have brought up concerns about specifically like fish, shellfish shrimp that has been either farm raised or they grow it or breed it in foreign countries not being labeled properly and the health impacts of that so we'll see legislation to address that and then just some things related to selling food products at farmers markets and stuff like that so uh just some interesting things came across i'm i i like putting together these sorts of pieces because i always um when we get into the legislative session and fights start to happen sometimes um these these bills might seem unfamiliar but because we have done the preliminary research we can kind of go and reference back, oh, why is the fight over this?

What are they talking about? So if people are interested in all health-related, food-related bills that have been filed, go check out the piece on the Texas.News. Yeah, kind of fun to look at what's filed. And just like you were saying, what mirrors what's happening federally in Texas. So definitely worth checking that out, folks. Brad, you and I are going to talk a little bit and cover Mary Elise's piece here. Texas A&M made an announcement regarding its LGBT studies minor specifically. Talk to us a little bit about what happened here.

So the Texas A&M University System's Board of Regents unanimously voted to remove 52, quote, low-producing academic programs earlier this month, including its controversial, quote, LGBTQ studies undergraduate minor. failed to pass certain threshold requirements recently established by the provost, specifically that it must have graduated a minimum of 10 students within the past two school years, as well as have five students plus five graduates enrolled in the current school year. The removed programs did not meet those requirements. The board directed University President Mark Welsh III to take actions necessary for the elimination of such programs, including minors like LGBTQ studies, global art design, and Asian studies. Certificates that include regulatory science in food systems, cultural competency, and landscape management. Um, you know, this was in, in development for a while, you know, the provost was trying to figure out, um, where to draw the line on these things. And ultimately that came this month. Um, you know, I'm, I'm not sure you can read Marilee's piece on it. It's good, but, uh, I'm But I'm not sure where the how soon this is going to happen. I think they probably have not decided those steps yet. They're just tasking. They're just directing do this, figure this out. goes into effect. But ultimately, it sounds like it came down to the fact that there weren't that

many people using these to begin with, let alone graduating with them. So, you know, I think that's the top line of it. But obviously, there's, you know, the cultural fight, the social issue fight regarding especially the LGBT stuff. So so overall um you know it remains to be seen how quickly this gets mothballed but it looks like it will at some point mothballed it's true and this is 14 made or 14 minors correct that are um correct yeah that are being removed so this is like over a dozen that are being removed from the university plan yeah and brad do you know is it the elimination of the courses the individual courses that were being that were available underneath the minor or is it just the minor itself because it's one thing to say oh you can't minor in this lgbt studies but it's

another thing to say oh we're eliminating eliminating the availability of the individual courses right do you know yeah it it varies there's some of the the courses are being eliminated uh but i don't think that's happening wholesale. Overall, this is primarily just the ability to declare these as a minor is being removed. to understand what's going on here and then also because within courses that you might not even think would be related to some of these gender theories the ideas have been infused into many of the other courses a sort of roundabout way whether it be just through the curriculum itself lessons and things yeah so it's the minors it's the courses it's the ideology itself, lessons and things. So it's the minors, it's the courses, it's the ideology itself finding its way into unrelated courses. The overarching issue I think people are really worried about is the culture that is being

promoted on these campuses related to some of these more progressive ideas that takes a much larger change when you're drilling down into the types of professors and administrators that are being hired and recruited to come into a college establishing a certain culture that is going to be promoted so this is an interesting step though that it's a an interesting change, but it's kind of looped in with a broader change, right? Like minors had to be removed and this just happened to be one of them that was removed. And of course it's the one that's catching people's eyes the most. So absolutely.

Well, Mary Elise, well done. Wish you were here to talk with us about it. Feel better. Brad, you spoke, we published a podcast episode this week with a state rep. You sat down with him for an interview. Tell us about your conversation with Representative Drew Darby. House, the speaker's race, and then policy on that side of things, education, school choice, ESAs, vouchers, however you want to describe it. I talked property taxes and we talked energy. That was especially on the policy stuff, an interesting discussion with a lot of details. Property taxes is big for me in terms of an area of coverage. So I thought that was a fascinating discussion there and the trade-offs that come with trying to reform

the property tax system. He also said that he thinks Dade Phelan will be speaker and that he has the votes now and he will continue to. Obviously we'll see if that, um, if that pans out, but, uh, Darby is definitely one of, you know, the, the speakers most vociferous backers at the moment. Um, and so yeah, give it a listen. Um, it was, I thought it was a good conversation. And obviously, you know, he takes a very strong stance on various things that those listening will either very much agree with or very much disagree with. So listen to what he has to say. And yeah, we'll see how he plays coming in the coming session.

Yeah, make up your own mind. It was a very interesting perspective and super interesting conversation. So check it out, folks. Also, guys, red dye, Chalkies do contain red dye 40. So, which makes a lot of sense. They're literally the reddest food out there.

Yeah, it stains your mouth. Yeah. It's like my, when I go on a plane ride and i get like a snack like a really bad snack that's my really bad snack it's talkies talkies interesting yeah why talkies they're so good but trader joe's has a much better version okay yeah they're not quite so like acidic almost rough on your mouth the trader joe's ones are much much better i probably haven't had a talkie in eight years i would encourage you to keep it that way yeah it's just not ever like man i'm craving a talkie oh i'm craving a talkie all the time i love talkies i just love spicy

snacks yeah i love spicy stuff too but i just add sriracha okay yes yeah the um tabasco sriracha is my new favorite it's a little smokier than normal sriracha yeah okay where do you pick that up at h-e-b okay it's quite good because there's a while where sriracha sriracha was like out of stock because there was a shortage. Yep. So I had to get this version. Had to pivot. And then I actually really like it. Oh. Yeah.

The more you know. Okay, well, let's move on to the tweeter-y section, gentlemen. Cameron, why don't we start with you? Well, the appointments from the Trump administration are continuing to come fast and furious. We talked about it last week, but two that I think are worth mentioning that have happened over the course of the last week. Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education.

Who follows Matt Stringer on Twitter. Is that right? Totally. Yep. Yeah, and so Linda McMahon doesn't have a tremendous amount of previous education experience, but I think it will be interesting to see if she has been appointed to this role to essentially eliminate the department,

as Trump has promised on the campaign trail. So we'll see how long the appointment lasts, if she's confirmed, and then what they plan to do. And then another individual worth mentioning, Mehmet Oz, was announced as the Medicare and Medicaid secretary. And Mehmet Oz, this is Dr. Oz, who TV host famously, and he ran for state senate in Pennsylvania where he lost to John Fetterman. Oh, so not state senate, like U.S. senate. U.S. senate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

And it was, I don't, I'll save the characterization, but him losing that Senate race, I was following it at the time. I watched the debate, which happened shortly after Fetterman had his confrontation with the stroke. And so he had to have the voice the text to engage in the debate it was very interesting to watch um but i was listening to uh some analysis of this memet ahs nomination and uh i was listening to some people on the political left talk about this, and they were actually kind of excited about some of the things Mehmet Oz has talked about in terms of expanding Medicare coverage. People on the political left are very much promoters of the universal healthcare model, and at least from what i was listening to uh memet oz has in the past been favorable to

expanding uh medicare coverage and i'm just looking here that he also owns uh hundred thousands of dollars in a variety of different medicare service companies so uh companies so interest so probably have to wait his way through a hearing on that one yeah financial disclosures that would go be subject to a Senate hearing and confirmation yes yeah this one and some that won't like you know you don't need stephen chung right of course yeah yeah and so yeah just interesting um i haven't got a chance to read um mary elisa's piece yet her newsletter on the matt gates nomination that's caused a big stir uh yeah in in uh in news media and lots of people putting out their opinions on the prior investigations that have happened regarding some allegations against Matt Gaetz.

So I'd be interested to read what... Well, Cameron, while we were sitting here, Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for Attorney General. No. Are you serious? Yeah, it happened like two minutes ago. Oh my gosh. Hold on. What?

So the question is, who does he nominate now for AG? Does that open the door for Ken Paxton? Wow. It might. I have so many questions. Okay, this is his statement. I had excellent meetings with senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum is strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump-Vance transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington

scuffle. Thus, I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on day one. I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful president in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice, and I'm certain he will save America. Wow. Well, that's timely for us to figure that out while we're mentioning him on the podcast. Yeah. That's kind of crazy. Well, that means we're going to be on extra watch today, needless to say. Yeah. For potential reshuffling. And I mean, it is notable that, of course, Ken Paxton did make a very supportive and quick statement of Gates' nomination after that was made public.

So very interesting. Well, so he stepped down from his role as congressman. Yeah, resigned. He resigned. But what does this mean now for matt gates's political future is because he was re-elected is he gonna say all right now i want to be confirmed for my yeah like next year or my next year in congress or is he gonna try and see if desantis will appoint him to the senate or i know yeah or is he just gonna go full-time podcaster full-time pod. That's the next step for a lot of these guys.

That's interesting. Well, that changed the trajectory of our day a little bit in terms of what we'll be focusing on and spending time on. Fascinating. Thank you, Cam. Breaking news. Bradley, what you got for us? So there was a speaker's race is heating up as it has been.

There was a text put out that was attacking David Cook in a very odd fashion, calling him a liberal, attacking him for voting for impeachment. David Cook is obviously the reform group's nominee for or endorsed candidate for speaker, trying to oust Speaker Dade Phelan. Attacked Cook for voting for impeachment. It also attacked him for voting against ending tax incentives for companies that fund out-of-state abortions. You know, this got sent to me on, what was that, Tuesday night. And at first I just thought it was another ghost group. There was the Texans for a New Speaker that sent out a text to the Reform Caucus attendees back when that happened in late September. And this texting campaign has kind of gotten out of hand in Texas politics. We saw it happen last year on a number of different things.

Property taxes, impeachment, now the speaker's race. So I saw it and I immediately thought it was a ghost organization. and it is, but they put a disclaimer on this, paid for by Texans for Conservative Leadership. That didn't ring a bell to me at first, so I looked it up on TEC, and that group is a Tim Dunn-funded group. So it turns out that there's not them. And they, uh, they came out and said that they did not do that. This was not from them. So somebody made, um, a group by the same name or at least a website and paid for a text in that, uh, run a runs a foul of multiple laws. So if they ever find out who did this, there could be charges pressed. Let me say that I put this out and I at first said that it was the Tim Dunn group. And that was obviously incorrect. And I did not do enough due diligence, the due diligence I normally do.

And so that caused a stir and was not my intention to do that. I did not live up to my own standards on the job. It's not how I've done it for five years. So I apologize for that to everybody involved. Um, it was a mistake and it was a dumb mistake and it won't happen again, but, um, yeah, it was, it was not, um, it was not proper and I have deleted the tweet, the original one and corrected it. But obviously the internet lives forever. So, um, let me say that. Well, Brian, I think it says a lot about you that this is how you've chosen to handle it. Mistakes obviously happen. Um, and I think it says a lot

about you too, that this is, um, the first of its kind we're dealing with in five years of reporting like this. So thanks for, I mean, taking responsibility on all the ways that you have. I know folks appreciate it, but you're the best of the best, and I think this happens to the best of us. So thanks for handling it the way that you did, and onwards and upwards. Okay, we'll end with some fun topics. Basically just Thanksgiving. That's what i want to talk about cameron yo when it comes to thanksgiving food yep what's your favorite okay and what are you like a general hot take maybe about thanksgiving food hot take hot take um favorite food uh i have a

sweet tooth so i love dessert uh My favorite dessert is pecan pie. Oh, it's so good. That's my husband. That's Andrew's favorite. It's so good. It's so sweet. It's so good. People say it's too sweet.

No, it can't be sweet enough. Really? Okay, I didn't know this about you because you eat so healthily, which is, I know, a choice, but I didn't know your proclivity was a sweet tooth. My hot take is the Thanksgiving food is overrated. Wow. Because if you want sweet potatoes, you have sweet potatoes any time of the year. You want turkey, you can have turkey any time of the year.

If you want brown gravy, you can go make yourself some brown gravy you know have some what's the there's like a hawaiian dish where it's brown gravy on top of the uh hamburger patty on top of rice i've never heard of that before you never have oh gosh what's the name of it i can't think of it right now but yeah i i like thanksgiving. I think it's more about just being around family. Yeah. Taking some time off, relaxing, going back home. Totally. It's always fun. So I think Thanksgiving food is overrated.

Thanksgiving, underrated. Got it. Yeah. I think that's like a – I agree that Thanksgiving itself is underrated. The food is being overrated. I just cannot get behind. Bradley, what's your favorite Thanksgiving food, and why is it sweet potatoes? Well, I am still struggling from the heresy that Cameron just uttered.

It is definitely not sweet potatoes. What? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a fan. If you can't guess the sarcasm in Mac's voice, I like regular potatoes.

But most importantly, the best part is the gravy. And I put everything on the plate, pile it all on, and then just pour gravy over everything. It's fantastic. It's the linchpin of the Thanksgiving dinner plate.

And I will not apologize for this. He will not apologize for thinking that gravy, the gelatinous sauce, is the best Thanksgiving food. Yeah. Well, Brad, how particular are you about your mashed potatoes? Like, do they have to be the super whipped potato where they can almost put it in, like, a dollop design sort of on your plate? Oh, yeah, yeah, like very fluffy and chunky. Yeah, fluffy.

Or can it just be,... Yeah, really chunky. They left some of the skin on. Skin or no skin. Yeah. Rustic. Yeah. Do you have a preference? I think I prefer the whipped.

And I like when there's skin in there. But I don't mind if there's chunks. I'm... You don't discriminate when it comes to potato. Okay. That's fair. I always like the chunkier ones, the more rustic with skin and big garlic cloves and that kind of vibe. Yeah, I like that too. But whenever we do go to Perry's and they bring out those whipped mashed potatoes, it is nice.

It is nice. It does not sound good. Yeah. But they go well with the big pork chop, right? I think it matches say. Yeah. But they go well with the big pork chop, right? I think it matches well. Yeah. My favorite are, it's probably the stuffing. Really?

Yeah. We make a really good stuffing. Okay. So we're not talking box stuff in here. Oh, heck no. Okay. I'm just asking. Heck no.

Okay. I might even make like the breadcrumbs myself this year. Whoa. With your own sourdough bread? With my own sourdough bread. Okay. I might even make like the breadcrumbs myself this year. Whoa. With their own sourdough bread? With my own sourdough bread. Wow. Maybe possibly. But I will say the best part of any Thanksgiving dinner is like a combo bite. So a little bit of most things. Not everything, but a little bit of most things. It's like little mashed potatoes, little stuffing, little turkey. Maybe a little sweet potato, maybe not. That's the best bite.

A little ham. That might be what I'm missing from Thanksgiving food. But you said the leftovers or what? Well, on my plate, how I eat normally is I don't like mixing foods. Oh, you don't? No. I didn't know that about you. Okay. So, I don't know. I I didn't know that about you. Okay.

So, I don't know. I'm just weird like that. That makes sense. Well, this might be the time to break out of the box. Maybe. Yeah. We'll see. Let us know post-Thanksgiving if you mix your foods.

Yeah. And I don't mix them on the plate. I mix them on my fork. So I get a little bit of each because I don't like mixing them either. Okay. Typically. Okay. Well, happy Thanksgiving, folks. We're so close close we'll still have a weekly roundup

next week and it'll be an abbreviated version we'll have some great Thanksgiving content for you and of course we have the Black Friday sales keep that in mind happy Thanksgiving folks thanks for joining us and we'll catch you next week thank you to everyone for listening if you enjoy our show rate

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