Texas Today

Thanks to the on going pressure of people like you, Governor Rick Perry signed the bill HB 2714. This is limited to monitors, desktop and laptop computers. However, House author Rep. Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) committed to support legislation in 2009 that will provide recycling for televisions. We are the 4th state in the last 2 months to join.

Everyone has more than likely seen some form of advertisement for the “new and improved” TXU correct? Wednesday June 13th TCEQ held a meeting for the 2 proposed Oak Grove coal plants with TXU being given the green light to speed up the building process with the first slated to open in 2009.
I had the chance to visit these sites on Earth Day and I feel for the locals and surrounding areas. It was such a beautiful site.On occasion pictures speak louder than words. In this case I truly believe they do.
Long before this week these disastrous plants were already well on their way to becoming the most disturbing and dirtiest among the state as applications were being accepted and steel beams built stories tall. Just land prep? Hardly.
What about the air quality you wonder? Apparently causing severe cases of asthma and birth defects not to mention numerous others isn’t really too harmful. The emissions control equipment they would use hasn’t even been proven to work with Texas lignite. On top of that,the technology to cut nitrogen oxides and mercury hasn’t been used on native fuel either. A few opinions from TXU engineers saying it ” would probably work” as well as a commitment from them to review the plant’s actual emission in 2 years after operation has begun was enough for chairwoman Kathleen Harnett White and H.S. Buddy Garcia ( the latest commissioner appointed by Mr.Perry) to let the smoke start stacking.
TXU Corp. improved? I think not. Still at it’s old foolish ways? Yes, indeed.

The House and State Legislature have passed HB 2714 and recycling of TVs in 2009!!! What’s this all about? Electronic companies have been producing massive amounts of product with no proper disposal system. Yeah, our old PCs have been stock pilling in a landfill somewhere filled with toxic materials such a lead, mercury and brominated flame-retardants (the new PCBs) and leaking into our own health! Producers would be required to take back and recycle their obsolete products if Mr.Perry signs the bill..Here is where you come in. June 17th is the last day to sign so please call, fax, email, write a letter and stick in in the mail TODAY and urge him to put the pen to paper!! More importantly, by this bill passing we would be the very first red state to do so and the 5th overall for this program!! Yeah, this would make us #1 in something!!! Go ahead and do it, you know you want to!
The State Governor Contact info:

Address: The Honorable Rick Perry

Governor’s Office

P.O. Box 12428

Austin TX 78711

Toll free number ( if you are calling before 5 please stay on the line to be connected to a live person) 1-800-252-9600

Fax:(512) 463-1849

Electronic form online by visiting here http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

Not all is bad within the state. sure, for the better, the horse slaughter has been discontinued, but Perry is still our governor and Craddick is still the Speaker. However things could be looking up for the film business. Maybe other will follow Richard Linklater in making films in the Lone Star State.

Texas’ new film incentive program has strings attached
The state is opening its coffers to moviemakers, with a provision: Don’t be negative about Texas

By PEGGY FIKAC
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — It has all the makings of a Hollywood classic.

Texas, a rejected suitor that has watched 32 film projects consider the state’s charms only to waltz away, taking big economic benefits with them, is putting millions into a film incentive program meant to lure the next blockbuster … and the one after that, and the one after that.

All looks bright.

But it’s the movie business, so cue the scary music.

The Motion Picture Association of America, a leading organization in the very business that Gov. Rick Perry is courting, last week urged him to veto the bill, saying the state was leaving itself open to a lawsuit.

Perry signed the $22 million bill into law Thursday with fanfare, joined by the rakish Dennis Quaid, a Houston native who is moving to Texas in a couple of years and wants it to become “the new Hollywood.”

The Texas Film Commission is planning a brunch at Beverly Hills’ Spago to launch the program to industry insiders, with hopes of breathing new life into Lone Star State filmmaking.

Controversial provision

However, the new law has a provision that allows film grants to be denied “because of inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”Texas is the first state to enact such a provision as part of a film incentive program, said Vans Stevenson, senior vice president of state government affairs for MPAA, who wrote the letter and said it speaks for itself.

A letter from Stevenson said the provision would permit state government to review and approve motion picture scripts to be eligible for a production incentive, which it said “contravenes the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression, and it will discourage filmmakers from coming to Texas.”

“This provision is a direct indictment of the creative process and American values of free expression that are fundamental to our democracy,” Stevenson wrote. He added later in the letter, “Moreover, this legislation is subject to immediate constitutional challenge in federal court.”

Stevenson said Thursday that he still would have preferred that Perry veto the bill, but he applauds the governor and Legislature for wanting to create an incentive program. He said there are no plans at this time for litigation.

“I think our hope is that we can work to fix this,” Stevenson said. The next chance to do that would be in the 2009 legislative session, unless Perry calls a special session before then.

When senators added the provision, one cited the film Glory Road about the Texas Western Miners from El Paso, a basketball team whose starting lineup was African-American. Texas A&M-Commerce, which during the 1960s era depicted in the film was known as East Texas State University, called for an apology for the unfavorable way it was portrayed.

Perry, who signed the measure before a stage backdrop of a lake at an Austin Studios hangar (it’s built on the old Robert Mueller Municipal Airport property), downplayed worries and played up the potential benefits of the overall package.

“There’s been a lot of misplaced concern about that provision,” Perry said. “Dennis and I were talking about it earlier, that some folks see this as a First Amendment issue.”

But Perry suggested the provision would be implemented judiciously: “Look, what we’re trying to do here is … trying to get the film industry to come and reinvest and invest in a big way in the state of Texas. And if the first thing that happens is we start seeing some type of censorship, it’s not going to happen.”

Perry defends strings

Perry said it’s Texas’ right to put strings on the state money it doles out in hopes of forestalling losses like the 32 projects that went to other locations with incentives in the past four years. The projects would have generated $327 million in spending and 4,600 jobs.

Under the measure, grants would be equal to 5 percent of what a filmmaker would spend in Texas. Filmmakers would have to spend at least $1 million, shoot at least 80 percent of the project in the state and hire at least 70 percent of its actors, crew and extras here, Perry’s office said.

“Obviously, we don’t want state money going toward a film that is going to cast Texas in a very poor light,” Perry said.

Referring to a 1982 incident in which heavy-metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne urinated on the Alamo Cenotaph, a memorial in front of the Alamo, Perry said, “I told somebody, I said, ‘Ozzy Osbourne and the Alamo might not be where we want to spend our money.’”