bats

 
  

 
 

Footnotes

1. The 1999 session was a sleeper compared to its two predecessors. Newly elected Governor George Bush pushed through a radical package of lawsuit limits in 1995. Governor Bush’s failed attempts to cut property taxes set off another lobby scramble in 1997.

2. For more on the “education lobby,” see TPJ's Nov. 30, 2005 "Lobby Watch."

3. During 2005 CenterPoint and American Electric Power sold off their stakes in the South Texas Nuclear Project to Texas Genco (which spent up to $300,000 on 11 lobbyists that year). Constellation Energy owns nuclear plants in the Northeast.

4. Aqua Water Supply Corp., which is seeking to expand from water to wastewater service in fast-growth Bastrop County near Austin spent up to $375,000 on 14 lobbyists. Two other water interests spent up to $230,000 apiece. Guitar Holding Co. is a big landowner in Hudspeth County, where some speculators want to harvest water to sell to El Paso. Politically connected WaterTexas is a private company cutting big water deals in Central Texas.

5. Through so-called “certificates of public convenience and necessity.”

 
 

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©Copyright Texans for Public Justice, August 2006