CARLOS NOGUERAS RAMOS/The Texas Tribune

The Texas Tribune
West Texas lawmakers push bills to divert some oil and gas taxes to oil patch infrastructure needs
More heavy trucks drove through small towns, tearing up roads.
 
State oil regulator requests $100 million to tackle West Texas well blowouts
Danny Sorrell, the agency’s executive director, sent the letter two months after the commission filed its annual budget request in August, according to the Houston Chronicle. He said the agency’s $226 million budget request did not include enough money “to protect the groundwater and the environment
 
West Texas city bans transgender people from using restrooms that don’t match sex assigned at birth
“It’s not addressing any real problem in our community,” Ermels said. “Instead, it’s creating one, making people worried about something that just is not an issue.”
 
The largest carbon capture project in the U.S. could be in West Texas. Do residents want it?
The proposed project — which has been under review for the last two years — would be the largest of its kind in the United States. Occidental Petroleum Corporation, or Oxy, an oil and gas company based in Houston, wants federal approval to capture and store an estimated 722,000 metric tons of carbon
 
A West Texas ranch and resort will limit water to residents amid fears its wells will run dry
The eight-member board overseeing 200,000 acres of privately owned land and short-term rentals called Terlingua Ranch Lodge — about 70 miles from the Big Bend National Park — sells drinking and nondrinking water to permanent residents. Many rely on the association for their monthly supply.
 
Unregulated oilfield power lines are suspected of sparking Texas wildfires
When a spate of wildfires tore across the Texas Panhandle in February and scorched 20,000 acres of Craig Cowden’s ranch near Skellytown, he decided he had had enough.
 
What’s the value of planting trees? Conservation groups say a new formula can tell them.
But attracting donors can be a challenge. Sanders, along with other conservation experts, said the argument to conserve the environment has largely relied on data that donors considered insufficient.
 
For the first time, West Texas has a permanent LGBTQ+ community center
The first permanent LGBTQ+ community center has opened in West Texas. The grand opening of Pride Center West Texas was four years in the making and came during the area’s fifth annual pride festival.