Teel Bivins

[Carol Holst <kceh@airmail.net>]

I just got this information and thought it was very interesting. Teel Bivins is
the head of the Education Committee in the Texas Senate. This is what we're up
against this legislative session.

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State Senator Bivins is an overzealous Pioneer. He wrote state legislators in 50
states in =9199, urging them to transfer $1,000 from their own war chests to
Bush=92s presidential campaign. Such diversions are illegal in at least four
states. In the Texas Senate, Bivins has been a big supporter of school vouchers
and limits on the rights of citizens to sue corporations. Bivins greased a hog
deal in =9294 that brought a flood of animal factories to the Texas panhandle.
These flesh factories were fleeing other states that were putting restrictions on
animal fecal pollution (see Pioneer David Miner). Panhandle citizens were
complaining about this problem to the state environmental agency. But Bivins and
then-agency chair John Hall (who now lobbies for polluters) decided to severely
restrict the right of citizens to hearings where they could challenge feed-lot
water pollution, hydrogen sulfide emissions and air-borne plumes of manure. By
the summer of =9295, feed-lot inspectors were ordered to stop issuing citations.
Bivins is a past director of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association (see Pioneer
Don Powell) and his campaign is strongly supported by the industry. =93I see no
reason why this area should not produce 75 percent of the world=92s pork,=94
Senator Bivins has said.

http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/teel_= bivins.html