Governor Greg Abbott announced that 17 Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership (R-PEP) planning and expansion grants totaling $2,560,000 have been awarded to 17 rural school district partnerships. The $200,000 planning grants, administered by the Texas Education Agency, will support prospective R-PEPs in designing pathways focused on labor market alignment, operational readiness, and launch preparation. The $80,000 expansion grants will support existing R-PEPs seeking to expand by adding districts and/or pathways.
Congress must follow his lead and codify this action into law. That’s why I introduced the Initiating Biomedical Outcomes to Garner Advancements into Innovative Neuroplastogen Efficacy (IBOGAINE) Act to cement this potential breakthrough for our veterans. According to a study published by Stanford University School of Medicine in 2024, participants who received ibogaine treatment experienced reductions of 88% in PTSD symptoms, 87% in depression symptoms, and 81% in anxiety symptoms after just one month.
This rapid expansion reflects both the growing interest in geothermal technology and the effectiveness of the RRC’s regulatory approach. The growth is due in part to a new shallow geothermal rule that clarified regulatory roles and activities without increasing the agency's permitting fees or staffing requirements. This has helped create a clear, efficient regulatory pathway for the continued development of this new emerging technology.
The Texas General Land Office (GLO) will host a homeowner outreach event on Saturday, August 8, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the St. Phillip’s Community Center in Dallas to assist residents impacted by the 2024 disasters. This event will provide information on available programs to help eligible homeowners repair, rebuild, or receive reimbursement for storm-related damage. Dallas County homeowners are encouraged to attend and learn more about eligibility for rebuilding, repair, and reimbursement assistance programs.
Anthony Fauci is 85; he’s not going to live forever. He knows this and isn’t counting on it; he’s counting on living long enough to see Democrats take back Congress. As the validity of his assertion of the 5th Amendment works its way through the legal system, there is an election coming up in November. If Democrats take the House and Senate, Fauci will never again face questioning under oath before Congress about anything of his previous lies.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was on Capitol Hill for the Republican Study Committee's (RSC) member meeting this week. Under her leadership, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has put American farmers and ranchers first by expanding markets, rooting out fraud and abuse in the SNAP program, and protecting American farmland from foreign adversary ownership.
But once again we were impressed by Pennsylvania's Democratic Senator John Fetterman, who had the backbone to say he regrets there wasn't a more bipartisan pursuit of the truth about the virus and even expressed some long overdue apologies to the small businesses that were ruined during COVID lockdowns. Not a peep from the other Democrats.
Governor Greg Abbott today attended the grand opening of Bob’s House of Hope and toured the nation’s first safe house exclusively for male survivors of human trafficking. Bob’s House of Hope provides a secure residential environment, trauma-informed care, and support services tailored to adult male survivors. The facility fills a critical gap in the national response to commercial sexual exploitation and strengthens Texas’ efforts to protect victims and hold traffickers accountable.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins today announced a new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative to recruit veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses into mission-critical careers that protect America’s food supply, strengthen rural communities, and defend the nation’s agricultural security. USDA’s 100 Hires in 100 Days initiative, a department-wide effort to accelerate the hiring of veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses across the Department.
Through more than 1,000 pages, Dr. Anthony Fauci – who not long ago headed the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases – revels in a high regard for himself. Recall, he once said, "I represent science. I am science." That testimony of self-importance is also now reflected in his claim to be an "international celebrity." He loved having his picture taken with celebrities (like Barbra Streisand.) He claimed to have appeared before Congress more than anyone else. We all are born with an ego - most can control it. Some give it free rein.
The 82nd Texas Legislature established the Emergency and Trauma Care Education Partnership (ETEP) program in 2011 to support partnerships between hospitals and graduate medical programs in an effort to increase the number of emergency medicine and trauma care physician residents and fellows. ETEP also supports partnerships that enhance training for registered nurses pursuing graduate degrees or certificates.
As Unleash Prosperity research has previously shown, Americans enjoy the cheapest generic drugs in the world, and our drug pricing system is much better than most nations. Drugs are the only thing in health care that always eventually get less expensive. But biotech drugs, which are complex living organisms, are different. We have "biosimilars," which are the closest thing to generics for these drugs, but they are expensive.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health Policy, sent a bipartisan letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent outlining a strategy to counter illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing conducted by China’s distant-water fleet. The letter identifies vulnerabilities in China’s IUU fishing fleet linked to its reliance on a relatively limited number of support vessels, calls for the imposition of sanctions on such vessels, and specifically identifies 29 currently unsanctioned vessels.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more advanced, we must be more prepared than ever to defend our nation from cyber warfare. For years, China-backed actors have looked for any vulnerability to target our government and civilian networks and attack our critical infrastructure — including the successful data breach of four million federal government workers in 2015 and the Salt Typhoon attack in 2024. Now, advanced AI models have supercharged these threats.
In January 2011, during my year as chairman of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, we welcomed Sen. Lindsey Graham for a public conversation at Pearl Stable. More than 300 Business & Community Leaders filled the room. The discussion was thoughtful, substantive – and focused on finding practical solutions for the country. As the event closed, Graham said: “I am not going to create a bill to help my party with Hispanics. I’m going to create a bill to help America.”
Governor Greg Abbott today released the response from the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to his June 10 directive that shows they are already taking concrete steps to protect residential ratepayers from the costs of data center expansion. Governor Abbott will continue to work with the Legislature to codify these protections and ensure data centers do not come at the expense of Texas ratepayers.
House Republicans stepped up last week to responsibly fund the Federal Government through mid-December with the passage of a clean Continuing Resolution (CR) – while working to finalize the remaining Appropriations Bills with conservative policies at the forefront. The Senate must act swiftly to get this to the President's Desk, and avoid another costly and disruptive Democrat-driven Government Shutdown. Also, four pieces of legislation I've championed advanced out of the Committee on Energy & Commerce.
The Improving America’s Literacy Act ensures Comprehensive Literacy State Development (CLSD) grants cannot be used on the three-cueing model, directing those funds instead to evidence-based reading instruction grounded in the five key pillars of Science of Reading. Additionally, this legislation strengthens accountability for improvement in literacy outcomes by ensuring that the Director conducts research to identify and evaluate the improvement in student literacy outcomes at the State and local levels.
