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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 1982)
state Battalion/Page 5 September 9, 1982 Clements calls bill a solution by Ditidf, h studi ' Wolf, - 5 1 Studr view ial )re ui rhraidt eportn itthepnf ; and id [X'oplt if ion doco bv Bii iL iemic,’'! Waco's Oj uirsdas f United Press International AUSTIN — Gov. Bill Cle ments said a bill approved by a House committee is a perma nent solution to the unem ployment compensation fund problem. “It’s not a Band-Aid,” he aid Tuesday, the opening day of the special session. In the bill, taxes paid by lost Texas employers wQiald ncrease by about 300 percent far less than the 2,000 per- :ent hike anticipated. A House committee voted n favor of the bill by House Speaker Bill Clayton that ould allow the state to bor row an unspecified amount of oney from the federal gov ernment to keep the fund sol vent and to assess a surtax on employers to pay as much as $40 million in interest on the loan. If the legislature approves Clayton’s bill, it would be the first time in history that Texas has borrowed from the feder al government under a 1938 New Deal program that pro vided state unemployment funds. The bill, to be considered by the House today, will raise the tax rate for most Texas employers would be raised from 0.1 percent to 0.3 per cent. “It will certainly be an in crease over what is in place now for employers of Texas,” said Clayton, D-Springlake. “But it will certainly be a de crease over what employers would have to pay if we didn’t act now.” Most legislators have said they favored a longterm solu tion to the fund’s problems rather than a one-time bail out. “This part of our system is sick,” said Sen. Carl Parker, D—Port Arthur. “The ques tion is whether we hold our noses and take a dose of castor oil or wait awhile and undergo major surgery.” I n addition to providing for the loan and interest pay ments, Clayton’s bill would set a $500 million ceiling and a $225 million floor on the fund. Employers would pay more taxes for every $45 mil lion the fund balance fell be low the floor and less taxes for every $45 million the fund ba lance exceeded the ceiling. The bill also would increase the maximum tax rate from 0.4 percent to 0.6 percent, in crease the annual penalty rate on late payments from 12 per cent to 18 percent, and raise the employee wage base on which taxes are levied from $6,000 to $7,000. Methane tops list for future energy United Press International f DALLAS — Methane, the waste product that ignites coal mine explosions and is flared off r prod by refineries, will become more ol and: important than petroleum, the e betwee ? editor of Science magazine pre- , said Sa dieted Wednesday, ofcomirflfl “I’m certain that within 15 ispital. Bears,” editor Philip Abelson besthetf; Said in preliminary remarks at a natic, li(: two-day symposium on exotic intere- energy sources, “there will be more methane gas produced domestically than petroleum. Its value will be enormous. “This is the same stuff that they were flaring away,” he said. ■Who needed it? Who wanted to look for it? But the high price of oil has made methane a lot more {'feconomical and now the search is on.” He said Soviet methane re- are evic serves are far greater than the rn 0 veti energy equivalent of oil in Saudi ie sa id. Arabia, hence the Soviet pipe- pital’s s line controversy. rea tinff A “The gas gives them (the Rus- or c tie; ^sians) tremendous potential,” he m in# said - hope; Abelson said methane occurs answet naturally almost everywhere ]uestioit there is decayed organic matter, in said “One thing about methane is descrik ^at it can be found practically i ofch' everywhere in the sedimentary what (f ’basins,” he said. “It’s more wide- nitthef s pead in occurance than oil. D | as *({ That’s why, for example, you lo ifaii le to inot eness t irobleffii about n ol uselu ublicitvtj ration f iccial ■Id todis| d theufl y" 1 ■ ‘ - ’! ! I YESTERDAYS BILLIARDS, BACKGAMMON DARTS & MIXED DRINKS , 4421 S. Texas Avenue 846-2625 HOUSE DRESS CODE ; —■ . - Using satellites, photos to find oil Exotic oil-finding methods studied United Press International DALLAS — What sound like exotic methods to find oil — satellite photography and study ing the bottom of the ocean — could eventually be the most cost-effective methods, a partici pant of a petroleum exploration symposium says. A two-day conference at the Fairmont Hotel sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University beginning Wednesday will consider such unconventional methods of finding oil. About 130 oil industry repre sentatives, some from as far away as France and Great Bri tain, were expected to attend. Doris Ainsworth, a spokes woman for the third annual symposium on “Unconventional Methods in Exploration for Pet roleum and Natural Gas,” said current economic conditions make new and cheaper methods of finding fuel a necessity. “I think the whole point of some of these unconventional methods is that they are cheaper than the ways we are finding oil now,” she said. “They are exotic. That’s why researchers have a hard time selling them to industry. What they (the researchers) need to do is to try to change the mindset, to show that some of these ways are not only cheaper, but better.” Dr. Philip Abelson, editor of Science magazine, w r as sche duled to give the keynote address today on “The Future of Methane as an Energy Source.” Topics to be presented in case study format included the use of satellites and magnetic fields in the search for oil, as well as tech niques to measure upper migra tion of water and gravitational forces. Even botany will be repre sented, Ainsworth said. Geobo- tantist Mary C. Dalziel of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Flagstaff, Arizona, was sche duled to present a case study on “finding oil in an area of Monta na based on the metallic anoma lies of sage and pine trees.” have coal mine explosions. In the earth, the gas mixes with coal dust and is highly explosive. “Many regions where orga nized matter has laid down gave rise to methane rather than pet roleum,” he said. Despite its ex plosive nature, he said, “it’s safer to handle than light hydrocar bons such as gasoline.” Abelson said companies have been reluctant to invest in artifi cial methane, usually created from coal. “The investment involved in such a plant would be in the bil lions of dollars,” he said. “And we have yet to built the first one, although one has been started in North Dakota. One of those deals may take eight to 10 years. “The advantage of natural methane gas is that you can drill a well and with the distribution pipelines be on line within a week or two. “It is much easier to purify than oil and as a fuel. It is much more clean burning. People are only gradually gaining an awareness of the value of the stuff, and yet it is energy soure of the future.” About 130 oil industry repre sentatives, including some from France and Great Britain, are expected to participate in the symposium, sponsored by Southern Methodist University. $ Dyer Deal is $ 1 Make your present good stereo sound super with the EQ-2 graphic equalizer form BSR. Seven bands of tone control for each channel so you can compensate for room acoustics, speaker efficiency, or your personal listening tastes. Tape monitor and bypass switch lets you put the improved sound on tape. 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