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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 13, 1989)
\ fhe Battalion Tuesday, June 13,1989 1 us fee refund ffered in full o dissatisfied m mu: iutifj :s its y be of win i orei bene tplact fliPe prow lesept have eacted roteste re. I the the go pie's h ke- ? citize ant. Ai :e of me, I . trerar notoc Refa te j e life dent- ce are By Richard Tijerina STAFF WRITER People dissatisfied with Texas A&M’s summer shuttle bus serv ice now will be granted a full re fund, Doug Williams, manager of bus operations, said Monday. The fee option, which cost $46, marked the first time the service has been available during the summer sessions. Williams said that because it was the first time the service has been offered in the summer, peo ple might have been unhappy with it because they didn’t know what to expect. He said people might have been thinking the shuttle bus routes were the same ones of fered in Spring 1989, and are now upset with the revised sum mer schedule because the routes might be conflicting with their class schedules. The five summer routes run five days a week every 30 minutes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and are the same that served as combined night routes in Spring 1989: • Anderson, Marion Pugh and Parkway. • Villa Maria and Pinfeather. • Lincoln and 29th Street. • Scarlett O’Hara, Munson and Dartmouth. • FM 2818 and Welsh. Williams said that although the date for receiving full refunds for classes or fee options has passed, Bus Operations will be giving full refunds to people who purchased the fee option, but are now un happy with it, in order to be fair and avoid any animosity. Williams said the most impor tant thing to remember is the atesiflshuttle bus is a service, and he doesn’t want to turn people away from the service in the fall. People who have purchased the service and want their money back or who have received a par tial refund and want the rest of their money back have until June 13 to get a full refund. People wanting full refunds should contact the Bus Opera tions office at 845-1971. to & LOCAL Proposal would clean up Texas air by 2010 WASHINGTON (AP) — Petrochemical plants and refineries face expensive pollution controls under President Bush’s proposal Monday to curb cancer-causing emissions, while markets for Texas’ natural gas industry would expand under the clean air initiative. The president’s plan also would bring most Texas cities within federal air quality stan dards by 1995, but would give Houston, con sidered one of the nation’s most severe cases of ozone pollution, until the year 2010 to come into compliance. Daniel Weiss of the Sierra Club said that while Bush’s proposals signal his commitment to “protecting public health from air pollut ion,” Houston residents would be breathing dirty air for two more decades. “That’s too long a time to have high levels of this health-threatening pollutant,” said Weiss, Washington director of the Sierra Club’s pollution program. Other Texas cities and metropolitan areas on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list for non-attainment of ozone-standards are Beaumont-Port Arthur, El Paso and Dallas- Fort Worth. The Houston area also includes Galveston and Brazoria. El Paso and Houston-Gavlveston-Brazoria also are on the EPA non-attainment list for carbon monoxide pollution. Most cities would meet carbon monoxide standards by 1995 through an effort that in cludes the use of clean-burning oxygenated fuels. The most severe cases, however, would have until the year 2000 under the presi dent’s plan. Weiss praised the president’s call for indus try to install the best-available technology to control toxic air emissions, considered a sig nificant problem in Texas because of its many petrochemical plants and oil refineries. According to preliminary data from the EPA, released by Rep. Henry Waxman, D- Calif., Texas leads the country in the amount of toxic chemicals released into the air and also has several plants with emissions that pose a severe cancer threat. EPA estimates the cost of installing best- available technology for reducing toxic emis sions at $2 billion, Weiss said, and Texas pe trochemical companies and refiners probably would pay a large part of the cost. The plan anticipates “near-term reduc tions in airborne toxic chemicals, including many that are cancer causing, of between 75 percent and 90 percent. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about it — compliance with these standards will be very expensive and benefits from compliance will be substantial as well,” Sen. Phil Gramm, R- Texas, said. Randy Erben, deputy director of the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations, said it is im possible now to judge the costs of the propo sal. “Until you see the final ink dry on the bill and EPA regulations promulgated under the bill, you’re not going to have a hard idea about what the final costs are going to be. This is the opening salvo by the administra tion in this debate,” Erben said. Gramm said he wants to help write the leg islation to maintain refiners’ and manufactur ers’ “flexibility in coming up with new and ef ficient ways to lower emissions.” “I believe that if we can implement this new proposal of the president’s correctly that we can continue the growth in the petrochemical industry and protect the environment,” Gramm said. At the same time, Gramm said he sees “real potential for long-term sustained growth in the demand for natural gas. And since we are the nation’s largest producer of it, that is a benefit for us in the nation’s effort to improve the environment.” As coal-burning power plants seek a 10- million-ton reduction in sulfur dioxide emis sions, a chief cause of acid rain, Weiss and Gramm said utilities would be considering a procedure in which a mix of coal and natural gas is burned. Natural gas is the cheapest and cleanest-burning fossil fuel, Gramm said. The American Petroleum Institute said in a statement that it was disappointed by the administration’s “apparent preference for mandating alternate-fuel vehicles.” API, the largest trade association rep resenting all segments of the oil industry, called the alternate-fuel vehicles “an ex tremely costly and inflexible step which would provide highly uncertain environmen tal benefits and presumably require price and allocation controls or higher prices for all fu els.” Bullock: Texas lost funds because of census miscount AUSTIN (AP) — State Comptrol ler Bob Bullock said Monday the federal Census Bureau has under counted the Texas population by as many as 547,000 people, and that has cheated the state out of millions in federal dollars. “Texas has been undercounted in the census and shortchanged at the treasury,” Bullock said. “The Census Bureau knows it. They admit it. But they have refused to do anything about it.” The Census Bureau has estimated that as many as 547,000 Texans —or about 3.7 percent of the state’s 14.229 million people — were not counted in the 1980 census. Bullock said most of those not counted are poor people, and there fore the state has lost millions of dol lars in federal programs that use population and income figures in their allocation formulas. Texas lost $29.3 million in nine of 77 federal programs in 1987, said Bullock, who is running in the Dem ocratic Party primary for lieutenant governor. About two-thirds of that amount would have gone toward Medicaid, which provides health care services to low-income Texans, and an esti mated $3.8 million would have been used for Aid to Families with Depen dent Children, he said. “And that means thousands of Texans, most of them poor, elderly, or minority, are not getting services to which they are entitled,” Bullock said. Bullock has asked U.S. Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher Sr. to reverse a department decision to “X I housands of Texans, most of them poor, elderly, or minority, are not getting services to which they are entitled.” — Bob Bullock, state comptroller not adjust the 1990 census for the in accurate count, and he has urged Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox to join in a lawsuit filed against Com merce that would require an adjust ment. “If this problem is not corrected in the 1990 census, Texas stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds in the next decade,” Bullock said. He has urged the Texas congres sional delegation to support legis lation co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ron Coleman, D-Texas, and U.S. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, to re quire an under-count adjustment. Of the estimated 547,000 Texans not counted, 253,000 are believed to be Hispanics and 143,000 blacks, and most are poor, according to the census report. This under-counting of poor minority Texans artificially inflates the state’s per capita income, which is part of the allocation for mula for many federal programs, he said. The Census Bureau’s estimates of the people not counted are based on past experience, according to Jim Gorman, a bureau spokesman. States with a large illegal alien population often will be miscounted, he said. Although the census does not question whether a person is le gally in the country, he said, illegal aliens shy away from the census questionnaire. Officials continue search for clues surrounding Army sergeant’s death By Richard Tijerina STAFF WRITER Circumstances surrounding the shooting death of James Craig, an Army sergeant on active duty in Texas A&M’s ROTC department, remain unknown as Army investigators continue their investigation into the inci dent. Craig’s body was found June 6 in a van at Fort Riley, Kan., where he had been assigned to assist members of the A&M Corps of Cadets during Summer Training Camp. Craig had been working in the A&M ROTC depart ment since 1986. He instructed freshman-level ROTC courses and worked as the supply sergeant for all Army-ROTC cadets here. He also was involved with the Ranger Challenger Team, Rudder’s Rangers and the Ross Volunteers. The Army released a statement last week saying it could not comment on Craig’s death until its investiga tion was completed. The Army gave no estimate on how long it would take to finish the investigaton. Craig’s military awards include the Puxple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, a Combat Infantryman Badge, an Army Commendation Medal and various service deco rations. He was an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 4692 in Bryan. etelv ( :an ot ic 1® unisiz •ent ft' en k‘ he Sort n. ie w® ;hina. ; eryi' ilanei ions When you start your career, there’s nothing like initial success. Exciting programming opportunities exist at IBM! IBM is recruiting 1989 graduates with a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a minor/ concentration in Computer Science, with programming background and interest. Meet with our representatives: Thursday, June 22 For more details and sign-up sheets, please contact your career place ment office. An equal opportunity employer. U.S. eitizens. permanent residents and intending citizens under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act only M&M SCUBA & Snow Ski Summer School Specials 15% OFF Gurkee’s Rope Sandals Vuarnet Sunglasses & T-shirts Ray Ban Sunglasses Sarengetti Sunglasses Swimsuits-Too Hot Brazil, Choice Expires 6-20-89. In stock items only. August Dive Trips-Belize, Grand Cayman Scuba lessons through the shop • TAMU PE • Blinn PE 693-0104 817 S. Texas Ave College Station SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE SALE « Contact Lenses LU _J < (/) LU -I < </) LU < CO HI < CO LU -I < (/) LU < CO LU —I < CO LU < CO Only Quality Name Brands 0ff er (Bausch & Lomb, Ciba, Barnes-Hinds-Hydrocurve) pr. *-STD. DAILY WEAR SOFT LENSES $ 79 00 $ 99 00 $ 99 00 pr. *-STD. EXTENDED WEAR SOFT LENSES pr. *-STD. TINTED SOFT LENSES DAILY WEAR OR EXTENDED WEAR SPARE PAIR ONLY $1 00 Applies only to Baush & Lomb soft lenses with purchase of 1 st pr. at reg. price Call 696-3754 for Appointment CHARLES C. SCHROPPEL,O.D., P.C. DOCTOR OF OPTOMETRY 707 South Texas Ave., Suite 101D College Station, Texas 77840 e c/> > f m co > n m co > r~ m cn > r- m co > r— m co > lu 1 block South of Texas & University * Eye exam not included Free care kit with exam and pair of lenses m co 31VS 3-1VS 3"IVS 3TVS 31VS 3TVS 3~IVS 3TVS 3TVS