Monday, October 1, 1990
l
Al-
ray,
Election official
urges Texans
to participate
66
EDI
i,m
BEAN
,1951
DOUi
AUSTIN (AP) — Texas’ top elec
tion official has a simple message:
Vote or shut up.
Secretary of State George Bayoud
has been traveling statewide trying
to register voters and telling people
if they don’t vote in the Nov. 6 gen
eral election they have no right to
gripe about the results.
“That would be a mistake,” Bay
oud said. “It’s imperative that all
Texans who are eligible to vote par
ticipate in the Democratic process.”
The League of Women Voters is
also using voter registration drives
and direct mail campaigns to try to
increase the turnout.
“Voting is the most basic step for
citizens to make a democracy work,”
Diane Sheridan, president of the
League of Women Voters of Texas,
said.
Sunday is the deadline for regis
tering in time to participate in the
Nov. 6 general election, although
mail registration will be accepted un
til Oct. 9.
“We are the world’s greatest de
mocracy, and we need to lead by ex
ample here in Texas,” Bayoud said.
So far, Texas has led by medioc
rity.
Prior to the March 13 political
party primaries, about 8.3 million
Texans, or 66 percent of the 12.4
million eligible voters, were regis
tered to vote, the secretary of state’s
office said.
That is a little below the national
average of 67.5 percent, Mark Too-
hey, a spokesman for Bayoud, said.
The primaries produced a record
turnout for a non-presidential elec
tion, but that had more to do with
S ulation growth than a surge in
tical awareness.
The turnout of 2.3 million rep
resented 28 percent of the regis
tered voters.
The Battalion
Page 11
Spade Phillips, P.l.
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GflEETiubS, GE’nruE Re/ideks. Realizinc,
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Tubularman
by Boomer Cardinale
Nerd House by Tom A. Madison
IE
Natural fuels favor
economy, ecology
LER
LONGVIEW (AP) ^ Skyrock
eting gasoline prices in the wake
of the Persian Gull crisis have
many searching for cheaper alter
native fuels to power cars and de-
Iwevy trucks.
In Longview, one independent
gas supplier said he has seen a
phenomenal increase in inquiries
about converting cars and fleet
vehicles to run on propane or
natural gas.
Already, General Motors has
announced that its GMC Truck
division will manufacture and sell
light-duty trucks which run on
compressed natural gas. The
company plans to market at least
1,000 of the trucks in Texas and
California next year.
Natural gas is a clean, abun
dant, safe and cost-effective alter
native fuel, according to the
Texas General Land Office. It
cuts pollution by roughly 90 per
cent com pared with gasoline.
Concern over air pollution
pushed Texas legislators to pass a
clean-air bill in 1989, forcing
large state and school fleets to
buy vehicles powered by clean
burning natural gas.
American Gas Association offi
cials say emissions tests show nat
ural gas produces 70 percent to
90 percent less of the air toxins
that make up low-level smog and
air pollution.
In all, natural gas can eliminate
about 50 percent of gasoline by
products that cause air pollution,
Daniel Montoya of the Texas
General Land Office said. “And
because it burns cleaner, com
pressed natural gas helps spark
ugs last longer and reduces ve-
de maintenance,” he said.
State Land Commissioner
Garry Mauro recently cited a Ra
dian Corp. study that said if all
the fleet vehicles in Houston ran
on compressed natural gas, pol
luting gases would be reduced by
almost 16 million tons per year,
enough to fill 12 Astrodomes.
The study also says that fleet
operators would save almost $16
million in fuel and maintenance
costs.
Under the Texas Plan, state
agencies with more than 15 vehi
cles, metropolitan school districts
with more than 50 buses, private
fleets with more than 25 vehicles
and all metropolitan transit au
thorities must buy only clean al
ternative fuel vehicles after Sept.
1, 1991. These entities must con
vert 90 percent of their fleet to al
ternative fuels by 1998.
“In the past couple of weeks,
we have had a lot of interest in
gas conversions,” Arles Johnson,
owner of Spring Hill L.P. Gas,
said. Johnson sells liquid petro
leum gas, or propane.
“Right now, I can sell a gallon
of propane at $1.07,” he told the
Longview News-Journal. “In
some instances, I take a truck to a
company to fill up their fleet.”
Johnson said he will convert
two vehicles next week to alterna
tive fuel, which costs about
$1,100 for a normal car.
“We have had inquiries from
several companies with large
truck fleets concerning conver
sion,” he said. “If a company con
verts a large fleet, it can be a very
cost-effective change. And on the
new cars with fuel injection sys
tems, there is little or no perfor
mance difference.”
Compressed natural gas is
about 40 percent cheaper than
gasoline, Montoya said. The nat
ural gas equivalent to a gallon of
f asolme will cost anywhere from
0 cents to 85 cents.
Some drawbacks to com
pressed natural gas are limited
travel range and public availabil
ity.
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Pollution, traffic force debate
over Houston’s transit policy
HOUSTON (AP) — A gathering
of mass transit officials from around
the country has reopened a long-
simmering debate over whether
Houston, the nation’s largest city
without a rail system, should end its
addiction to the automobile.
As gasoline prices once again sky
rocket, public transportation advo
cates increasingly must defend pro
grams that some say have failed to
wean Americans from their beloved
cars.
The debate over how to forge a
workable mass transit policy comes
to Houston this week as thousands
of transit professionals gather for
the annual meeting of the American
Public Transit Association.
Houston is saddled with air pol
lution and traffic problems that are
among the worst in the nation, yet its
leaders are mired in a rancorous de
bate over whether to proceed on a
$1 billion, 22-mile rail project.
The debate has its roots partly in
reports questioning whether recently
opened rail systems have been get
ting motorists off the roads.
These reports have found that the
number of people driving their own
cars to work continues to rise and
that many expensive rail systems
have failed to draw a substantial
number of new passengers. At the
same time, Americans continue to
move to outer suburbs, where there
is little or no public transit.
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