Page 2 • THE BATTALION
State
Monday •May29,
C
NEWS
Bush vetoes liquor sales bill
Memorial Day honors
veterans of U.S. wars
Today is Memorial Day, a federal
legal holiday commemorating veterans
of United States wars.
The holiday previously celebrated
on May 30 is now observed on the last
Monday of May.
Memorial Day was first established
in 1868 by Gen. John A. Logan and
was called Decoration Day on which
the graves of Civil War veterans were
decorated.
□ The bill would have
set up exclusive sales
territories for whole
sale liquor and wine
distributor companies.
re spective territories of liquor
and wine brands whose con-
Health course may be
added to core curriculum
The Faculty Senate approved a
change in the core curriculum that will
require students to take a one-hour
health and fitness course for part of their
four-hour kinesiology requirement.
The course will focus on issues
such as stress, substance abuse,
HIV/AIDS and cardiovascular fitness
and be offered by the Department of
FHealth and Kinesiology.
The Faculty Senate's proposal will
take effect if approved by other units of
the University administration.
Recycling center for
used motor oil opens
AUSTIN (AP) — Legislation
that would have established ex
clusive sales territories for seven
distributors of wine and liquor
has been killed by Gov. George
W. Bush’s first veto.
Bush’s spokeswoman, Karen
Hughes, said the governor ve
toed the measure — which dealt
with alcoholic beverage permits
and regulation — because of an
amendment added by Sen. Ken
Armbrister, D-Victoria.
That amendment would have
set up exclusive sales territories
for seven wholesale liquor and
wine distribution companies.
‘He feels it’s bad for the con-
sumer and it runs counter to his
belief in marketplace competi
tion,” Ms. Hughes said after Sat
urday’s veto.
Under the bill, six distribu
tion companies owned by five
Texas families and one jointly
owned by a Chicago family and
Texans would have become the
exclusive distributors in their
tracts they had held on May 1.
The bill was sponsored by
Rep. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth,
and Rep. Chris Harris, R-Arling
ton. Brimer chairs the House
Business and Industry Commit
tee and Harris heads the Senate
Administration Committee.
Armbrister said beer distribu
tors operate with exclusive sales
territories. He said he believed
the territories were necessary
because distillers haphazardly
switch distributors, leaving re
tailers and the distributors with
out a supply.
But opponents said the mea
sure would have created virtual
monopolies for the Texas fami
lies and hurt retailers and
smaller distributors.
Passage of the bill had caught
the major distillers off guard,
leaving them with little legisla
tive relief except to lobby the
governor.
Fred A. Meister, president of
the Distilled Spirits Council of
America, had said the bill
“would remove competition, fos
ter costly distribution ineffi
ciencies and ultimately harm
small Texas retailers and con
sumers. ... This bill is anti-free
enterprise.”
TFie Public Used Motor Oil and Filter
Recycling Center opened in College Sta
tion earlier this month to educate people
on protecting water resources and recy
cling motor oil and filters.
The new recycling center provides
a safe and healthy way to dispose of
motor oil and filters since dumping
this waste on the ground or down
drains is illegal.
The center is located next to the
fuel station at the Public Services Cen
ter, 261 3 Texas Ave. S.
House OKs property rights measu
□ The bill allows
landowners to sue
for relief from gov
ernment regulations.
AUSTIN (AP) — The Senate
was embroiled in a last-minute
debate Sunday over a House-
passed bill that would give Tex
ans the power to sue state and
local governments over action
that devalues their property.
The bill by Rep. Susan
Combs, R-Austin, was passed
on an unrecorded House vote
Saturday night, despite objec
tions from several lawmakers.
Senate approval still was
needed before Monday’s end of
the 1995 Legislature if the
measure were to reach Gov.
George W. Bush’s desk.
But when the bill came up
in the Senate, Sen. Carlos
Truan, D-Corpus Christi,
talked for more than two
hours against it and no vote
was immediately taken.
The bill would create legal
grounds for lawsuits against
state or local government for
actions that restrict a person’s
use of private property and re
duce the market value of the
property by at least 25 percent.
It would require state agen
cies and local governments to
assess whether potential action
would reduce property values.
The bill has come under fire
from environmentalists
and some law-
★
3a
monetary awards.
“Any possibility of a sui:-^
money was removed,” Ccc-'O
said. ~
Negotiators also include.
provision that would req^T
property owners to pay tht-J-L
gal costs of all the partial
they sue and lose.
“That’s a real good disir.:
tive for frivolous suits,”Co;.
said. “I don’t trJlCI
you’ll find -p/"'
body
these thi:
J
makers, who
said the increase
in the number of new
lawsuits would cost the
state and cities millions
of dollars.
Combs, however,
said that concern was ad
dressed when House and Sen
ate negotiators amended the
bill to disallow lawsuits for
on. ‘CRTS
Under
bill, landor."
would onljl
allowed toil
for relief::j
government’ T1
ulations. ;urn(
A leadir.. m d 1
v i r o nme:;hat
group vqeadi
doubts atuvith
ante i
T1
the bill.
“This bill passed in par.
cause Susan Combs misleCity
people of the House ofRnotic
sentatives about whattinue
does and does not do, sai amas
Kramer, director of the'and
chapter of the Sierra Club hanc
and 1
Electronic debit card brings efficiency to food stain
w
theii
fmon
wont
• wron
House OKs governing
board for Aquifer
□ The Lone Star Card
can only be used at
grocery stores. It has
cut down on fraud
and reduced adminis
trative costs.
AUSTIN (AP) —- An elected govern
ing board would be established to
oversee the Edwards Aquifer, a huge
underground river in Central Texas, un
der a bill that got final FHouse approval
Sunday.
The Senate still needed to consider
the measure.
The legislation would establish an
Edwards Aquifer Authority board. The
panel would include 15 members
elected from single-member districts in
the eight-county area.
Seven would come from Bexar
County, four from the western side of
the region and four from the eastern
side. The panel would include two
more non-voting members, one from
the west and one from downstream.
Man shot at high school
graduation party
LA MARQUE(AP) — A man was
shot and killed while trying to break
up an argument at a high school grad
uation party, police said.
Broderick Keith Crowder, 20, was
found shot in the back of the head
about 1 :45 a.m. Saturday in the dri
ver's seat of his car, which had skidded
into the front yard of a residence.
Crowder was airlifted to John Sealy
FHospital in Galveston, where he died
at 10:40 a.m. Saturday, a hospital
spokeswoman said.
HOUSTON (AP) — A funny
thing is happening in Texas as
food stamps go the way of the
horse and buggy.
The cost of the food stamp
program is down because the pa
per coupons used for decades are
being replaced by the Lone Star
Card — the nation’s most ambi
tious use of a reusable electronic
debit card.
Those savings were expected.
But what was not anticipated
was the amount of federal mon
ey actually spent on food is ris
ing, even though the number of
people using food stamps has re
mained fairly constant.
“I didn’t expect the dramatic
rise in grocery sales,” says John
Sharp, the Texas comptroller
who first proposed the card in
1991. “It’s paying dividends I
didn’t know.”
Unveiled late last year in a
test program involving 16,000
families in Houston and in rur
al Chambers County just east
of Houston, the Lone Star Card
expanded Feb. 1 to include all
of Houston’s 220,000 food
stamp families.
February grocery sales using
the card were $29 million.
March sales jumped to more
than $33 million. Some stores re
ported grocery sales using the
card increased as much as 12
percent compared with earlier
food stamp sales.
Flushed with success, the pro
gram moves to Dallas and north
Texas in June and then gradual
ly to the rest of the state.
“By the time this year’s over
with, we will eliminate food
stamps in Texas and a heck of
lot of fraud and black market at
tached to them, bunches of over
head, and food stamps will begin
to be used
again for what
they were sup
posed to —
and that’s
buying food,”
Sharp says.
“I’m pretty
proud of it.”
With 1.3
million house
holds getting
food stamps
in Texas, the
state ac-
Gov. Bush
counts for about 10 percent of
all food stamp coupon recipi
ents nationally.
The coupons alone cost $4.7
million annually to print, an
other $460,000 to ship and $2.4
million for final processing.
They’re used once and then
shredded. Sharp figures that’s
money Texas will save the fed
eral government.
The plastic card looks like a
regular bank card and works in
almost the same way. Each hold
er’s account is replenished dur
ing the first four days of each
month with that family’s allot
ment for food stamps. Purchases
then are debited electronically at
the grocery store checkout.
If the card is lost or stolen, it’s
useless without the holder’s PIN
— a personal identification num
ber. Even if the PIN is discov
ered, the card holder can get the
electronics of the card disabled
by calling a toll-free number to
report the loss.
“You can’t use the food
stamp portion of the card on
street corners to buy crack co
caine,” Sharp says. “You have
to use it to buy food, whether
you like it or not.
“I knew we were going to take
a good bite out of fraud. People
were using food stamps on street
corners and trading in a black
market, and common sense
would say that if you can only
use this thing at a compatible
machine and the only place com
patible machines are is in gro
cery stores, people are going to
get caught.”
Even with a compatible ma
chine, nine people at a Houston
meat market got caught in
March when electronic tracking
of benefits showed questionable
transactions. The arrests broke a
ring estimated to have bilked the
food stamp program out of $1
million over the years.
“You’ll never totally eliminate
fraud, but it’s going to take a big
bite out of it,” Sharp said.
Grocers love the card for its
simplicity. Cashiers merely run
it through an electronic scanner
like a credit card transaction.
And there’s no pile of paper
coupons at the end of the day.
“It’s worked tremendously,”
Gil Russell, director of informa
tion systems for Houston-based
Fiesta Mart, a supermarket
chain that draws the largest
number of food stamp users in
the state.
“It has reduced our adminis
trative costs. We don’t have to
count paper food stamps and rec
oncile them at the end of each
day. And we found our sales
were up for food stamp purchas
es, just because we think it has
reduced fraud.”
Users also report satisfaction
with the simplicity, convenience
and security.
“Before if I lost the checks or
if something happened to them,
they were just gone,” said one
Houston mother of two, who
asked that she be identified only
by her first name, Becky. “With
the card, if I lose it, it is re-
of comments in the past ,
food stamps,” she saic
that the Lone Star Car:," rp.
like a bank card. “Nobo r ,,
the difference. They c ?j a (
that much attention." ^
Big losers in the dea •
out-of-state firms that .1
federal food st^mp ( £ ret *
Sharp said they wa g ec c[ r i Vi
successful lobbying e
thwart his plan to mov
into the electronic age.
The program, whic
dent Children benefits
electronic card.
"You can't use the card on
street corners to buy crack
cocaine.'
— John Sharp,
Texas comptroller
placed. It’s a lot less hassle. It’s
a lot more security.”
The woman, who has been on
food stamps for about two years,
says it’s also helped with her
self-esteem, removing the stigma
of standing in a long checkout
line and handing over a pile of
food stamp coupons.
“I’ve had lots of looks and lots
men
It
caught the attention of
30 other states, is evolvitp i
the addition of Aid F° r - on i (
Con f
That has drawn the m
vate check-cashing firrt^o^
handle welfare checks' 0 g e
welfare recipients meiv jyj
have personal bankiccou )U jj-
they sometimes endupp^j^
exorbitant fees to
______ cashing companies. vor ,
“People moaning' *1^
making a tonofq re{
cashing AFDC cfc rp
not on groceries,’ ^ a ti
sympathetic Sharp^j e
“That’s fixing to t c iear
the window. ieas
“It’s really a P^y. r0 j
ample of what’s
with government,” he: jyj
“What’s wrong with go ver yror
is not necessarily the cor.- or
lot of people will sayweo-j e |j
feed poor kids. en ^
“But they’re sick and t]
seeing where their mone' rp
either to some guy in Ne> or(
or some crack dealer i D > iar
town Dallas.’
>lac
S'
CROWN CLEANERS
— 613 East University Drive In Randall’s Center 846-4064
Present coupon w/incoming order
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SHIRTS
Choice of Starch Laundered on
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79
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(All Sizes-Laundered Only)
$099
Exp. 6/17/95 No Limits
DiTTOJ
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'Li i i: Battalion
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