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Corner of S. Texas Ave. & Harvey Mitchell Pkwy
Lifetime Brakes Installed’'
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95
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Most Cars
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Expires 09.30.04 -•
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7:00am - 6:00pm
Lube, Oil
& Filter
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Car Maintenance Inspection
$ 19.
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The People Who Know
Use Valvoline.
Up to 5 Qts. 10W/30
Most cars & light trucks. Diesel
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With coupon. s
Not valid with any other offer fltyjgjljigf;.
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Total Care Care- From Wiper Blades to Engine Repair
FRIDAY
Volleyball
vs. Texas Tech
6 p.m.
-and-
12 th MAN TEAM
Soccer
vs. Oklahoma St.
8 p.m.
GO TO GAMES
GETSTUFF
free
SUNDAY
Soccer
vs. Oklahoma
1:30 p.m.
VtOMI flti/f
Tickets: B45-Z3 1 1
anuAHTaEi
WwnvmM
Thursday; September 30 to
Saturday; October 2
8 am = 8 pm
Sunday, October 3
9 am ± 5pm
jludt fautr ‘Tieyie 'pteCtC at f f 2 0 rty<Me*tuut
STUDENT
GOVERNMENT
ASSOCIATION
I'EXlXS A&M UNIVERSITY
Election
Commission
CLASS OF 2008
VOTE!!!!!
For your
CLASS OFFICERS and SENATORS
WEDNESDAY (Sept. 29)
AND
THURSDAY (Sept. 30)
9ani-5pm
MSC, SBISA, COMMONS AND ONLINE
https://vote.tamu.edu/
8B
sin
Thursday, September 30, 2004
THE BATTALIfl
Oil prices a ‘mixed bag 5 in Texas
By Pam Easton
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
n
HOUSTON — Texans aren’t reliving the
heyday of the oil boom as oil prices hover
around $50 a barrel.
In the decades since the oil boom-to-bust in
the late 1970s and 1980s, Texas has worked
to diversify its economy, causing it to become
“less susceptible to oil price shock,” said Craig
Pirrong, director of energy markets at The
Global Energy Management Institute at the
University of Houston.
The petrochemical and airline industries will
take a hit while the oil and natural gas industries
experience a high, experts say.
“There will definitely be some
people who will be happy,” Pirrong
said. “And I think for the foreseeable
future the market is predicting prices
well north of $40.”
Houston-based Anadarko Pe
troleum Corp., an independent oil
and gas exploration and production
company, will use money generated
by the higher prices to pay down
debt and return excess cash to its
shareholders, said spokeswoman
Teresa Wong.
“You are not going to see a lot
of change in drilling activities,” she
said. “There is a lot of expectation by
the investment community that you
Texas may be
about the only
place outside
the Middle East
that this price of
oil is good.
will outline a program and you will stick to it. You
can’t go out and change that on a whim with higher
prices just as you can’t when prices drop.”
For oil companies who remember the lessons of
the bust, “there is always the fear that if prices go
high, they will fall,” Wong said.
“It’s an all-time high in terms of dollars, hut
when you correct for inflation the prices we saw in
the mid-1970s were closer to $100 a barrel,” Pir
rong said. “We are still a long way from where we
were 30 years ago.”
According to Baker Hughes, which tracks the
number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in
the United States, there were 165 rigs exploring for
oil and 1,073 for natural gas last week compared to
a year ago when there were 148 rigs looking for oil
and 943 for natural gas.
“Everybody who doesn’t produce oil
wants prices low,” said Ray Perryman, an ecoj
mist based in Waco. “It is not like everybody
out and starts drilling oil wells like they
We still get some benefit within the state andcli
ly you will have some very big winners fromit;
For companies like Houston-based Cot
nental Airlines, higher fuel prices make an
ready difficult situation worse, said spokes®
Rahsaan Johnson.
“Coupled with what was already a weak
enue environment, the persistent, stubbornlyli!|
cost of fuel has been challenging our effortloj
back to sustained profitability,” he said, a
that according to an investor update fuel
for 2004 are expected to be J|J
billion with the anticipatedpri«i
$1.13 a gallon.
Petrochemical companies
are taking a hit from the hi|
fuel costs, said Thomas Metzg
a spokesman for the Amenc
Chemistry Council.
“It is the stuff we use to ruji
chemicals and plastics, so wearel
twice as hard,” Metzger said. “Tea
is definitely one of the largestsa
chemical industries that wehave.|
fact, it is the number one chemic
producing state in the country^
now, so it is going to be impa
more than any other state.”
Texas produces about 20 perca
of the nation’s oil supply and 30(8
cent of the nation’s natural gas, said Texasfc
— Mark Baxter
director of the
Maguire Energy Institute
road Commissioner Charles Matthews.
“There is an awful lot of activity going
everywhere,” he said. “The oil and gas ind
try has traditionally created a lot of jobs,
communities where they have oil wells belt
drilled, there are a lot of dollars being gera
ated in those local economies.”
And those dollars will help, he said, evenifii
“not the boom days of the 40s and the 50s.”
“Texas may be about the only place outside ofll
Middle East that this price of oil is good,’’joked Mi
Baxter, director of The Maguire Energy Institute
Southern Methodist University. “You still haveai
of people walking around Texas with smiles on iki
faces, but for Texans as a whole, it is not as n
a good, happy story as it was in the past.”
Inmate’s execution delay request
cites problems in Houston lab
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HOUSTON (AP) — Lawyers
for a death row inmate asked a
judge on Wednesday to postpone
his pending execution because of
problems at the embattled Hous
ton Police Department crime lab.
Edward Green III, 30, is
scheduled to be executed on
Oct. 5 for the fatal shooting of
a 72-year-old man and a 63-
year-old woman in their car
during a robbery 12 years ago
at a Houston intersection.
The request presented to Dis
trict Judge George Godwin says
Green’s execution order should
be lifted because of questions
over the reliability of ballistics
testing in his case and the recent
announcement that lab evidence
for thousands of criminal cases
had been mislabeled and im
properly stored.
While Houston police have
said the evidence stored in 280
large boxes is connected to cases
from 1979 to 1991, Green’s at
torneys say his execution should
not go forward until officials
have had a chance to review all
of what they’ve found.
The evidence could include
information related to Green’s
case that could save his life, said
David Dow, director of the Tex
as Innocence Network, who is
working with Green’s attorneys.
Dow said officials do not
know if the boxes contain infor
mation on cases later than 1991.
Judge Godwin did not imme
diately issue a ruling.
Marie Munier, chief of the
trial bureau for the Harris Coun
ty district attorney’s office,
said prosecutors have not seen
Green’s motion.
“Any claim we’ll take a look
at it to see if there’s any merii
it,” she said.
The crime lab’s DNA seciffl
has remained closed since aDt
cember 2002 audit revealed
analysts lacked training, m
were insufficiently documema
and evidence might have
exposed to contaminants.
Dow said Green is the
death row inmate to seek a
of execution based on develop
ments at the troubled crime
In an interview on deal!
row earlier Wednesday,Gres
told The Associated Presstki
he was unaware of any appeal
on his behalf. Dow dispute
that assertion.
“He knew we were in them
die of ongoing litigation,”Do
said. “We would never do lb
without the inmate’s consent.
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NEWS IN BRIEF
Death penalty not sought
in human smuggling case
HOUSTON — A member of an alleged human smug
gling gang accused in the death of 19 undocumented
immigrants will not face the death penalty.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft filed notice
Wednesday that he will not seek the execution of
24-year-old Fredy Giovanni Garcia Tobar, of Guate
mala, The Houston Chronicle reported in its online
edition Wednesday.
Of the other 13 people indicted in connection with
what has been called the nation’s deadliest smug
gling attempt, Ashcroft is seeking the death penalty
in only one case, truck driver Tyrone Williams. He
is the first accused smuggler in the United
to face execution.
Authorities say Garcia took Williams to a
where the truck driver accepted $7,500 in cashbefe
at least 74 immigrants were loaded into histrailer.f
lice discovered the abandoned trailer in May 2003
a truck stop near Victoria. Nineteen immigrantsd»
of dehydration, hyperthermia and suffocation.
Garcia’s attorney, Nemecio Lopez, has saidthaf
client lacks the mental capacity to understand b
proceedings, and a psychiatric examination haste
ordered for Garcia.
If he is ruled competent to stand trial, Garcia will
tried Nov. 29 with three others. Williams’ trial issefe
uled for Jan. 5.
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RECOGNIZED? LAST CHANCE,
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flV(
2 Pre-Recoanition Seminars Left!
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If you have any questions, please call the Recognition Desk at 845-1133
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