Category: Texas News

Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston Lead the Nation in Homebuilding

Texas welcomed more than 1,000 new residents a day in 2017, according the U.S Census Bureau, and construction crews are keeping plenty busy building homes for the state’s growing population. In October, housing market analysts Metrostudy Inc. found that Dallas-Fort Worth is leading the nation in homebuilding as of the third quarter of 2018, at… Read Full Article »

Texas Is Producing More Oil Than Its Pipelines Can Handle

Thanks to recent advancements in horizontal drilling and multistage fracking techniques, oil and natural gas production has steadily increased to unprecedented levels in the 90,000-square-mile Permian Basin of West Texas. Job seekers have are currently flocking to the region from all over the country, and the oil boom shows no signs of slowing down anytime… Read Full Article »

Houston Voters Approve $2.5 Billion in Bonds for Flood-Control Projects

Late last month, on the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey’s landfall, voters in Harris County took an important step forward in the effort to protect Houston from future catastrophic weather events. On August 26, roughly 85 percent of voters approved a referendum which calls for the issuance of $2.5 billion in bonds to fund flood-control… Read Full Article »

Proposed Coastal Spine Will Protect Texas Energy Corridor

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Texans have spent the last year adopting innovative new strategies to protect the state from future storm damage. The latest of these proposed strategies involves building a 60-mile “spine” of steel levees, concrete seawalls and earthen barriers that will stretch from the Louisiana border to an area south of… Read Full Article »

City Council Launches New Housing Construction Program

There’s no shortage of residential construction projects underway in Houston, but local officials are concerned that many of the city’s newest housing units are prohibitively expensive for working families.  In an effort to bridge the growing divide between luxury condominiums and subsidized housing, the Houston City Council recently announced that it has approved a new… Read Full Article »

Job Seekers Flock to Oilfields in the Permian Basin

With oil production booming and qualified workers in high demand, you don’t have to look far to find job opportunities in the Permian Basin these days. More than 500 prospective employees attended a recent job fair in Odessa, where companies like Haliburton advertised jobs for truck drivers, oilfield technicians and more. Haliburton, which is the… Read Full Article »

Oil and Gas Taxes to Provide $1.1 Billion in Highway Funding

Highways in Texas are slated to receive a much-needed boost in funding this year thanks to the state’s booming oil and natural gas industry. Under the terms of Proposition 1, a constitutional amendment which diverts a portion of oil and gas severance taxes to the TxDOT highway fund, Texas highways will receive $1.1 billion in… Read Full Article »

Texas to Receive More Than $5 Billion for Flood Control Projects

Construction crews in Texas are still working hard to help the state recover from the damage left by Hurricane Harvey in August of last year, but they’ll soon have help from a federal disaster relief package that provides more than $5 billion for repairs, flood control projects and studies. Close to $4 billion of that… Read Full Article »

Construction Is Underway on the Houston Tollway Bridge

Earlier this month, work began on the $1 billion project to rebuild and replace the aging Ship Channel Bridge on the Sam Houston Tollway. This project, which is expected to take six years to complete, is just one component of a larger effort to widen the tollway so that it will be able to comfortably… Read Full Article »

Houston-Dallas Bullet Train Developers are Making Big Strides

The high-speed rail line that is expected to cut the 240-mile trip between Houston and Dallas down to 90 minutes has seen significant progress in recent months thanks to the efforts of its investor-owned railroad company Texas Central. In February, the project passed a major milestone when Texas Central announced that it had negotiated with… Read Full Article »