Texas tightwad money attacks sound science

I guess Tricky Ricky Perry is too busy running for president in Reconsiderationville, S.C., to attack those evil environmentalists himself, while David Dewhurst is too busy doing ... doorknob knows what to attack, so Comptroller Susan Combs gets to do the heavy lifting in attacking efforts to preserve endangered species. Here's the nut graf quote:

Combs said that Texas was “trying to have our priority of research match the feds,” but that this was often difficult to achieve and frustrating. 

“I think this listing process is very burdensome, and I don’t think it’s based on sound science,” she said.

First, it's not "burdensome" unless you think that getting science right, and acting rightly on that, is "burdensome." But, given the history of Perry-era Tejas' relation to any federal, or even state-level effort to do anything to protect the environment or climate, that's exactly Combs' mindset.

Therefore, it's not so much that she wouldn't know sound science, but that she would refuse to admit it when she saw it, even if it bit her in the tuchis.

Here's the better pull quote, from Michael Forstner, a Texas State biology professor who is overseeing research on the Houston toad.

“Losing the toad is losing a native Texan,” Dr. Forstner said. 

Just as much as you are a native Texan, Susan Combs, the toad is, but with a pedigree just a few thousand years longer.

And, some apparently non-Big oil money is helping pay for some of the scientific research as to what species to list. Sure, even smaller oil companies may not like this, but, they recognize that they're on the front lines of wildcatting and that it benefits them to get a situation stabilized, vs. the eXXXons of the world that just want to be anti-environmental monkey-wrenchers.