What is it about the term "deadly heat wave" that some people don't get?
By Wednesday, 13 North Texans had died of heat-related causes, including a 55-year-old assistant football coach at a Plano parochial academy.High school football players began the annual ritual known as "two-a-days" Monday as if the summer of 2011 was not on its way to break 1980's record for consecutive days of 100-degree heat.The 10-day forecast calls for the slow broil to continue unabated.At the risk of an eternal case of turf toe from the football gods, dare we suggest that practices should be suspended until the weather resembles something other than Dante's Inferno?Oh, who are we kidding? Football will go on in Texas and the rest of the nation regardless of how high the mercury rises -- or how low it falls in the winter. The sport leads to more nonfatal, heat-related emergency room visits than any other activity in the United States, according to a Reuters report that cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Most area school districts do have the good sense to start practice before dawn. Sadly, coaches and the UIL learned the hard way to encourage players to drink as much water as they want. The University Interscholastic League issues a long list of safety precautions including how to spot signs of heat-related illness.If only state lawmakers were as concerned about the welfare of financially strapped Texans. They've hijacked millions of dollars from what is supposed to be a dedicated fund that was established to help pay summer electric bills for qualified low-income residents.The Lite-Up Texas program is funded by a fee collected from more than 6 million households and businesses in certain designated utility markets, including Dallas-Fort Worth.For residential ratepayers, the fee amounts to about $1 a month.The program provides discounts to eligible customers on their electric bills for May, June, July, August and September.According to the Public Utility Commission, the discounts should equal a little more than 10 percent off of the monthly charge excluding taxes and fees.Medicaid or food stamp recipients who live in deregulated markets qualify for the program, as do residents whose household income is at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty guidelines.The state has collected about $130 million this fiscal year for the discount program. Unfortunately, only $28 million has been made available.Why? Because dedicated funds are easy pots of money to tackle when state lawmakers need to balance the budget without making more cuts in education or public safety.Or at least that's the rationale Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, gave when defending the decision to shuffle money meant to help the elderly and poor with their electric bills into a different fund.By the end of the next biennium, lawmakers will have squirreled away close to $1 billion that was collected for utility assistance.It's like a miniature rainy-day fund, only it's not raining. We wish.This isn't a new call in the legislative playbook, which is why Texans are tired of seeing it.If lawmakers don't intend to use "dedicated" funds for specific programs as advertised, then they should cease collecting the fee. Gov. Rick Perry suggested as much during the legislative session four years ago.It's time for the Legislature to stop doing end runs around the truth.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
