Henry Cuellar News Archives

Legislators protest barriers to drilling WASHINGTON - Sixty-nine lawmakers, including Reps.

Texas border lawmakers are calling on the U.S. Coast Guard to expand its operations along the Rio Grande as a way to increase the federal law enforcement presence there, help thwart drug cartels and curb escalating violence.

A top Federal Emergency Management Agency official on Tuesday said he believed that $29 billion in Homeland Security funds spent since 2002 had made the nation better prepared for a terrorist attack, but admitted his agency had no way of definitively assessing the improvement.

The Obama administration on Friday named Hidalgo County Judge Juan "J.D." Salinas regional administrator for the U.S. General Services Administration, effective Nov.

The U.S. Coast Guard patrols the coasts, and a limited stretch of the Rio Grande, but a bill in the works would change that.

Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas accepted an appointment to a federal post Friday, ending weeks of speculation about his future in the position he was elected to three years ago.

The nation is going through a recession, but the construction industry is going through a depression.

The Azteca Economic Development and Preservation Corporation received seven hundred thousand dollars in funding.

A first-time home buyer's tax credit that was included in the $787 billion federal stimulus package and claimed by 124,000 Texans could be extended for another year for military personnel under proposals in the House and Senate, officials said Thursday.

The federal courthouse in downtown Laredo may soon go by a new name. This afternoon the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of renaming the building after federal judge George P. Kazen in a vote of 421 to zero.

Money for an additional 300 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border's been stripped out of a $43 billion dollar homeland security spending bill.

Read-only mm_head Read-only mm_summary Read-only byline Read-only body KIM GEIGER Reporting from Washington A new study mapping congressional districts with the highest concentrations of people without medical insurance has identified areas in California, Florida, and Texas where more than 30 percent of the residents have no healthcare coverage.

The Department of Homeland Security has stripped a provision requiring 300 more miles of tall fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border from its appropriation bill, saying the funds needed to build the barrier would be better spent on alternative security measures.

A controversial provision to build an additional 300 miles of pedestrian fence along the U.S.-Mexico border was stripped out of a $42.8 billion spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, officials said Thursday.

The real fighting is still more than a year away, but it's one that more than just political junkies need to be watching.