Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • E1

After more than a decade of a state exible- permits program, which have EPA approval, re ners and others said they wanted certainty. INSIGHT BOOKS statesman.com austin360.com SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2010 SECTION OPINIONS E6-7 By Asher Price Americ A n-St A te A St A ff At a discussion on the scuf between Texas and federal environmental regulators over the air pollution control program during a conference of environmental lawyers this month at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Lawrence Star eld, deputy regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, acknowledged that some companies had grown anxious about floating in regulatory limbo. people are afraid to move; some projects are on he said. should get A couple of weeks earlier, Rich Walsh, the general counsel for environmental safety and regulatory affairs at Valero Energy pressed home that his company wants certainty about the regulations, and he criticized the EPA for derailing a state air permitting program after 16 years.

want certainty about going he said at the July meeting at the Texas Pub In 2008, Texas businesses led EPA suit; it back red By Eugene Sepulveda peci A to the A meric A n- A te A hree days after the devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January, Austin Ventures partner Phil Siegel sent out an e-mail: we raise a Haiti fund, like our Katrina At the Entrepreneurs Foundation, our rst call to Austin philanthropists Philip and Donna Berber yielded sage advice about international relief, and an early match donor. Within 24 hours, seven donors agreed to match future contributions. We have since raised $1.4 million in the HelpHaiti Fund. It is hard to know if philanthropic dollars are well-spent. News reports from Haiti focus on service gaps and monies remaining unspent.

Despite strict criteria and investing most of our monies in entrepreneurial agencies, our match donors asked me to travel to Haiti, to examine rst-hand the efforts of our partner agencies. After a sprinting five-day tour in July, I reported back that yes, donors monies are being well-spent. Tens of thousands of Haitians have benefited from $1.2 million in HelpHaiti grants to date, and 9 million people are bene ting from worldwide contribu tions. The lack of a major disease outbreak among 1.5 to 1.7 million displaced Haitians is attributed to the effective distribution of clean drinking water and improved sanitation throughout most camps. The World Health Organization reports that 90 percent of Haitians now have nearby access to health care.

Haitians are resilient. You see it driving out of the airport, microen terprises lining the streets women, men and children selling food, drinks, clothing, music, movies and household items among the makeshift living quarters in the camps just outside the airport, and as you pass Haitians rebuilding using recycled construction materials. The U.N. estimates there are more than 1,300 camps of displaced people. You see signs of international relief everywhere.

Over dinner, two relief workers from Concern Worldwide explained their psychiatric and nutritional counseling programs for mothers and infants. I toured a U.N. camp, observing their work at tent for their program. These moms (and one dad) were holding their infant children close, comforting them when they cry. Many Haitians are otherwise taught not to coddle infants, not to respond to cries in order to toughen up their babies for FINDING HOPE IN HAITI By Allan Besselink ome might call it a journey.

Some might call it a life-changing adventure. Whatever name you use, the inspiration for it began many years ago, in a place far removed from the Lone Star State the Great White North. The date was August 16, 1984. The place? The National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Canada, perhaps the perfect acoustic environment for live music. The performers? None other than Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.

I was 18 years old, sitting there stunned, mesmerized, awestruck by the legendary power of expression with a guitar. This was live blues music as only imagined. If Austin, Texas, was producing guitar players (and the blues) like this, then that was something that I had to experience firsthand. Fast forward to 1990. I had been a physical therapist for two years and was working in an outpatient clinic.

In my spare time, I was also a budding guitar player In Stevie songs, a call to come to Austin See LIMBO back page PO ll UTION PO ITI TA ES CITY A ll AN BESSE INK Alicia Mireles A meric A -S A te A See TALES back page CENT A AS PHI ANTHROP Entrepreneurs charitable orts have raised $1.4 million for victims of January earthquake SCIENCE Scientists debate whether oiled birds are worth saving, E2 PO ITI ACT U.S. not the worst when it comes to dropout rates E2 UNP UGGED Best of statesman.com blogs, plus your comments on our stories, E3 BOOKS The divisive past of capital punishment, E4 OPINIONS AND EDITO IA Costs vs. results in Austin schools, E6 1. Eugene Sepulveda, president and chief executive of the Austin-based Entrepreneurs Foundation, visits a tent in July in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where Concern Worldwide provides post-quake psychiatric and nutritional counseling for mothers and infants. Entrepreneurs Foundation helps nance Concern Worldwide.

2. Concern Worldwide also builds homes designed to withstand Category 3 hurricanes, including this house under construction in July in Tabarre, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. 3. Concern Worldwide set up and runs a camp in Tabarre for 500 displaced families. 4.

Louis St. Anie used a $3 loan from the Fonkoze micro nance agency to start selling toothpaste and now borrows for inventory to stock her neighborhood store. been supporting her three families since the quake. Entrepreneurs Foundation helps nance Fonkoze. 5.

Concern counseling programs teach parents to comfort their infants when they cry. Many Haitians are otherwise taught not to soothe infants to toughen up their babies for what everyone expects to be a tough life. 6. St. Nicolas Hospital in Saint-Marc, Haiti, gets support from Partners in Health.

Entrepreneurs Foundation helps nance Partners in Health. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Upper left photo by Aine ay; others by Eugene Sepulveda See AID back page Tales of the City is a continuing series of personal essays connected to Austin. Submit your own tale of the city (900 words or less) to for consideration by our editors. Eugene Sepulveda is president and chief executive of the Entrepreneurs Foundation. By Joe Gross american-statesman staff From a small room in his house in Cross Plains, Robert E.

Howard imagined a traveling barbarian who encountered everything from rival warlords to hellish monsters. He imagined a Puritan who fought slave traders. He imagined a quasi-Celtic race called Picts and a Texas gunfighter who spent time in Afghanistan. He saw the effect of the oil boom and bust cycles on his hometown with the charlatans and characters who came and went with the wind. He dumped all of it into his fiction.

What Blind Lemon Jefferson is to Texas Keeping Lone Star literature weird BOOKS SCIENCE FICTION See WEIRD E4 By Joe Gross american-statesman staff Cross Plains, Robert E. Howard imagined a traveling barbarian who encountered every thing from rival warlords to hellish monsters. He imagined a Puritan who fought slave trad ers. He imagined a quasi-Celtic race called Keeping Lone Star literature weird BOOKS.