Daily Briefing: Friday, November 13, 2026

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week issued a construction permit for four 80-megawatt advanced reactors that Dow and X-energy plan to build at Dow’s Seadrift Operations complex, on the coast between Houston and Corpus Christi, The Texas Tribune reported. The Long Mott Generating Station is one of two projects the U.S. Department of Energy selected in 2020 for its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, and the commission approved it after an expedited review.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday renewed, at the State of Texas’s request, an emergency waiver that lets older diesel vehicles and equipment in Texas run on higher-sulfur fuel, according to the agency. The waiver suspends the Texas low-emission diesel standard and the federal ultra-low-sulfur requirement through December 3. The previous renewal, issued October 20, ran through November 13.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday announced a $19,108,579 Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant to Texas Tech University for a next-generation computing cluster in Lubbock, the governor’s office said. The cluster links high-performance servers so they work as a single system for semiconductor research.

The Office of the Attorney General on Tuesday dropped its deceptive trade practice claims against Epic Systems over parents’ access to their children’s medical records, citing changes Epic made to its software, Fierce Healthcare reported. The state’s antitrust claims against the records company continue in the 236th District Court in Tarrant County.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on Tuesday that a 2025 law restricting citizen initiative petitions is unconstitutional and voided it in full, NonDoc reported. The law, Senate Bill 1027, capped how many signatures could come from any one county. Writing for the majority, Justice Noma Gurich said “this act severely disenfranchises voters in all 77 counties.”

Canada’s federal government will not appeal an October ruling by the Alberta Court of Appeal that parts of the federal Impact Assessment Act still intrude on provincial jurisdiction, and it will amend the law instead, CBC News reported Thursday. Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery said the overhaul “will result in the elimination of all federal interference in intra-provincial infrastructure projects.”

Mexico told the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday that “the absence of a peace operation as established by the Security Council should not be interpreted as the end of this Organization’s responsibility” toward a negotiated settlement in Western Sahara, according to the United Nations transcript. Its delegate also cited “the legitimate call for self-determination of the Sahrawi people.” The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara closed October 31 after the Security Council adopted neither of two rival draft resolutions.

Four county teams of the Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) meet in the coming week. Bexar County holds its Alamo Memorial March at the Alamo in San Antonio at 6:30 PM Saturday, November 14, according to the TNM calendar. Caldwell County meets at Chronic Chaos Cafe in Martindale (event page) and Tarrant County at Cousin’s BBQ in Fort Worth (event page), both at 6 PM Tuesday, November 17. Llano County meets at The Falls in Llano at 6 PM Thursday, November 19 (event page).