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The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality renewed the air pollution permit for the largest refinery in the Houston area and denied the city’s request to have a public hearing on the permit.

TCEQ Chairman Bryan Shaw and Commissioner Carlos Rubinstein said the panel voted to grant LyondellBasell Industries’ 10-year permit Wednesday without a hearing because the company is not seeking an increase in emissions.

According to the Texas Clean Air Act, the TCEQ cannot grant a hearing on a renewal unless the firm wants to increase emissions or has a poor compliance record.

The Lyondell renewal application complied with the existing permit, plus the draft permit calls for a 31 percent reduction in emissions of the carcinogen benzene over the previous annual cap, the company said.

In 2008, the city of Houston made the rare request to have a public hearing arguing that the state shouldn’t grant another permit for the complex along the Houston Ship Channel without a trial-like process on the refinery’s benzene emissions.

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Breast cancer patients are increasingly having preventive surgery to remove the unaffected breast, but a new study suggests it’s not beneficial for the vast majority of women who undergo it.

University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers today are reporting that the records of more than 100,000 patients revealed a survival benefit in 6 percent of those who opted to have a double mastectomy. Women who fell within that 6 percent fit a particular profile that doctors can easily identify before the patient decides on a treatment.

“It’s important for women to understand that, except for one subset of breast cancer patients, they don’t need to do this,” said Dr. Isabelle Bedrosian, a professor of surgical oncology and one of the study’s two lead authors. “Hopefully, it’ll reassure patients wondering if they should.”

The study, published online today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that a double mastectomy offers a slight benefit only to breast cancer patients 50 and younger whose tumor is estrogen receptor negative and in the early stages. It found that five of 100 such patients having the preventive surgery lived longer.

The study found no benefit among other double mastectomy patients.

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Dwight Howard had 30 points and 16 rebounds on a perfect shooting night to help the Orlando Magic cruise to a 110-92 victory over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night.

The Magic used a 37-point second quarter to take a commanding lead and the Rockets never really threatened after that.
Houston cut it to 97-88 on Chase Budinger’s 3-pointer with about 3½ minutes remaining. But Vince Carter hit a 3-pointer seconds later to stretch the lead back to double figures and send most of the fans heading to the exits.