Happy Friday, Houston! The weekend is just around the corner, so let's get right into headlines this morning.
Here are five things to know today.
• This morning, DuPont (NYSE: DD) announced its biggest deal since DowDuPont split up, according to Reuters. The Delaware-based company will sell most of its Mobility & Materials business segment to Irving, Texas-based Celanese Corp. (NYSE: CE) for $11 billion in cash. The M&M segment includes the Engineering Polymers business line and select product lines within the Performance Resins and Advanced Solutions business lines. DowDuPont, which was formed through the merger of Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont, had a significant presence in Houston. The companies had been planning to split since the merger was announced in 2015, and the spinoffs began in 2019. Both Dow and DuPont still have local presences, with DuPont listing a location in Bayport and one along the north Beltway.
• Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner this week announced plans to raise the minimum wage for municipal, contract and service-related workers to $15 an hour. The increase is expected to take effect for city of Houston and Houston First janitorial and security contracts by December, and he also signed an executive order to raise Houston airport workers' minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2023. Last year, the city announced it would raise municipal employees' minimum hourly pay rate to $15 as well. Increasing minimum employee pay has been a big issue for employers during the pandemic as they try to attract and retain workers amid a tight labor market.
• Also this week, the state of Texas sued the Biden administration over the federal transportation mask mandate, specifically targeting the mask requirement for airplanes and airports. However, the mandate also applies to several other modes of public transportation and transportation hubs. The order has been in place since February 2021 and is currently set to expire March 18, U.S. News & World Report notes. In other mask-related news, Houston resident Arael Doolittle was sentence to 54 months in prison for a scheme to sell 50 million non-existent N95 facemasks to the Australian government, the Department of Justice announced. Doolittle pleaded guilty in July.
• The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is closing oyster reefs in four bays: Galveston Bay, Matagorda Bay, San Antonio Bay and Aransas Bay, KHOU 11 reports. More than 100 people affected by the decision protested outside of the department's office in Dickinson on Wednesday, urging the end of the state's “traffic light” system, which regulates the opening and closing of reefs. “What that did is concentrate all the boats on one or two little areas of the Texas coast, which was very destructive,” one business owner told KHOU of the latest change. Repeat storms and heavy fishing on certain reefs were cited as the reasons for the closures. However, most Houston restaurants use mostly farmed oysters, the Texas Restaurant Association told KHOU. Oyster season lasts from Nov. 1 through April 30 in Texas.
• Finally, Rice University President David Leebron and Provost Reginald DesRoches, the incoming president, published a letter last week announcing new goals for carbon neutrality. "The urgency of climate change has led us to reevaluate the timing of our commitment to become carbon neutral as a university by a specified year, which was set at 2038 back in 2013," the letter reads in part. "Recognizing the need for more rapid global action, we are committing that Rice will become carbon neutral by 2030. Our sustainability, facilities and finance teams will partner with the Rice Management Co. to identify viable emissions reduction opportunities, while also pursing steps to “harden” Rice’s utility infrastructure to withstand the rising risk of interruption that comes with a changing climate."