RECOVERY INDICATORS
Houston’s purchasing manager index provides a positive signal for the area’s economy
The Houston and state economies are gaining strength as vaccinations slow the spread of the coronavirus, increase consumer confidence and improve business outlooks, according to recent economic indicators.
Those indicators, tracking activity in manufacturing and service businesses, point to an expanding and accelerating economy. On Tuesday, the Institute for Supply Management-Houston reported that its closely watched Houston Purchasing Managers Index climbed to its highest reading in two years.
The index, which tracks the economy based on surveys of purchasing managers, climbed to 57.8 last month, the eighth consecutive month of readings above 50 and the highest since April of 2019.
Readings above 50 signal expansion in Houston’s goods producing sectors, below 50 a contraction.
Over the last year, the Houston PMI captured the economy’s struggles during the pandemic. Last April, the PMI fell to 34.6, the lowest reading on record and an indication that the downturn was more severe than the Great Recession, according to an analysis from the Greater Houston Partnership, a business-financed economic development group.
“Though the PMI has pointed toward expansion since August, the strength of that expansion has waned when the virus surged, as it did in late fall and over the holidays,” the analysis said. “Vaccine rollouts improved the near-term outlook starting in January, and the latest reading marks the strongest sign of recovery since the pandemic began.”
Statewide surveys by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas also
billed as the largest refrigerant plant in the world.
The NRDC, along with the state of Colorado and the nonprofit Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, is urging the EPA to reinstate regulations issued in 2015 to phase out HFCs.
Those rules were later blocked by a federal judge, who found the EPA had overstepped its authority.
But now, with Congress plainly giving the EPA the authority to regulate HFCS, the path appears clear for the EPA to move ahead, the NRDC said.
At the same time, the industry group Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute has submitted a petition to EPA to ban the use of HFCs across several commercial refrigeration applications.
“While not identical, the two take a similar view where it counts,” the NRDC said in a press release. “EPA should quickly outlaw use of the most potent HFCs in supermarket systems and other big refrigeration installations.”