EPA: Texas Air Quality Standards Violate Federal Law
The lone star state is no stranger to controversy around problems with air pollution. Houston, Dallas, and many other major Texas cities are found on the federal government's dirty air list due to elevated ground level ozone pollution. This week the EPA said that Texas air pollution rules are out of compliance with the federal Clean Air Act, and proposed an abolition of current permitting practices.
Houston Mayor Bill White told San Antonio Express-News:
“We think Texas' procedures should be improved.”
“We were given only a few weeks to protest a permit that would allow dozens of tons of benzene per year to be put into our air, and there has been no action on the objection to the permit for over six months.”
The permit would have renewed the company's ability to release 45 tons of benzene per year over the next ten years. Even without the renewal, current regulations allow Lyondell to continue releasing benzene, a known carcinogen, at it's current levels.
Critics of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's pollution permitting procedures argue that the organization ignores other nearby facilities and their emissions when considering permits.
Mayor White:
"Each request is approved in a vacuum. Procedures today are tilted towards those putting cancer-causing chemicals in the air in large quantities and against those representing the public interest. They require people objecting to the permit to respond to an application within a matter of weeks, even if the polluter took months to prepare the application, and then the polluter can continue putting chemicals in the air under the old permit even after the old permit expired. That's just not right.”
But wait... what does TCEQ have to say for itself? Here's Richard Hyde, the agency's deputy director:
"Texas is a big state, and we have a lot of permitting programs that are significantly larger than other states. The EPA has a mindset that is a lot different than ours about how we achieve emissions reduction.”
He's right folks, Texas is big! So are their permitting programs, (so what?)
He's also spot on in the second sentence, the EPA has a mindset towards actual emissions reduction, the TCEQ has a mindset of using loopholes and ignoring data, which actually increases emissions. Two very different mindsets indeed.
