Insider's Report, Vol. 7, No. 39

In the federal government's continued campaign to impose its control over Texas, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this past week announced it was federalizing the air permitting process for the Flint Hills Resources East Refinery in Corpus Christi.  In taking this unprecedented step, the EPA has asserted federal authority over the permitting authority legally delegated to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) sixteen years ago.  In response, I join my colleagues in objecting to Washington's further unjustified encroachment on Texas authority and sovereignty.

It is important to note the Flint Hills facility is currently in compliance with its permit.  And its permit was issued in accordance with a Texas permitting program that was first submitted to the EPA for approval in 1994.  Under federal law, the EPA is required to issue a response within eighteen months.  However, the State never received comment, much less any objection, from the EPA regarding TCEQ's air quality permitting program.  Despite sixteen years of silence regarding this consistently effective permitting process, the EPA now claims TCEQ's air quality program does not comply with the federal Clean Air Act.  But most disconcerting, the EPA's Regional Administrator said the Flint Hills facility is just the first of forty Texas facilities where the federal government plans to take over TCEQ's long-standing regulatory authority.  Dow Chemical Company and Valero's Texas City facility are among installations whose permits have already drawn scrutiny from the EPA.  

The EPA makes this perplexing threat while appearing to ignore its own data and the genuine environmental improvement Texas has achieved.  In my years as Chairman of the Texas House Committee on Environmental Regulation, I was instrumental in crafting legislation that has enabled Texas to make tremendous strides in protecting our environment, while also maintaining vital industrial jobs in Brazoria County and throughout the State.  Texas now has the most extensive air monitoring network in the United States, with approximately 1,230 monitors at 200 sites throughout the State.  TCEQ's Flexible Permits Program has resulted in over 260,000 tons of reductions in actual emissions from otherwise unregulated grandfathered facilities.  Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in Texas have decreased significantly from 800,000 tons per year in 2000 to approximately 350,000 tons per year in 2009.  And despite being the nation's energy capital, Texas has the eleventh lowest NOx emissions rate for power plants among all states according to EPA data.  

The EPA's unilateral and unwarranted takeover of air quality permits in Texas further proves that the federal government has a clear disregard for the authority and sovereignty of the State of Texas.  Washington apparently is seeking to control all sectors of economic activity.  But Texas has achieved both a clean environment and a job market that is stronger than the nation as a whole, and we can continue to balance those goals without the heavy-handed micro-management of the federal government.  I intend to pursue all possible steps to prevent the federal takeover of air quality permitting in Texas.