{"id":1350,"date":"2011-11-09T08:56:34","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T14:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=1350"},"modified":"2013-11-15T20:39:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-16T02:39:38","slug":"texas-stands-out-on-polluter-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/09\/texas-stands-out-on-polluter-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Stands Out on Polluter List"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A refinery along the Texas Coast. Photo by Teresa Vierira.<\/p><\/div>\n\n

NPR reporters, working with the Center for Public Integrity, reviewed never-before published lists compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to track polluters. \u00a0Roughly one in 10 factories on the most recent list is in Texas. \u00a0Some of those facilities have been on the watch list for years.<\/p>\n

Kelly Haragan runs the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Texas Austin. She is a great source, but interviews with her are likely to be interrupted. You see, Haragan gets a notification on her phone every time factories emit more pollution than normal.<\/p>\n

“<\/em>This is a tank battery fire,” she said, thumbing through her message. “This one says there\u2019s no danger to the public, which is what most of them say. And sometimes they will tell people to shelter in place, and they will tell people to put wet towels around their doors and on their windows.”<\/p>\n

Haragan gets those notifications all the time, which leads her and other critics to the same conclusion: the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the State agency responsible for regulating pollution, is not<\/em> doing its job.<\/p>\n

A Very Sweet Deal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew Tejada runs Air Alliance Houston, a clean air advocacy group. He sums up Texas relationship with polluters by saying Texas has offered “a very sweet deal to polluters for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bryan Shaw, Chair of the TCEQ , has defended Agency policy, arguing that a strong economy is necesary for environmental enforcement. Photo by Mose Buchele for KUT News.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tejada says there are many ways that this \u201csweet deal\u201d is offered. He points to a cap <\/em>on fees that polluters pay to the state. The fee is only charged on the first ten thousand tons of pollution. After that, a company is not charged for any additional tonnage.<\/p>\n

He calls it a system “which basically means that the biggest polluters in the state are paying the same fee for their pollution as the medical waste incinerator at the local county hospital.”
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Then there are the penalties when a polluter violates an environmental regulation. Up until recently, fines to polluters were capped at 10,000 dollars a day by the TCEQ, even for a massive pollution event. Critics say a lot of companies do the math and decide it\u2019s cheaper to keep polluting than to clean up their acts.<\/p>\n

“There will be penalties that are fairly low,” said UT Kelly Haragan. “And then there will be little of what we call injunctive relief. Or action to actually fix the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Byzantine Structure of Policies and Precedents<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to enforcing environmental laws, even former TCEQ commissioners describe a byzantine collection of precedents and policies that make consistent enforcement difficult.<\/p>\n

“It creates too much, sometimes, subjectivity, and a lot of inconsistency,”\u00a0 Larry Soward, a former TCEQ commissioner, told State Impact Texas. “And it is frustrating for everyone involved.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soward is an unlikely critic. He was appointed by Governor Rick Perry, but he became critical of what he saw as the business-friendly atmosphere at the TCEQ.<\/p>\n

“I mean Governor Perry has appointed all three commissioners, and they were appointed as I was appointed,” he said. “To support his philosophies and policies where appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the last Texas legislative session, Soward worked to push the pollution penalty cap from $10,000 up to $25,000 dollars a day. But by his estimation, that’s still too small to make a difference in some cases.\u00a0 He also joined activists to press for TCEQ enforcement to be codified in rules. Those changes will be implemented in the coming year. Soward says the TCEQ has been resistant to new rules \u2013 \u00a0preferring more flexibility in enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know many instances in which there would be enforcement actions, pending six eight, ten years” he said. “And it’s to a violators advantage.”<\/p>\n

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