{"id":36161,"date":"2014-04-22T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T11:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36161"},"modified":"2014-04-22T09:39:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T14:39:23","slug":"texas-pollution-worsens-as-budget-shrinks-for-regulators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/04\/22\/texas-pollution-worsens-as-budget-shrinks-for-regulators\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Pollution Worsens as Budget Shrinks for Regulators"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dave Fehling \/ StateImpact<\/p>

State regulators blame big spikes in emissions to "upsets" at a few facilities like this one in Houston in 2012<\/p><\/div>\n

With budgets already reduced and with more cuts on the way, federal environmental regulators are expected to be doing fewer inspections of industries that pollute. And if state environmental regulators were expected to take up the slack, many of them — including those in Texas —- are dealing with budget cuts of their own.<\/p>\n

“There have been just dramatically fewer [EPA] inspections,” said Bernadette Rappold, a lawyer who spent years working in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement division. She’s now with the McGuireWoods law firm in Washington.<\/p>\n

In the next few years, Rappold said even fewer inspections and enforcement actions are expected if the EPA’s budget-slashing five year plan<\/a> is adopted.<\/p>\n

“It’s not the case that it\u2019s simply the federal EPA that\u2019s been cut and the states can pick up the slack. The states are, in many instances, hurting too.”<\/p>\n