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Texas’ Flexible Emissions Permits May Not Comport With Federal Law Texas’ industry-friendly approach to air quality permitting is being challenged on several fronts due to a lawsuit by the Sierra Club and a change of guard at the EPA.
In early June the Sierra Club informed the EPA that if it didn’t force Texas to comply with the Clean Air Act in 60 days, the agency would be sued in federal court. The group argued that Gov. Rick Perry’s administration has allowed industry in the state to pollute at levels in excess of those allowed by federal standards.
At issue are the state’s so-called “flexible” air quality permits, which allow emissions to be capped for an entire site rather than for individual units within the site. These permits cover some of the largest refineries and power plants in Texas, and environmentalists have argued that they make it possible for these entities to operate without upgrading equipment.
In 2007, the EPA under the Bush administration notified all flexible permit holders that they might be in violation of federal clean air standards.
The Sierra Club also said the state has not fully enforced the implementation plan developed by its own Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The TCEQ is facing a sunset review by the state legislature in 2011.
The Obama administration has named Al Armendariz, a former SMU engineering professor who previously did battle with the TCEQ over pollution from gas wells in North Texas, to the position of regional EPA administrator.
Gov. Perry has framed any possible EPA interference in Texas air quality enforcement as a states’ rights issue, criticizing the federal approach to regulation as “command and control” and saying that the “common-sense” approach taken by the state helps create jobs.
Perry argued that all of Texas' major cities except Dallas-Fort Worth are in compliance with the EPA's 1997 eight-hour ground-level ozone standards. Houston met the standard for the first time last year.
The flexible permitting system was first passed under the administration of Gov. Ann Richards in 1993. At the time, the EPA did not make any formal objection to the Texas program. In response to the 2007 EPA challenge, a consortium of Texas industry interests sued the federal agency and won. The court instructed the EPA to issue rulings on 30 state permitting rules. The EPA has been following the court-mandated schedule, but now these rulings will be issued by EPA administrators who may be willing to take a more aggressive stance against the state’s pro-industry regulations. |
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