Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ)
Famous amongst Texans for receiving multiple complaints and doing nothing about it. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, often referred to by its acronym 'TCEQ' is the state's version of the federal agency 'EPA' (Environmental Protection Agency), with the sole purpose of protecting the state's public health and natural resources with the three goals of clean air, clean water, and the safe management of waste; as it has stated on its government website. But, has it lived up to its standards? short answer: Not exactly.
Operation
The TCEQ has its operations divided into three areas: Air, Water, Waste. Each of these have its own monitoring network, data and permitting processes.
Regulations and Permits
The oil and gas permitting process is supposed to ensure that sites meet both state and federal requirements related to air pollution. When a new site is built it requires an air quality permit and the permit determines the amount of pollutants the facility can emit.
The TCEQ has different types of permits and different offices. Oil and Gas permitting is housed within the Office of Air and their two most common permits are:
Standard Permits
Designated to higher emitting facilities.
Permits by Rule
Designated to lower emitting facilities.
when browsing information about the agency; one of the first things that will come up in the search will include a variety of reports including the ones made by environmental non-profit Public Citizen, stating their multiple efforts to get the agency's attention on Clean Air violations and complaints on their constant approval of permits.
Permit Approvals
Refinery in Corpus Christi, Tx
On May 25, 2010, the EPA barred the TCEQ from issuing a permit for a refinery in Texas which violated the Clean Air Act, according to the EPA's Region 6 administrator.
Permian Basin
Earlier in 2022 Climate TRACE titled the Permian Basin as the world's biggest polluter; emitting more than 200 million tons of greenhouse emissions the year previous alone. Spectrum news requested information from the TCEQ in regards of this statement from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt and asked what were the actions been taken to address it; to which the TCEQ responded with: Good Afternoon! We have no comment on this matter.[1]
"I've made over 140 complaints to the Texas Commission on Enviromental Quality and they've only taken action in 12% of those; all of these included video evidence."
Stated Sharon Wilson with Earthworks when asked if the state agencies were doing their job properly; during a docufilm directed by her and another member of the Earthworks Texas field team, Miguel Escoto. [2]
One of the complaints made by Earthworks was with an MDC Texas Operator, LLC site in Nov, 14th 2019. Earthworks didn't get word from the agency until May 26th, 2020 when they started the investigation. The TCEQ found the site was committing 6 violations; including not having an air quality permit, and proceeded to ask the operator to begin fixing it; this was after almost a year of receiving the complaint.[3] After not hearing back for a while, Earthworks sent an open letter to both the TCEQ and the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) outlining the history of misconduct from the MDC Pickpocket 21 drilling site where they documented the intense plumes of climate and health-harming pollutants like methane and volatile organic compounds (VOC) they recorded from the site. Despite this, the agencies didn't shut down the site but instead gave MDC the opportunity to apply for a permit so they could continue to operate under the same circumstances but with a permit now.[4]
Sources
- ↑ https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/2022/11/16/texas--permian-basin-identified-as-the-world-s-top-polluter
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMT2ESXlZ14
- ↑ https://earthworks.org/releases/texas-regulators-allow-unpermitted-oil-well-to-pollute-for-10-months-so-far/
- ↑ https://earthworks.org/blog/how-regulators-regulations-fail-tceq-permitting/