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The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is the environmental agency for the state of
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
. The commission's headquarters are located at 12100 Park 35 Circle in
Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...
. The fourth-largest environmental agency in the United States (and the third-largest state environmental agency, behind the
US Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...
, the
California EPA The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is a state cabinet-level agency within the government of California. The mission of CalEPA is to restore, protect and enhance the environment, to ensure public health, environmental quali ...
, and the New York DEC), it employs about 2,780 employees, has 16 regional offices, and has a $420 million operating budget for the 2016 fiscal year.


History


Creation

The history of natural resource protection by the State of Texas is one of gradual evolution from protecting the right of access to natural resources (principally surface water) to a broader role in protecting public health and conserving natural resources for future generations of Texans. Natural resource programs were established in Texas at the turn of the 20th century, motivated initially by concerns over the management of water resources and water rights. In parallel with developments in the rest of the nation, and at the federal level, state natural resource efforts broadened at midcentury to include the protection of air and water resources, and later to the regulation of hazardous and nonhazardous waste generation. During the 1990s, the Texas Legislature moved to make natural-resource protection more efficient by consolidating programs. In 1991, it combined the Texas Water Commission and the Texas Air Control Board to create the first version of the TCEQ, known as the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission until fall 1993. Sunset legislation passed by the Texas Legislature in 2001 changed the agency's name to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and continued the agency until 2013. During the special session of the 81st Legislature (2009), legislation was adopted amending the 2013 date to 2011, when the agency was continued for an additional 12 years and subject to review in 2023.


Probe into Harvey air monitoring

In 2017, the TCEQ had around 500 people assisting in the response to
Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cy ...
. During and long after the event, the agency kept the public informed by posting air-monitoring data in near real time, status of public water systems, and other information on its Hurricane Harvey webpage. In March 2019, the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' reported that TCEQ and the
Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Protection Agency may refer to the following government organizations: * Environmental Protection Agency (Queensland), Australia * Environmental Protection Agency (Ghana) * Environmental Protection Agency (Ireland) * Environmenta ...
(EPA) had refused
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's offer to collect air-pollution data in Harvey's aftermath, wherein NASA would have flown a
DC-8 The Douglas DC-8 (sometimes McDonnell Douglas DC-8) is an early long-range narrow-body jetliner designed and produced by the American Douglas Aircraft Company. Work began in 1952 towards the United States Air Force's (USAF) requirement for a j ...
over Houston to identify up to 450 chemical compounds. Michael Honeycutt of the TCEQ and EPA responded to the press that the TCEQ's ground-level analysis, "which found few problem areas," was the best approach. The TCEQ argued that the NASA data would have been too high in the air to be relevant to people on the ground, and would have overlapped with their own data and been "confusing" or conflicting. The decision resulted in controversy, with opponents arguing the extra data would have been a boon for research and assessing public threats. On March 7, 2019, Congressional Democrats launched a probe into the refusal. The TCEQ posted a letter it received from the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and its response, on its Harvey webpage.


Ethylene oxide

After the Environmental Protection Agency released a report in 2016 on the dangers of
ethylene oxide Ethylene oxide is an organic compound with the chemical formula, formula . It is a cyclic ether and the simplest epoxide: a three-membered ring (chemistry), ring consisting of one oxygen atom and two carbon atoms. Ethylene oxide is a colorless ...
, the TCEQ conducted its own review of the EPA report and concluded that people could safely inhale ethylene oxide at concentrations thousands of times higher than the EPA had concluded. The TCEQ disputed that there was sufficient evidence linking ethylene oxide to breast cancer. Scientists criticized the TCEQ conclusion, saying that the TCEQ omitted studies that linked the chemical to breast cancer and that they used a flawed analysis on the EPA report to draw erroneous conclusions. Texas is the top ethylene oxide polluter in the United States. Its home to 26 facilities that emit the chemical.


Water pollution

According to a 2022 report by the nonprofit Environment America, Texas ranked first among American states in toxic discharges into streams, rivers and lakes. The nonprofit attributed this to the lax regulatory environment in Texas. TCEQ defended its track record, saying it worked "to ensure safe and effective management of pollutants that may enter Texas surface waters."


"Upset" events

Under federal law, companies may have "unintentional and temporary noncompliance" with pollution standards if it is "because of factors beyond the reasonable control of the Industrial User." These instances have been described as "upset" events. It falls to state regulators to scrutinize reported upset emissions. A 2023 report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that there are thousands of reports of "upset" event incidents in Texas, but that the TCEQ only took some enforcement action in one half of one percent of cases.


Commissioners

The TCEQ has three full-time commissioners, who are appointed by the governor, to establish overall agency direction and policy, and to make final determinations on contested permitting and enforcement matters. The commissioners are appointed for six-year terms with the advice and consent of the Texas Senate. A commissioner may not serve more than two six-year terms, and the terms are staggered so that a different member's term expires every two years. The governor also names the chairman of the commission. The current commissioners of the TCEQ are Brooke Paup (chairwoman), Catarina Gonzales, and Bobby Janecka.


Mission statement

"The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality strives to protect our state's public health and natural resources consistent with sustainable economic development. Our goal is clean air, clean water, and the safe management of waste."


Divisions and programs


Office of Air

The Office of Air oversees all air-permitting activities. The office also implements plans to protect and restore air quality in cooperation with local, regional, state, and federal stakeholders. It tracks progress toward environmental goals, adapting plans as necessary. The Air Quality Division works to protect and restore air quality through four programs: Air Implementation Grants, Air Industrial Emissions Assessment, Air Modeling and Data Analysis, and Air Quality Planning. The Air Permits Division processes air permits and authorizations for facilities that, when operational, would emit contaminants into the atmosphere. The division does this through two major air-permitting programs, New Source Review permits and Title V federal operating permits.


Office of Water

The Office of Water oversees all aspects of planning, permitting, and monitoring to protect the state's water resources. The Office of Water is responsible for the implementation of these major programs: * Public Drinking Water * Water Rights * Interstate River Compacts * Watermaster * Districts and Utilities * Groundwater Protection * Texas Surface Water Quality Standards * Nonpoint Source Program * Wastewater, Storm Water, and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation Permitting * Surface Water Quality Monitoring * Watershed Protection Plans and Total Maximum Daily Loads * Galveston Bay Estuary Program


Office of Waste

The office implements federal and state laws related to the regulation of aboveground and underground petroleum storage tanks, generation, treatment, storage, and disposal of municipal, industrial, low-level radioactive, and hazardous wastes, and the recovery and processing of uranium and disposal of byproduct. It also oversees state cleanup of contaminated sites. In the summer of 2016, Texas State Representative John Lujan called upon the commission to clean up a large used-
tire A tire (North American English) or tyre (Commonwealth English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a Rim (wheel), wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide Traction (engineeri ...
dump located in his
San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...
House district. The abandoned tires often contain
mosquito Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a Family (biology), family of small Diptera, flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word ''mosquito'' (formed by ''Musca (fly), mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish and Portuguese for ''little fly''. Mos ...
es,
flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwin ...
,
snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
s, and small animals, and is difficult to spray with
insecticide Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...
s. Lujan first visited the site years earlier when he was a
firefighter A firefighter (or fire fighter or fireman) is a first responder trained in specific emergency response such as firefighting, primarily to control and extinguish fires and respond to emergencies such as hazardous material incidents, medical in ...
; he concluded that conditions have worsened and that the site is a fire hazard, and he implored action by the state.


Office of Compliance and Enforcement

The Office of Compliance and Enforcement enforces compliance with the state's environmental laws, responds to emergencies and natural disasters that threaten human health and the environment, oversees dam safety, and monitors air quality within Texas. In addition, the office oversees the operations of 16 regional offices and one special-project office across the state.


Take Care of Texas

TCEQ spearheads Take Care of Texas, a personal-responsibility campaign to help Texans decrease their impact on the environment. In 2018, country recording artist
Cody Johnson Cody Daniel Johnson (born May 21, 1987) is an American country music singer. He has self-released six albums, including ''Gotta Be Me'', which debuted at number two on ''Billboard''s Country Albums chart, before releasing his first major-label ...
teamed up with the agency to produce a public service announcement that encourages protection of the state's natural resources.- Cody Johnson and TCEQ team up to Take Care of Texas
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See also

* Climate change in Texas


References


External links


Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
** (predecessor agency) {{authority control Environmental Quality, Texas Commission on Environment of Texas State environmental protection agencies of the United States