MAKE POLLUTION HISTORY: TCEQ Sunset Review

This year presents Texans with a once-in-a-decade opportunity to improve the way our state environmental agency carries out its mission to protect our health and natural resources. Currently, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is under review by Texas lawmakers, who will recommend improvements to the agency and, ultimately, pass “sunset” legislation that will shape the way TCEQ operates for the next ten-plus years.

Texans expect our environmental agency to protect our health. Right now, TCEQ often falls short of these expectations. The sunset review process offers all concerned Texans a chance to advocate for much-needed reforms at TCEQ.

Alliance for a Clean Texas (ACT) is Texas' umbrella organization for conservation, consumer, faith and other groups to work together on environmental concerns. As a founding member of ACT, Texas Impact is helping to organize grassroots education and advocacy around the TCEQ sunset process.

WHY IT’S TIME TO IMPROVE TCEQ

AIR
The U.S. EPA has declared TCEQ’s air pollution permit system violates the federal Clean Air Act and fails to allow significant public participation.

WATER
TCEQ recently proposed rules that would increase the amount of E. coli bacteria allowed in Texas waterways before they are considered polluted.

WASTE
Rather than require new landfills to meet decades-old federal standards, TCEQ currently allows trash facilities to expand atop old landfills—frequently over sites without protective liners—often creating literal mountains of garbage.

JUSTICE
TCEQ’s enforcement of pollution violations is so weak that, in many cases, paying the penalty costs less than actually cleaning up the problem. In other words, in Texas it often pays to pollute.