MONDAY NEWS LINKS:

TCEQ Issuing Higher Economic Fines to Texas Polluters

Posted byHoumanitarian
Image: State Impact Texas (Dave Fehling)

Dave Fehling, State Impact Texas
For years, critics of how Texas enforces environmental regulations have charged that polluters didn’t pay enough when caught, that it was cheaper for big corporations to pay the fine than obey the law. But the newest member appointed to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Toby Baker, said changes made by the state legislature are putting more bite in enforcement.

“It’s still relatively early to see what kind of effect those higher fines are having. But the major emission events are getting fined at a higher level than they have in the past,” Baker told StateImpact Texas.

Starting in late 2011, the limit on pollution penalties jumped from $10,000 a day to $25,000 a day. Since enforcement cases can take months, if not years, Baker said gauging exactly how much deterrent value the higher fines will have is premature. But he believes it will be make a difference. “I think it’s got people’s attention,” said Baker.

[…]“The $25,000 change is not near high enough to get anybody’s attention,” said Rock Owens, lead environmental lawyer for the Harris County Attorney’s office.

Located in Houston, home to some of the nation’s biggest petrochemical refining complexes, the County Attorney’s office has brought its own civil suits against polluters. Its lawyers have expressed frustration with what they said was a TCEQ more concerned with keeping a politically-powerful industry happy than with protecting people from pollution.

“In the past, the TCEQ’s policy regarding administrative penalties has been to accommodate the desires of industry, (imposing) penalties in amounts that are simply ‘the cost of doing business’”, said Owens.

Larry Soward, who served as a TCEQ commissioner from 2006 to 2009, said “not many” companies are so cavalier as to consider fines as a business expense. “If you’re only fining that company $10,000 a day, or even $25,000 a day, for a huge pollution event, that’s not really commensurate with the harm that’s being done,” said Soward.

Now with the clean air advocacy group Air Alliance Houston, Soward says he’s working to convince the TCEQ to dramatically increase those per-day fines for upsets.
(Read and hear more of this story at State Impact Texas)

LOCAL AREA HEADLINES:

STATE, NATION & WORLD: