Toxic Tuesday in the Senate
April 18th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Bills dealing with Texas’ nasty problem with toxic air pollution had their day in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources last night. Air toxics include a class of largely unregulated chemicals, carcinogens like benzene and 1,3-butadiene, plaguing communities near petrochemical facilities in Houston, Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, and other locales. Texas has four of the five most toxic-laden counties in the U.S.
Led by Houston Mayor Bill White, public health advocates and some state lawmakers are calling on the state to stamp out toxic “hotspots” or at least rein in the emissions. Here’s your web-exclusive wrap-up of last night’s fun.
• Things kicked off with SB 1317, an industry-friendly bill by Sen. Mike Jackson (R-LaPorte), that would block Houston and other cities from using nuisance ordinances to regulate air pollution from outside the city. Clean air advocate Meg Healy, with GHASP!, was blunt in her criticism of Jackson’s proposal. “This bill has no other purpose than to protect the most significant polluters from the increased scrutiny of the city,” she said.
Mayor White was on hand to point out that Houston is only taking action because the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the EPA have done next to nothing about the problem. Two years ago, White asked TCEQ to set maximum limits on the ambient concentration of toxic chemicals. “They said they would take it under consideration,” White said. “They did not.” Houston has already had success pressuring polluters operating within the city limits to reduce butadiene levels over the past two years. But Sen. Jackson said he didn’t like the idea of the “long hand [sic] of government” reaching into other jurisdictions.
“Nobody has a right to chemically alter the atmosphere in a way that you know is dangerous to human health…and send [pollution] for somebody’s child or grandmother to breath,” said White. White suggested that if committee members didn’t like the idea of a city regulating air pollution then maybe they ought to think about - hint, hint - passing some of the other bills up for consideration in committee. Sen. Jackson closed on his bill with this Rumsfeldian gem: “The more you learn, the more that you learn there’s more to learn.” Sen. Jackson has been in the Texas Legislature for 20 years.
• Next up was Sen. Mario Gallegos’ SB 1855, which would require TCEQ to identify toxic “hotspots” and set maximum concentration levels for five key chemicals - benzene, 1,3-butadiene, diesel particulate matter, ethylene dichloride, and nickel. SB 1855 also lays out a plan for TCEQ to actually start doing some regulating. “The key thing we want [legislators] to know is the hotspot bill will make it possible for the TCEQ to address the toxics problem in Houston,” Healy told the Observer. “If they’re upset about what the City of Houston is doing, pass 1855.”
Elena Marks, with the City of Houston, testified that companies in Louisiana and California have made great strides in reducing their toxics emissions because those states have established industry-wide standards. Juan Parras, an activist and resident in Houston’s polluted East End that the Observer’s Dave Mann recently wrote about, pointed out that a recent epidemiological study found that children along Houston’s Ship Channel have a 56 percent higher risk of acquiring lymphocytic leukemia.
• SB 1924, by Gallegos, would require the TCEQ to hold annual public hearings in “hotspot” communities listed on the agency’s air pollutant watch list. This seems like a minor change but would have the effect of raising the profile of refineries and chemical plants with particularly egregious emissions. Call it regulation by shame.
The prospects for these toxics bills, at this late date in the session, do not look good. Even if the Senate does take action, the Chairman of House Environmental Regulation, Rep. Dennis Bonnen has not exactly been kind to the companion legislation. Beth O’Brien, with Public Citizen, said Bonnen had promised advocates he would give the bills a public airing last week. People made travel plans to attend the hearing but - lo and behold - Bonnen changed his mind.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
[…] restrict Houston’s ability to force petrochemical polluters to clean up their act. As we reported in April, SB 1317 by Mike Jackson (R-La Porte), 86s Houston Mayor Bill White’s proposal to […]