According to the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention, the TCEQ is not living up to its general commitments to “consider any and all strategies for cleaning Houston’s air.” Additionally, some TCEQ Commissioners indicate that they may be backing away from TCEQ’s commitment to meet new clean air standards by 2007.

The Commission proposed a mid-course review for the Houston-Galveston area’s air quality, an update to the Rate-of-Progress portion of the plan, “SIP,” for cleaner air, and several rule changes. These rules did not include a number of strategies that area environmental groups hoped would be considered to reduce industrial pollution, which means that formal public debate on those strategies is effectively cut-off. According to GHASP’s Executive Director, John Wilson, the agency has “failed to formally open for comment a number of critical rules that could play a useful role” in cleaning up Houston’s air.

Wilson wrote a letter to the TCEQ Commissioners with a list of proposals that should be considered. These proposals included further control of industrial emissions of other reactive Volatile Organic Compounds and establishing a more stringent regional cap on industrial nitrogen oxides emissions in East Harris County. According to GHASP’s analysis of air quality monitoring data gathered by TCEQ, Houston’s most unhealthy air is in the industrial areas located along the Houston Ship Channel between the 610 East Loop and Deer Park. GHASP’s report “Where Does Houston’s Smog Come From” found that in the most heavily polluted areas of the Houston Ship Channel, an individual’s lifetime cancer risk is 1,000 times higher than the Clean Air Act’s goals.

Despite the health risks of not doing more to reduce industrial emissions from businesses in the Houston Ship Channel, TCEQ excluded a number of potentially helpful solutions from its original proposal. Several of TCEQ’s recommended proposals are likely to produce some moderate benefits, but, according to Wilson, “the TCEQ has not presented an effective strategy for protecting public health.”

The Clean Air Act requires states to meet basic clean air standards to continue receiving federal highway funds, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has changed the basic standards for complying with the act and postponed the compliance deadline. Some officials at TCEQ now question whether the state should remain true to its previous commitments for improved air quality in the shorter term or simply shift focus to the new EPA standards, which allow more time to pass before meaningful improvement in the region’s air quality. Environmental groups including GHASP and Environmental Defense have called on TCEQ to keep prior commitments to the citizens of Texas and stay focused on public health above threats of lost highway dollars

TCEQ committed itself to bringing the Houston-Galveston region into compliance with the one-hour ozone standard by 2007. At the TCEQ Commissioner's Agenda on May 26, the ommissioners had an extended conversation about whether the region must continue to meet the one-hour standard in the Houston-Galveston region in light of the EPA’s new eight-hour standard, but no definitive conclusion was reached.

The one-hour standard requires that air pollution not exceed national standard over any one-hour period of time. Since that time, the EPA has embraced a new eight-hour standard that is generally more protective than the one-hour standard because it considers the average air quality over an eight hour period. Still, the Houston-Galveston area would not be forced to comply with the eight-hour standard until at least 2010 and will likely apply for an extension that would not require compliance until 2013.

In addition to the delay in the new standard, there are gaps in the protection that the new standard would offer. According to a GHASP analysis of 2000 through 2003 air quality data, only the one-hour standard was breached on about 7 percent of the days where one of the two standards was breached. This means that a sole focus on the eight-hour standard could leave Houston residents breathing unhealthy air about three more days per year than a dual standard. While acknowledging that the eight-hour standard might not effectively protect the public from one-hour health effects, the EPA will likely abandon the one-hour standard to avoid issues presented by enforcing the standard.

TCEQ will hold public hearings on the proposal in Houston, Beaumont and Austin during the first week of August and will accept written comments through August 9. While TCEQ has limited the solutions that are open for formal comment, concerned members of the public can take advantage of this opportunity to comment on the current proposal.

Dustin Rynders is a law student and policy analyst at the University of Houston.