The House Committee on Environmental Regulation met on Monday, March 1st, 2021 to consider organizational matters and hear from TCEQ and DSHS. A video of this hearing can be found here.
The HillCo report below is a summary of remarks intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics discussed. This report is not a verbatim transcript; it is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
Opening Comments
- Landgraf – We have invited two state agencies we will be working with TCEQ and the Department on State Health Services
- Dominguez – Aim to answer how we navigate this better
Ramiro Garcia, Deputy Executive Director TCEQ
- Provides an overview on the work of TCEQ and their mission
- Has seen what environmental agencies can do to small businesses; regulations can be complicated, but they have great tools to help people comply
- Provides general overview of the agency; 3 full time commissioners appointed by governor that establish overall agency direction and policy
- 2,829 employees, 70% in Austin and the rest in outside regions, over $354 million for budget which will change
- Core functions are compliance and enforcement, monitoring, permitting, planning, and litigation
- Highlights Volkswagen lawsuit that Texas was a beneficiary of and the allocation of those funds
- Office of Waste regulates uranium mining, disposal/storage/processing of radioactive waste, pollution impacts, safe management of waste, and occupational licensing and registration
- Office of water deals with water rights disputes, public drinking water program, fulfill boil water notices, and establish water quality standards
- Office of Compliance and Enforcement investigates complaints; FY20 conducted 108,236 agency-wide
- Office of Legal Services represents TCEQ and acts as liaison to District Attorney
- Office of Administrative Services deals with budget; have 15 separate funds with approximately 100 individual fees and houses an underutilized business program
- Goodwin – Learned about some complaints during the interim from Earthworks about venting and flaring situations; does TCEQ have rules regarding how long you have to respond to reports of pollution? What is the investigation process?
- Depends on the complaint and type of evidence that we have; could be things like citizens collected evidence, and evidence has to meet certain quality requirements
- We try to respond in 30 days, if an emergency will respond immediately
- Go through evidence to decide on a response, send out questionnaires, etc.
- Goodwin – Is it reasonable to take months to respond to these pollution complaints?
- Not at all; we strive to get them done as quickly as we can
- Depending on work load it can take longer, if you have specific ones in mind I would be glad to sit down and take a look
- Goodwin – Curious as to what TCEQ did to stop pollution at those sites?
- I do not have all the actions we took in those specific cases; we could have taken out cameras to see it ourselves, others could have ended up with a notice of violation.
- Goodwin – In terms of penalties, what would it take to ensure that companies do not continue that?
- We have made changes since ITP and TCP events, updated penalty process to increase accountability
- More focused investigations, potential increasement of penalties when appropriate, leveraging technology to better focus resources and monitor data
- Goodwin – You mention being able to increase penalties, you can do that on your own it’s not a legislative requirement?
- Generally, $25,000 is our maximum in error; have a penalty policy that takes the base penalty and then applies different criteria like how many days, good faith effort, etc. to make sure our penalty structures are fair
- Is more flexibility to penalize higher if appropriate; max penalties are statutory driven
- Goodwin – Are you at the maximum now?
- There have been some cases where we have hit the statutory max
- Goodwin – Does that seem to be curbing these companies from violating the rules?
- I feel its effective, yes
- Goodwin – You also mentioned at the end of your presentation about how the winter storm caused outages at some refineries; What was the outcome concerning pollution?
- Toxicologist still going through data, some ambient monitors were affected by outages
- Have investigators and vans out recording footage, so far feedback has been no contaminants or levels of concern, only reported one more serious situation and it was taken care of
- Luckily, no issues of concern with the start ups
- Goodwin – Start-ups indicate point of time after when all the stuff was released? Did you measure it at the point of time when they were shut off and the pollutants were released?
- When the shutdowns occurred, it was during power outages
- Unsafe to get staff on the road but there is some data from ambient stations, do not remember anything of concern but do not have that information on me
- Start-up is another point where emissions are released
- Goodwin – Noticed 70% of staff are in Austin and was surprised; is that because they are more administrative than investigative?
- Staff in the central Austin office is our attorneys, administrative services, and permitting programs (air, water, waste) which are the bulk of our people
- Also have air lab and air monitoring division here
- Reynolds – Glad you pointed out TCEQ’s involvement with managing events of winter storm, particularly when it came to water; what aspects did TCEQ have?
- Two aspects, water and air with water as probably the number one
- Reynolds – Was the air monitor for chemicals or quality of the air? That is broad
- Yes, along the coast we had the bulk of the shutdowns; in those situations, we got data from up and running monitors
- As soon as things were safe, we were online to fire things back up or send folks out there to look at them
- Reynolds – Does Ambient Air monitor greenhouse gas emissions?
- Yes, monitors criteria pollutants
- As our investigators were able to get in, we sent them with handheld equipment and position ourselves to help; another big part was water
- Reynolds – TCEQ was in charge of boil water notice, correct?
- That is the public water system
- Reynolds – But you give them that information? How do they get the heads up?
- Boil water notices occur for many different reasons, for them as they lost pressure, they let us know the criteria and then they issue the notice
- Reynolds – Does TCEQ make the call of when they come off?
- They make the call, but we look over their shoulder as a regulatory
- Water services were in contact and working with them; learned that emergency generators were fair weather, their feed lines froze up, etc.
- We were not prepared for 5-degree weather
- Reynolds – It is my understanding over 4.3 million Texans lost power, is that your understanding?
- I am not sure
- Reynolds – More specifically, over 16 million had water issues?
- Yes
- Reynolds – Does TCEQ have resources to take steps so that Texas is not in the situation again? What is TCEQ doing about best practices and changes to help us?
- Absolutely, we are keeping notes of lessons learned; having work sessions with commissioners to discuss what was learned about our regulatory structure
- Hearing from the people who handled it well to learn from them
- Reynolds – TCEQ has scientists and all kinds of subject matter aspects and you do a lot of research; has TCEQ, done any research or studies on the impact of climate change on the weather and events?
- Not to my knowledge but after each major event we do an action report.
- Discuss what could be done better after each one
- Reynolds – If we need to do that with this committee would TCEQ move in that direction?
- It is something we would be willing to discuss with the committee and we will follow your will
- Dean – It was asked did TCEQ make the water boil decision and the answer was no, is that correct?
- Yes
- Dean – They treated the water to make sure that now, through proper protocol, the water does not need to be boiled, correct?
- Yes
- Dean – Did we have a lot of pollution as the result of normal chemical plant shutdowns?
- In some situations; there are different kinds of shutdowns
- Dean – Chemical plans go through semi-annual shutdowns
- That is exactly right
- Dean – Have you ever measured when they start back up, if we are going to get into the details of the potential pollution from the storm, could you compare this particular event to the normal startups?
- When we have a controlled shut down it is under protection; typically, we see higher emissions when unplanned
- Dean – When looking at what worked and did not, you will have data to assess how much pollution was really created from the event?
- Because it was reported through the State of Texas environmental reporting system, we can run queries and compare against emissions inventories
Steven Pahl, Associate Commissioner Consumer Protection Division DSHS
- Public safety is managed through licensing, inspection, and regulation of products in critical environments
- We have a radiation, asbestos, lead-based paint, and abused volatile chemical programs
- We develop licensing standards, policies, and rule-making by partnering with stakeholders such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, TCEQ, Railroad Commission, Texas Radiation Advisory Board, Department of Energy, and the EPA
- Radiation program will train local jurisdictions on the I-20 and 176 route
- Asbestos program is designed to reduce exposure to fibers in commercial and governmental buildings
- Generate revenue through licensing and abatement notifications, 7,800 current licenses in asbestos program
- Inspections, rule-making, standards, and sampling are actions taken by us
- Homes and child-occupied facilities prior to 1978 will most likely have some lead-based paint in them
- Primary focus is younger people and ensuring those conducting inspections and licenses are properly trained
- US EPA grant funds require a match
- Offer education to companies who produce chemicals that can potentially cause harm or be abused
- The radiation program regulates the use, storage, and possession of radioactive materials to prevent unnecessary exposure
- The radiation program generates fees through licensing and it currently has 24,000 licenses, 75% of these are X-ray registrations
- Maintain compatibility of radioactive machines in the 1963 agreement between the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Texas
- We monitor outside the perimeters of nuclear sites, do not regulate nuclear sites
- Emergency response exercises are conducted
- Goodwin – I was curious if you do research on how the environment affects health?
- My department does not but I will get back to you with some more information