Voluntary Industry Program Has Done Little to Cut Texas Air Pollution

Texas state capitol Austin on a good day and a high ozone day

The study casts doubt on the Republican presidential candidate's pledge to reduce air pollution nationwide by similar measures.

A number of older industrial plants, all built or begun prior to 1970, are exempt from state permit requirements. These "grandfathered" plants are not required to meet the same emissions standards required of newer facilities under the federal Clean Air Act.

In the 1999 session of the Texas legislature, an effort to mandate reductions was headed off when the governor's office asked industry representatives to draft a voluntary program in which grandfathered facilities would be given time to come up with voluntary cleanup plans.

"These facilities were given more time to clean up their acts, but they've continued their assault on the lungs on Texans," said Jim Marston, head of the Texas office of the national conservation group Environmental Defense.

The voluntary Texas plan provided for a streamlined permit hearing process that largely excludes the public. The plan also provides immunity for companies seeking emissions permits that might have liability for past failures to obtain required permits.

The law took effect on September 1, 1999, and is frequently touted by Governor Bush as an example of his voluntary approach to environmental protection.

A new analysis by the Texas Air Crisis Campaign (TACC), however, indicates that the voluntary program has produced almost no reductions, actual or promised, in harmful pollution from the grandfathered plants. The Campaign is a coordinated effort by 44 public interest groups to improve air quality in Texas.

Among the study's findings:

• More than one third of the permits -- 50 of 138 -- issued under the voluntary program to non-utility plants have not made or promised any emissions reductions at all.

• The reductions reported by TNRCC include not only reductions already made but reductions promised in years ahead

• A majority of the claimed emissions reductions - about 85 out of 138 permits - cannot be attributed to the new law because the permit cited was granted prior to the law's effective date.

• Of those reductions contained in later permits, more than half come from facilities in the Houston/Galveston, Dallas/Fort Worth and Beaumont/Pt. Arthur areas, which have new mandatory emission reduction requirements.

If the reductions already underway before the law took effect are combined with the reductions mandated by new regional rules, the remaining reductions attributable to the law passed last year amount to just 0.3 percent of total emissions from the plants, Marston said.

"This is not rocket science," said Marston. "California decided years ago to protect its citizens' health, and they've made major strides. Meanwhile, Texas has stalled and delayed and dilly-dallied and resisted and now leads the nation in dangerous air days -- not just in the number of days, but in the level of dangerous emissions our children are breathing."

Houston, Texas now rivals Los Angeles as the nation's smoggiest city.

Commissioner Ralph Marquez of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, who helped write the voluntary program, said it is still too early to determine whether voluntary emissions reductions will work to reduce the state's air pollution problems.

Marquez also charged the Clinton administration with doing even less to address grandfathered emissions.

Governor Bush's administration has cited 73 plants as "early volunteers" that committed to pollution reductions before the new law passed, claiming these companies as evidence that the state's voluntary approach would work.

But the TACC study found that just 19 of these 73 have received permits under the new law, and just five of these permits cover all grandfathered emissions.