Clearing the Air in Texas

Light & Medium Truck, May 2005 by Varhola, Michael J

From the Editor

Believe it or not, it's hard not to write about Texas these days. Last month, this space was devoted to a discussion of the numerous environmental violations - thousands of them actually - at an American Electric Power generating plant near the east Texas town of Pittsburg. And after the British Petroleum refinery in Houston blew up in late March, a number of stories broke about environmental and safety violations, not just at that site but at others in the region, and I was tempted to revisit the Lone Star State right away. I managed to resist that urge, however.

But Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) has, in a metaphorical sense, invited me back. According to an April 4 report by the Environment & Energy Publishing news service, Barton has proposed amending the energy bill currently before the House to include provisions that would allow Dallas-Fort Worth and other metropolitan areas more time to meet federal ground-level ozone pollution standards.

In his capacity as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Barton pushed hard last year to exempt Ellis County, Texas, from these standards, saying that the Environmental Protection Agency should not penalize it for having a multitude of cement kilns and steel plants.

An EPA policy enacted in 1998 allowed similar exemptions to Dallas-Fort Worth; Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas; St. Louis; and Washington, D.C., but they were overturned by a series of court rulings, E&E reported. In the latest development, EPA Region 6 Administrator Richard Greene moved in February to settle a federal lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental groups accusing the agency of failing to punish Texas after it missed deadlines to improve local air quality. The plaintiffs had sought an air-pollution reduction plan to bring the Dallas-Fort Worth area into compliance with EPA ozone standards by 2010 as mandated.

Whenever he was speaking in court, the Roman lawyer Cato would ask of any given situation, "Who gains?" He contended that if one could identify who gained materially from any particular crime, one was also likely to have found its perpetrator.

So, who gains from foul air in Texas? One would like to think that somehow the people of Texas do. Why else would their elected representatives try to pass legislation that actually mandates a lower level of air quality?

We know, of course, that the people who actually live in any area do not benefit from its environmental degradation, and often suffer profoundly as a result of it.

Barton's proposal is "just another move to delay compliance," Tessie Holloway of the American Lung Association of Texas told the Fort Worth Star Telegram on April 1. "Asthma rates continue rising, the number of emergency room visits annually continues getting larger, and this ... doesn't help."

What needs to be borne in mind is that the people most upset about these violations - and those filing lawsuits in response to them - are not busybody liberals from Washington, D.C., or anywhere else outside of Texas. They are, in fact, citizens' rights and health organizations located in Texas itself.

When you think about it, it is almost perverse to contend that any particular county or municipality is being treated unfairly by being held to the same air-quality standards as everyone else. Far more logical to contend that the people of Texas are being treated unfairly by representatives and bureaucrats who would deprive them of clean air in deference, ultimately, to the financial welfare of the corporations that seem all-too-willing to pollute that air. And it is especially scurrilous to attach such provisions to a long-overdue energy bill that the country has waited to see passed.

Michael J. Varhola

Editor, Utility Fleet Management

mvarhola@trucking.org