The Latest Breaking News from TCEQ

The bill would require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to focus enforcement and increase penalties on repeat violators and increase public outreach. Still, environmental advocates say the effort was too “modest” in its reach.

A fire broke out at a Deer Park Shell plant the day after a public hearing on renewing the permit for ITC, a nearby facility that caught fire in 2019, sparking a Texas Tribune/Public Health Watch investigation that documented failures in state and federal oversight.

Critics call for removal of state agency’s economic mandate.

The Texas Tribune analyzed previously unreported air monitoring data and records from the 2019 ITC chemical disaster near Houston and found that high benzene levels lingered in the air for two weeks after public health measures were lifted. Experts say more shelter-in-place advisories should have been issued.

Regulators repeatedly documented — but did little to address — problems at a Houston-area tank farm. Then on March 17, 2019, a fire blew through a corner of the facility, releasing toxic chemicals into nearby communities for weeks.

The bill would require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to focus enforcement on repeat violators and increase public outreach.

The bill would impose fines when residents make more than three complaints to the state environmental agency in a year if they don’t result in enforcement action. Critics warn the bill would discourage people from reporting pollution.

A massive sinkhole in the Southeast Texas town of Daisetta had been dormant since first appearing in 2008

A new report found that companies in Texas have had 21,000 unexpected pollution releases that emitted 400,000 tons of air pollution over six years, but only 1% of them prompted action by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.