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.
Environment
Coverage of climate, conservation, natural resources, and environmental policy shaping the state, from The Texas Tribune.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Rural Texas landowners who lost water access due to San Antonio pipeline could soon get relief
Groundwater levels rapidly declined in rural Lee County after San Antonio began pumping the water and moving it 100 miles southwest. A Senate bill would help affected well owners.
Sponsor Post
Cultivating freedom: Texans must vote to strengthen the right to farm
Passing HJR 126 this November will protect our state’s farmers and ranchers while ensuring a continued supply of safe and affordable food for future generations.
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Texas Legislature 2023
House advances bill that could provide billions of dollars for new water projects and fixing aging infrastructure
The bill aims to create a water supply four times the size of Lake Livingston, one of the state’s largest reservoirs. But it may still be a “drop in the bucket” compared to the state’s needs.
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Environment
Texas House approves bills to spend up to $1 billion to buy more state parkland
The Texas House paved the way for a billion-dollar investment in state parks, which one advocate said would create “a new golden age” for the park system. Texas now ranks 35th nationally in state park acreage per capita.
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Energy
Houston-area chemical fire highlights gaps in Texas environmental enforcement
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.
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Energy
Shell refinery unit in Deer Park had history of malfunctions before fire
Recent “upsets” like tripped compressors, pressure loss and freezing weather resulted in thousands of pounds of unauthorized pollution but no fines or citations from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
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Criminal Justice
Progressive causes lose big in San Antonio and El Paso charter elections
San Antonio voters rejected by wide margins an effort to decriminalize abortion and require police to issue citations rather than make arrests for some nonviolent offenses. In El Paso, an effort to wean the city from fossil fuels fared similarly poorly.
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Environment
At a heated public hearing, residents urge state agency to reject permit for chemical facility that burned in 2019
In Deer Park near Houston, memories of the massive ITC fire are still fresh. Residents told state environmental regulators they should reject the company’s permit renewal, but officials said the fire won’t be part of the decision.
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Broken Pipes
Texas likely will spend billions fixing its water systems. Will it reach these forgotten colonias?
An estimated 500,000 people live in thousands of colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. Largely built between the 1950s and 1980s, these communities have been promised water — but it has never come.