- Houston Seeks to Keep Power to Police Air Pollution.
State environmental regulators don't adequately enforce air pollution laws, the city of Houston believes, and on Wednesday it will ask the state's highest civil court to let it keep trying to do the job itself.
The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case challenging a pair of ordinances the city enacted in 2007 and 2008 requiring industrial polluters within Houston to register with the city, and subjecting the polluting companies to fines if they operate without registering.
BCCA Appeal Group, a coalition of industrial facility owners including ExxonMobil and the Dow Chemical Company, sued the city seven years ago, claiming the ordinances improperly preempt state law. The First District Court of Appeals has already weighed in on Houston's side, finding in 2013 that the Legislature had not foreclosed such local regulations with anything resembling "unmistakable clarity."
In its appeal to the Supreme Court, BCCA argues that the city is allowed to enforce air regulations only if it uses the weaker enforcement tools laid out by the state.
But Houston, and a host of environmental groups filing amicus briefs in the city's support, say it is perfectly within its rights to enforce state laws using alternative regulatory strategies, including levying fines where the state won’t.
“The city’s looking for accountability, and this is a streamlined way of trying to do that,” said Rock Owens, who co-authored an amicus brief submitted by the Harris County Attorney’s Office. “There should be something that happens if you don’t follow the law, and the [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] isn’t in a position where they can provide enforcement. They don’t have the resources, or, frankly, the will.”
