Meet Kathryn Guerra, Public Citizen’s new TCEQ Campaign Director
Kathryn Guerra is a Dallas-based environmental advocate who recently joined the Texas office of Public Citizen to be the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Campaign Director.
Could you tell us a little about yourself?
I have lived in Dallas for the past 20 years but grew up in the piney woods of East Texas. My appreciation for nature and the environment grew from the time I spent playing in forests and creeks as a kid. Now I have two children, and I enjoy connecting them with nature and teaching them to be good stewards. I’ve volunteered with a number of local organizations, including the Sierra Club, Texas Master Naturalists, West Dallas 1 and the Junior League of Dallas.
What did you do before joining Public Citizen?
My 17 years of environmental experience began with implementing environmental policy and strategic plans for sustainability at a local municipality. Then, I worked for a small renewable energy firm, coordinating integrated solar and wind energy installation projects. In 2012, I joined the TCEQ’s Environmental Assistance Division, where I provided comprehensive regulatory compliance assistance in air, water and waste. My job was to help regulated entities across all industries to understand their permitting and reporting requirements. It wasn’t until I left the agency in 2016 that I began to understand how challenging it was to interact with the TCEQ from outside the agency and how the agency’s policies and permitting decisions harmed communities. I became a community organizer, forming a 2,000-member grassroots advocacy group, and began collaborating with community leaders, elected officials and lawmakers to find collaborative solutions to our community’s most persistent issues. I also started my own digital design firm where I created web designs, graphic designs and coordinated media campaigns.
In 2021, I was appointed to serve as chairwoman of the City of Dallas Environmental Commission, the community-led and equity-focused advisory body that guides the city’s climate action plans. The commission’s successful advocacy includes city-wide zoning code revisions to end incompatible industrial land uses near residential communities, the adoption of new environmental justice equity indicators for the city’s Racial Equity Plan and the city council adoption of a resolution to ensure all $1.25 billion of the city’s 2024 capital bond program’s infrastructure investments is spent in a manner supportive of the climate plan and its goals.
In 2023, I joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice, Community Engagement and Environmental Review Division in Region 6 (Dallas). There, I led the Stronger Engagement for Results and Justice (SERJ) initiative and coordinated regular community engagement opportunities for stakeholders across five states, including the EJ Leaders Roundtable and the annual EJ Summit.
You have experience working at the local, state and federal levels of government. What do you think people should know?
Local government advocacy can have the biggest impact on our day-to-day lives. Zoning codes (or the lack thereof) heavily dictate just how much industry can negatively affect our communities. Local elected officials and municipal leaders have the ability to amend codes and ordinances or create new ones that better address systemic inequities. I have found local advocacy to be the most direct and effective approach for meaningful change.
Working for the state was challenging, mostly due to low pay and high turnover to the private sector, but the people I worked with were talented and passionate about protecting our state’s natural resources. In addition to state environmental laws that mandate how the TCEQ regulates polluters, agency policy – which can be decades old – can play a big role and ultimately lend industry an advantage while creating negative consequences for communities. Here, challenging the status-quo is more difficult for an advocate, but it can be done with persistence and collaboration.
Effectuating lasting change within federal agencies is like the adage about turning the ship around – it happens, but slowly. Still, federal advocacy is worthwhile. Although the lived experiences and environmental challenges communities face are unique, we can find common solutions for many communities at once on the federal level when the administration is committed to addressing injustice. Changes to the new administration’s priorities mean our advocacy work must continue. And despite these challenges, it’s important to remember that the environmental justice movement was not started by the government, and it cannot be ended by the government.
How can we learn more about the TCEQ campaign?
Our primary goals with this campaign are holding the TCEQ accountable, building the capacity of communities and cultivating local power.
Many advocacy groups simply don’t have the capacity to attend all of the TCEQ’s public participation opportunities. Our campaign will be closely monitoring the TCEQ and its activities, including permitting, enforcement, hearings, rulemakings and executive actions to hold the agency accountable for its decisions. To help build capacity, we will be sharing updates and recaps of actions taken and their potential impacts to communities in Texas. We will also be providing technical assistance, connecting communities to resources and helping stakeholders effectively engage with the agency.
If you’re interested in receiving updates or want to learn more about the TCEQ campaign, contact Kathryn Guerra at kguerra@citizen.org.