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TCEQ makes many questionable decisions. Here are some of the worst.

A petrochemical fire at the ITC plant in Deer Park, Texas.

Public Citizen’s Texas office is a proud member of the Houston-based One Breath Partnership, a coalition of public health and environmental groups working to protect Houstonians from some of the worst air quality in the nation.

The Partnership recently launched a new website, and we’re proud to be a part of that, as well. One of the new articles, written by Michael Coleman of our Texas office, details how the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has repeatedly made questionable decisions related to the environment and public health.

Some of these head-scratching choices include rejecting NASA’s offer to fly a high-tech pollution-spotting plane over Houston after Hurricane Harvey, targeting local gas stations for environmental violations instead of the massive oil and gas companies that supply them, shelving a $5 million federal study about toxins in the Houston Ship Channel, and an assertion that pollution just might be healthy.

We retain at least a little bit of hope that the TCEQ will become more proactive about watch-dogging Texas polluters in the future. But for now, it’s worth being reminded of the agency’s serious mistakes of the past. You can read the entire article here.