Commentary
White Stallion Energy Center Update
The last day of August marked a possible turning of the tide in Matagorda County. At a No Coal Coalition public meeting focused on water use by the proposed White Stallion coal plant, County Judge Nate McDonald opened the evening’s events by dropping a bombshell. After months of dialogue and a bit of brinksmanship with White Stallion’s backers, plus recent discussions with other Matagorda County commissioners, Judge McDonald announced to the assembled public that the County was not in support of the White Stallion coal plant. Although the County does not have the immediate authority to stop construction of the coal plant, such a statement of non-support is a definite victory for the people of Matagorda County and the rest of the Houston region.
Over the summer, Judge McDonald and White Stallion’s backers had engaged in a staring contest. The Judge had requested specific answers from and legally binding commitments to be made by White Stallion Energy Center by certain deadlines. White Stallion fired back, demanding that the County officially issue statements of support for the coal plant to permitting authorities such as the TCEQ and the Army Corps of Engineers by August 15. The demands of neither were met, which led Judge McDonald, in his public statement, to announce that he did not feel confident that White Stallion was in Matagorda County’s best interest.
Overwhelming public opposition to the plant now matched by local political opposition begs a fundamental question: can a local authority such as a county stop a major industrial facility such as a coal plant? County commissioners can, as any elected official, write a letter to authorities such as the TCEQ voicing their concerns about or opposition to a permit application. A formal expression of opposition, one of the fundamental tools available to citizens, will certainly carry more weight if penned by local elected officials and we sincerely hope that Judge McDonald and his colleagues will issue such a letter. But local elected officials cannot, of course, stop a state or federal agency from issuing a permit.
If a plant such as White Stallion was to receive all the necessary state and federal permits, are there any other avenues for a county to block the construction of a new facility? Could a county refuse to issue any necessary building or utility permits? Would the Matagorda County officials be willing to deploy such a tactic if it were available to them?
Needless to say, the fight to stop construction of the White Stallion coal plant in Matagorda County is far from over. We are still waiting to see what impact the negative decision by the State Office of Administrative Hearings on White Stallion’s air permit application will have when the permit finally comes before the TCEQ. The Lower Colorado River Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers have yet to issue their final permits and State Senator Glenn Hegar, Chair of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, has also raised concerns over the coal plant and water use. But leadership at the county level – from dedicated citizens like those organizing the No Coal Coalition and now Judge McDonald – can make all the difference in protecting the health and environmental quality of Matagorda and entire Houston region.
Executive Director Matthew Tejada speaks with Fox 26 News
Matthew Tejada, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, speaks with Fox26 on the recent, overnight decision by the City of Houston to explore potential natural gas wells beneath three parks on the city’s east side.
Toxic Chemical Lobby: Exclusive Leaked Footage
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Permitting and Jobs
As expected, this past Wednesday, June 30, the EPA officially disapproved Texas’ flexible air permitting program. And while disapproval is only the first step on a long journey in dealing with the legacy of over fifteen years of a permitting debacle plus the effort required to reform the program for possible use in the future, our state leaders continue to fight battles on fronts that have little to no value for the health and economic stability of Texans now and in the future.
The political message du jour, as was also expected, centered on the economy and jobs. If the federal government insists on reaching down into the heart of Texas’ affairs, it will surely kill off thousands of jobs and sap the economic might of our state. Texas has managed to both clean up the air and grow the economy, so what is Washington’s gripe?
We’ve seen this tactic trotted out by industry for decades at every instance when government has attempted to improve regulations. Its overuse matched with the fact that industry, its jobs and its economic might have not diminished through the years give the truth behind the message. The right regulations, applied evenly and consistently, provide the stable foundation from which we can both grow our economy and protect the environment and public health.
It is exactly this stable foundation which we have been missing in Texas for well over a decade. It is the desire for this regulatory clarity which drove industry to sue the EPA to deliver its long delayed decisions. And it is this lack of regulatory transparency which has made public access and participation in this crucial process next to impossible.
Will this permitting reform saga cost money? Undoubtedly. It will cost the state, the federal government and industry money in terms of staff time and energy (and lawyers’ fees) to wade through the mess that all three parties are complicit in creating. It will possibly cost industry money to retrofit or upgrade certain parts of their plant if they have to bring them up to modern pollution requirements. But this is a cost that the facility would have been escaping all of this time because of the inherent flaws in Texas’ permitting program. Costs that these exact same corporations have expended in the other 49 states without driving companies to mothball units and move them overseas.
Nobody is arguing that we are in an economically, environmentally or politically ideal position with regards to air permitting in our state. But it is economically, environmentally and politically imperative that we work to fix air permitting. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our state to clean up the air in order to meet federal ozone regulations. Yet we have an air permitting program that saps the resources of our overstretched regulators and obscures the real sources of our continuing pollution problems. Our state, and in particular the Houston region, will continue to be looked upon both at home and around the world as a dirty city until we fix that problem. It harms our economy today when producers such as Toyota and Boeing overlook our region because of its pollution problems, and it harms us in the future because the young and educated generation of Americans currently choosing where to set up their lives and careers place Houston very low on their list of desirable communities.
The future of our larger community rests at the very center of being clean and environmentally sound. Houston has so many other things going for it – wildlife, restaurants, beaches and lots of cheap places to live. But our pollution problem continues to hold our area back. The best way to continue to diminish that problem and change the world’s perception of our home for the better is to the meet it head on. Putting on the well-worn record of losing jobs and costing money is about as far away from that option as one can get.
