Contact: Ken Kramer, 512-477-1729
Donna Hoffman, 512-477-1729 or 512-299-5776
The
Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club consists of over 25,000 members.
The Chapter spans the entire state of Texas, excepting El Paso, which
is part of the Rio Grande Chapter.
Located in Austin, the Lone Star Chapter's State Conservation Office
serves Sierrans as their grassroots communications center. We also provide
Sierrans with a full time professional activist staff employed to represent
Sierrans as we fight at the state level to protect and conserve Texas'
diverse and valuable natural heritage.
Support Tougher Penalties for Polluters!
Take Action by December 9
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is reviewing and preparing to revise its policy on penalties for violations of pollution control laws.
TCEQ will be proposing new rules governing the calculation of the size of penalties levied for violations of pollution control laws and permits.
The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club believes that those rules should be written to provide for tougher penalties for polluters and should assure that no polluter gains any economic benefit from violating the law.
Action Needed:
Send an e-mail message to Anne Dobbs (Pen_Rule@tceq.state.tx.us) in the Enforcement Division at TCEQ urging agency staff to draft proposed new rules that will result in tougher penalties for violations of pollution control laws, including the recovery to the State of Texas of any economic benefit a polluter has gained by violating the law. For a sample message, click here.
Please take action by: Friday, December 9, 2005
Background:
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has begun the process of revising its administrative penalty policy and putting that policy into formal agency rules. Administrative penalties are basically fines issued by TCEQ for violations of the agency’s rules, permits issued by the agency, and/or laws that the agency is responsible for implementing and enforcing.
In the revision process underway TCEQ is examining the issue of how penalties will be calculated when one or more violations have been discovered. This examination is a partial outgrowth of a State Auditor’s report a couple of years ago that was highly critical of the agency’s enforcement record as well as an internal agency review of enforcement activities that produced a number of recommendations. The rule to be fashioned will not determine when an enforcement action should be taken, however, only how to calculate administrative penalties that may arise from enforcement.
As TCEQ noted in announcing this revision process, TCEQ is required by state law to consider several factors in calculating an administrative penalty for a particular violation. These factors include, for example, the nature and extent of the violation, economic benefit gained as a result of the violation, and good faith efforts to correct the violation. According to TCEQ, the rulemaking is to “specify how these factors are applied to the penalty calculation.”
Please note that there is not a formal proposed rule for public comment as of yet. That will come later. Right now TCEQ is gathering data to help the agency determine how to structure the proposed rule, and a formal public comment opportunity on the proposal will be provided at the appropriate time. There will be more than one “bite at the apple.” However, input at this stage in development of the rule may be more effective than it will be later.
TCEQ has been conducting a series of “stakeholder” meetings around the state over the past month to get input from representatives of various interests that monitor or are regulated by the agency. The final meetings is in El Paso on Monday, December 5. E-mail comments on administrative penalty issues ought to be sent to TCEQ no later than December 9 in order to be of most value in this process.
TCEQ has set out a specific set of issues in the form of questions on administrative penalty issues. The agency is asking parties to answer one or more of those questions in any comments submitted during the current policy review. Perhaps the most critical question deals with the issue of Economic Benefit. TCEQ is asking for responses to the question: What should TCEQ consider when calculating the penalty adjustment for economic benefit?
The Sierra Club believes that TCEQ should require that all of the realized economic benefit gained by a polluter through the violation(s) should be recovered through the administrative penalty assessed against the violator. Where a significant economic benefit is evident, TCEQ should require the violator to undertake corrective actions that exceed the minimum required for compliance. Economic benefit is a critical issue in pursuing compliance. Administrative penalties should not be simply the “cost of doing business” – they need to negate whatever economic benefit a violator gained from a violation(s) or else the deterrent value of such penalties is practically nil.
For information about the other questions posed by TCEQ staff and the Sierra Club’s responses to those questions, click here.
