State Sen. Drew Springer says his plan would help the embattled TCEQ by eliminating frivolous and redundant complaints. But environmental groups say it could lead to serious violations being overlooked.
Audience members examine posters during a 2018 meeting in New Braunfels before a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality public meeting on a proposed quarry in Comal County.Saying the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is being bogged down by frivolous and redundant complaints, a state senator is proposing a limit on the number of complaints individual Texans can file each year with the environmental watchdog agency.
Springer's bill, which remains pending in a Senate committee, would amend the state's water code to impose a fee on anyone who within the same calendar year filed at least three complaints with the commission that did not result in any corrective action. This means if a person files three complaints to TCEQ in a year and no action was taken on any of these complaints, then the person must pay for any further complaints for the rest of the year.
The logic behind Springer's bill is the idea that TCEQ — which critics say is struggling to fulfill its mission — could function more efficiently if it wasn't required to re-investigate the same complaints multiple times. TCEQ has about 2,800 employees and a 2023 operating budget of $483 million. In 2022, the TCEQ received 10,070 complaints from individuals across Texas – about a 6.5 percent increase from 2021. Nearly 4,500 complaints were about water issues and another 3,200 were focused on air quality. In 2021, TCEQ investigators performed 9,331 odor-based nuisance investigations, spending an average of 12.3 hours per investigation, and a total of 114,524 investigation hours.
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