The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality plays a big role in this kingdom of the American oil and gas industry. With 2,800 employees, 16 regional offices and a $558 million annual budget, its mission to protect public health and natural resources often plays second fiddle to protecting the interests of industry.
One example I discovered in 2023 was the “one-mile rule,” something the TCEQ discreetly enforced although the rule appeared nowhere in the law. Lawyers told me their clients were denied the right to challenge pollution permits in court if they lived more than a mile away from the facility in question. The so-called rule appeared to have no legal basis, and I found, from digging into records, the TCEQ avoided explicit citations of the rule in its writings.
Oil company lawyers, however, weren’t as cautious. In one case, company attorneys wrote in a brief that the “one-mile rule” was a “quintessential test” and then provided footnotes listing the cases where this unwritten standard had been applied.
I pulled all those records, which led me to others. Eventually I had compiled evidence to show systemic application of the “one-mile rule” over almost two decades. When I shared the findings with TCEQ, the agency issued a blanket denial that any such rule even existed.
My story, part of an ongoing series called “State of Denial,” exposed one mechanism that Texas uses to protect big industry from public participation requirements established in the Clean Air Act. It was republished and cited by Houston Public Media, The Texas Tribune, San Antonio Express-News and more, and I spoke on radio with Houston’s public radio station to discuss examples and implications of the rule.
Three months later, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down one of the air permits featured in my story—for Sempra Infrastructure’s $14 billion Port Arthur LNG Phase 2 expansion project.
One month after that, a state district court in Austin overturned another air permit from my story, which Texas had granted for part of Max Midstream’s $1 billion oil terminal expansion project, and would involve dredging a Superfund site in Matagorda Bay.
(The companies appealed both actions and permits were reinstated while courts continue to litigate the cases. The permits are still in force.)
Both projects are part of broader plans to move more fossil fuels from Texas, unlocked by the shale revolution, to buyers around the world.
Environmentalists and landowners who felt shut out of the government process told me that they saw the ICN coverage for what it was. ICN gave them a chance to be heard and for laws to be enforced. Citizens of Texas now know the “one-mile rule” is a fantasy. It is not a valid basis for rejecting challenges to pollution in their communities. The TCEQ now is on notice: it can’t apply a rule that doesn’t exist.
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