Reporting for Public Health Watch, David Leffler writes that Texas state lawmakers have voted to increase the maximum daily pollution violation fines for the first time since 2011. But the legislation also gives environmental regulators more power to avoid investigating citizen pollution complaints.
In a nutshell:
The pollution penalties, which are determined by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), can now be as high as $40,000 per day for some offenses — up from the previous maximum of $25,000 per day. But environmental justice advocates denounced a related bill passed by the legislature making it easier to ignore citizen complaints about pollution and other environmental problems. The latter bill allows the TCEQ leeway to avoid investigating environmental complaints without a "reasonable probability" that the commission can substantiate them. The agency can also decline to act if it determines that citizens’ concerns repeats complaints about a site that TCEQ investigated within the previous 12 months and concluded were unsubstantiated.
Key quote:
“This could cast a shadow over the things we’ve accomplished this session for Texans and our environment,” said state Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, a Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill to increase pollution fines, in response to the bill weakening the TCEQ's investigation of environmental complaints.
Big picture:
Previous investigations by Public Health Watch have found that the TCEQ repeatedly ignores Clean Air Act violations by the oil, gas and chemical industries and rarely assesses penalties. That's despite the fact that some of the communities most heavily burdened by pollution experience frequent illegal releases of toxic substances from the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and suffer disproportionate health problems in comparison with whiter, more affluent areas.
It's worth noting that the oil, gas and petrochemical industries contribute significantly to the Texas economy and are major political donors in the state.
For more on how the petrochemical industry buildout is affecting public health, follow EHN.org's ongoing coverage from western Pennsylvania and the Gulf Coast.
Eighth graders reflect on the state of the planet.
HOUSTON — This week EHN is publishing letters from eighth grade students at YES Prep Northbrook Middle School in the Houston-area neighborhood of Spring Branch, Texas.
English educators Cassandra Harper and Yvette Howard incorporated the environment into a series of lessons in December last year. Each student conducted their own research to begin drafting letters to EHN about their concerns or hopes. EHN reporter Cami Ferrell visited their classrooms to share information about her personal reporting experiences in Houston.
The collection of letters, some of which were lightly edited, do not represent the opinions of YES Prep Northbrook or EHN, but are offered here as a peek into the minds of children and their relationship with environmental issues. Read the first, second and third set of letters.
Farith Juarez
I want to discuss global pollution because it is a severe problem and challenge we all face daily and it does not only affect people, but animals and the environment too. Animals lose their homes due to how much trash we produce and just throw it into places without thinking, whether it is a cup or a plastic bag, it takes months and years for it to decompose.
The issue of pollution can affect my community because places like rivers, lakes, ponds, and even sewers are full of trash, making It hard for people to enjoy a day swimming when all the water is dirty and full of trash everywhere you step. Not only is it hard on us, it is especially hard on animals. Imagine having to live in a place where you are constantly surrounded by trash, not only that but animals like turtles can confuse plastic bags with jellyfish and eat them, causing them to choke or suffer health problems in the future.
Sometimes in the apartments where I live, the sewers get too full of trash and they start to (spew) all the trash out, making it hard for people who live on the first floor because their apartment may flood, or they cannot get out because of all the water. This problem personally makes me feel hurt because not all manufactured items decompose quickly, it could take years. And by the time that trash is gone, there will be more trash. I am personally worried about our future and the future of our kids because by the time more children are born, they won't be able to know the beautiful Earth we once had because everything will be dirty and full of trash. They won't believe that we once enjoyed life without trash and animals suffering in the dirty water.
The government also needs to stop allowing items that take a long time to decompose into the market as well as to stop throwing trash in the water or burning it because it can release harmful chemicals as well as make the earth's atmosphere hotter. I want people to understand that a plastic cup may be the downfall of a whole community or it is one singular trash (item) that (can) take an animal’s life. A thing that all American citizens should be doing is recycling. People need to understand that you can reuse everything, and you will feel better knowing you did not contribute to pollution.
- Farith Juarez
Lucy Ely
I am writing to discuss how severe the issue of climate change is, and how we can work to lessen the problem. This is a complex matter that can be made worse by simple decisions we make every day.
The main problem is people are producing too much carbon dioxide, causing the planet to heat up, and basically making life more challenging. It harms absolutely everyone on this planet. It personally affects me by making me worry about the future for myself, family, friends, and strangers across the world. In the city of Houston, where I live, there has been an extended drought during spring, summer, and fall. Being just one of the many impacts of climate change.
All this terrifies me and makes me feel bad for any ways I’ve possibly contributed to this issue. I’m scared the future won’t be a safe place for all who live here on Earth. I’m worried about future generations suffering, because of the people now and then not doing better. This makes it so important that people can be aware of what is happening, so more things can be done to make the world safer.
For example, if climate change were talked about more the government could in theory use someone’s idea to act. I think they could try to make it a requirement to have carbon capture facilities at every place that releases carbon emissions. I want the readers to understand that climate change is real and needs to be taken seriously.
- Lucy Ely
Keyla Cactzoy
I am writing to discuss that I have been noticing that summer by summer it is getting hotter and hotter. I am concerned why this is happening. I have also noticed that there have been lots of wildfires which makes me wonder what will happen to the animals' homes? I have been reading articles about animals going to become extinct because of us.
Because of people acting like it is not a big deal and not caring about the poor world I feel hopeless as if one day the world would look dead. But it does not have to be this way. We can all put a little effort into the situation, any good little thing you do would be helpful. If people could start learning how to save the world like for example: eat less meat, start using electric cars, and stop leaving trash everywhere. These examples would be more than enough to start taking care of our world, animals, and people.
We all have an option to keep hiding from reality like nothing is going on or to be a good person to society and start helping the world out by putting a little effort into the situation. It is your choice in the end just remember that you are doing it for a better future and community and if you think that doing these things will not make a difference just know that it will make a good impact to the world.
- Keyla Cactzoy
Jessica Godinez
Recently we had extreme temperatures in the summer which caused plants to dry up and some people to get heat fevers or skin allergies. Although this keeps happening people don't seem to pay much attention, thinking that soon over time their sickness will wear off, which is obviously not true. If we don't make a change there will be a lot of deaths for animals, plants, and us humans.
I feel disappointed (that) people always make their mess not caring who they might put at risk, and they expect other people to clean after them. We can't continue this. We have to keep trying for the better.
You might ask, what kind of things do we do to cause climate change? Well, humans like to drive cars because it’s way faster than walking to get to their destination faster. What (some) people don't know is that the back of the car releases carbon dioxide, which is caused by burning gasoline and fuel. That causes air pollution and is one of the major reasons for climate change.
We should start making a change by starting to recycle and not throw our trash in our environment like oceans because it can cause animals and plants to suffer. Another thing we can do is protest about climate change to the government and act for ourselves and for the better of our planet.
- Jessica Godinez
Javier Carrillo
This could affect my community.
If climate change gets any worse then that would mean that the weather we know today could get even worse and put thousands if not millions of people’s lives at risk. One example of climate change contributing to the weather is the maximum and minimum temperature in Texas have risen by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit. This personally makes me feel strange of what is to come, and our lives might be on the line. Who knows, someday if climate change is still a problem, then maybe the sun may be too unbearable to even be in. The most important thing I am worried about is the safety of others today and in the future.
To address climate change, it is important that everyone in our community does the bare minimum. Everyone, including you, makes an enormous difference. One way the government should protect the climate is to limit the amount of smoke or smog that is released from smokestacks that are built inside factories. But what can you do? Mostly you can do some simple but highly effective things such as recycling or buying electric cars! It might seem as if you are not doing much but you can make a dramatic difference.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
The new EPA regulations mandate the installation of carbon capture technology at coal-fired power plants by 2032.
These rules are part of a broader package aiming to cut mercury emissions and manage coal waste more effectively.
While these regulations are a significant move towards cleaner energy, they have been met with resistance from both the coal industry and some political figures.
Despite a number of recent actions by the administration to combat climate change, young progressives are expressing frustration about the green lighting of some high-profile fossil fuel projects.
Key quote:
"Biden can't create green jobs on Monday, on Tuesday approve a big oil export project, and then expect young people to turn out in the numbers that he needs us to."
— Stevie O'Hanlon, spokesperson for the youth climate group Sunrise Movement
Denise Moreno-Ramírez, growing up in Nogales, Arizona, faced unrecognized health crises in her community, linked to historical contamination.
Her PhD project, "Voices Unheard," collected firsthand accounts from locals, enhancing scientific data with personal stories and emphasizing overlooked community histories.
This approach reclaims the value of oral histories in scientific research, countering the trend of depersonalized data analysis.
Key quote:
“The answer isn’t just in science. It’s in people.”
— Rib Davis, Chief of the Oral History Society.
Why this matters:
Understanding environmental health impacts through community stories adds human context to scientific data, promoting informed policy decisions. Inclusivity in scientific research has the potential to shape healthier futures for marginalized communities.
A recent American Lung Association report states that climate change and wildfires are reversing progress on air pollution, impacting 131 million Americans with unhealthy air.
Leaders from across the globe gathered in New York at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
A report presented on the first day of the forum argue that the green economy perpetuates extractive practices, often ignoring Indigenous rights.
The Indigenous leaders called for a ban on deep-sea mining as well as mining in sacred lands.
Key international reports and conferences emphasize the disproportionate impact on Indigenous lands by projects aimed at combating climate change.
Key quote:
“The concept of a transition to a green economy maintains the same extractive logic that causes States and the private sector to overlook the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples in pursuit of national interests.”
— “Indigenous Peoples in a greening economy” UN report.
Why this matters:
Despite their sustainable label, green energy projects can still lead to ecological damage that particularly affects indigenous communities. This includes the disruption of wildlife, water sources and plant life that are essential not only to the biodiversity of these regions but also to the cultural practices and survival of indigenous peoples.
New regulations by the International Maritime Organization require significant emission reductions, prompting the search for sustainable fuels like methanol, hydrogen, ammonia and experimenting with electricity and nuclear power.
Methanol shows promise due to renewable production methods, but challenges in global availability persist.
Ammonia emerges as a strong candidate despite its toxicity, with ongoing developments to improve its combustion efficiency in maritime engines.
However, the industry needs to look at other ways to cut down emissions, like wind-assisted technologies.
Why this matters:
Transitioning to cleaner fuels is important for the shipping industry to meet upcoming emission reduction targets, which are set to become net zero by 2050. Success in this industry could set a precedent for other sectors, pushing them towards their own environmental commitments.
Biodegradable food packaging is a step in the right direction, experts say, but when composted carries risks of microplastic and chemical contamination.
