After Some Counties In Texas Released Air Pollution Data, A State Agency Cut Their Funding

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/23/3430014/texas-pollution-data-release-funding-cut/

By Jeff Sprosson April 23, 2014

Earlier this month, a coalition of county governments in Texas posted a study that air pollution would increase significantly by 2018 thanks to a local drilling boom. One week later, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality slashed the coalition’s budget for air quality planning.

The study in question was an inventory of emissions from the Eagle Ford shale, which, with the advent of hydraulic fracturing, has seen a boom in natural gas and oil drilling over the past few years. The analysis was put together at the behest of the Alamo Area Council of Governments (AACOG), a coalition that oversees thirteen counties in and around San Antonio. An initial draft of the study came out in November of last year, and the final version was completed on April 4.

About a week later, the Center for Public Integrity reports, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), slashed AACOG’s air-quality planning budget by 25 percent.

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Since 2012, San Antonio’s monitors have already recorded air pollution levels as high as 87 parts per billion — while the federal standard is 75 parts per billion.

Earlier this year, an eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity found that Texas officials were failing to adequately monitor air pollution from the Eagle Ford shale, or to engage in any serious regulatory enforcement.