Environmentalists Challenge U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay

Texas environmentalists responded today to U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-Sugar Land) campaign to suspend a key provision of the Clean Air Act for Houston, a move they say would indefinitely condemn the region to unhealthy air. Rep. DeLay intends to offer an amendment to a federal appropriations bill to create a loophole for Houston that allows more smog-producing pollution from the region’s cars and trucks than is necessary to reach federal clean air standards.

“If this amendment is adopted, the citizens of Houston will be subjected to worse air quality, by law, than the rest of the citizens of the United States,” said Jim Marston, director of the Texas office of Environmental Defense.

Patrick Gallagher, the Sierra Club’s attorney in the suit, criticized the short-sightedness of Rep. DeLay’s threat. “Since Mr. DeLay plans to use a spending bill to perpetuate Houston’s air pollution, he may as well tack on a few hundred million dollars to the bill to deal with the health care costs resulting from the pollution.”

Earlier this month, Rep. DeLay organized meetings in Houston for U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Dallas) and U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA) to criticize the Texas plan to clean up the region’s smog. Rep. DeLay said he would pass legislation to negate a lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the U.S. EPA. The lawsuit, filed by Environmental Defense, the Sierra Club, the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention and the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, is to ensure that the clean air plan for the Houston area is adequate to protect public health.

“Rep. DeLay’s agenda is to remove a major tool in the fight for clean air — transportation conformity,” said Jim Blackburn, a Houston attorney who represents the plaintiffs. “Transportation conformity was included in the Clean Air Act because automobile pollution is a key part of the smog problem in regions like Houston.”

The Clean Air Act requires reductions in various sources of air pollution in areas of the country that violate air quality standards. Transportation funding may be denied unless emissions from motor vehicles are shown to be less than the conformity budget. The lawsuit was filed because environmental groups believed that the budget approved by EPA relied on obsolete information and was too high to bring the Houston area into compliance with the standard.