EPA pulls permits for two Texas City refineries

TEXAS CITY — The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday rejected the air quality permits for 122 industrial facilities in Texas, including the BP and Valero refineries in Texas City.

The pulling of the flexible air permits that are issued by the state under EPA’s authority means the facilities do not have legal operating permits.

EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz said none of the facilities will be required to shut down but all will be required to obtain new permits under stricter guidelines.

Earlier this year, the agency pulled more than 200 permits, citing what it said were deficiencies in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s flexible air permitting process.

Adopted in 1995, the flex air permit process in Texas allows industrial sites greater latitude in controlling air emissions. The process issued permits based on a facility’s overall emissions and not a unit by unit measure that the EPA prefers.

That would allow one portion of a chemical plant or refinery to pollute more than federal standards as long as overall emissions at the facility did not violate federal air quality standards. Armendariz argued the process allowed companies to avoid federal air quality requirements by lumping emissions from multiple units under a single cap.

“Today’s action improves our ability to provide the citizens of Texas with the same healthy-air protections that are provided for citizens in all other states under the Clean Air Act,” Armendariz said. “EPA will continue working closely with Texas, industry, environmental organizations and community leaders to assure an effective and legal air permitting system.”

The EPA warned the state environmental agency it was considering pulling air quality permits if the state did not change its flex permit process. In mid-June, TCEQ commissioners revised the process — but defended it at the same time.

“We are defending our flexible air permitting program because it works,” Bryan Shaw, chairman of the state agency, said. “EPA is not able to demonstrate how our program is less protective of the environment than the bureaucratic federal approach. EPA’s philosophy of more bureaucracy by federalizing state permits will not lead to cleaner air but will drive up energy costs and kill job creation at a time when people can least afford it.”

Valero spokesman Bill Day said the company was disappointed and expressed the frustration about a change in the rules that had appeared to be acceptable for the past 16 years.

“When the flex permit program was rolled out in 1994, EPA and environmental groups applauded it, and EPA approval seemed implicit,” Day said. “Now, 16 years later, EPA is reversing course, and our facilities are caught in the middle, creating significant uncertainty at a time when our economy can least afford it.”

In addition to its Texas City facility, Valero had its air quality permits pulled at five other facilities.

BP spokesman Michael Marr declined to comment on the EPA’s decision.

Valero and BP said the decision had not had an impact on operations of the Texas City refineries.

Jimmy Hayley, president of the Texas City-La Marque Chamber of Commerce, said the EPA’s actions were ill-timed and could erode the economies of industrial communities.

“While I am confident Valero and BP will meet all the requirements, it puts fear out there and gives employees (of industrial facilities) a mixed message,” Hayley said. “That hurts the economy if people are worried about their jobs.”

He said smaller businesses that depend on the industrial sites are already worried given the global economic downturn and incidents such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental groups applauded the EPA’s actions.

“Texans deserve the same clean air protection as citizens of every other state, and TCEQ’s flexible permitting program has been denying all of us that right for nearly 20 years,” Luke Metzger, of Environment Texas, said. “The Clean Air Act is the same law that polluters in all other 49 states have to follow, and it’s time that polluters in Texas follow it, too.”