MorgueFile

AUSTIN — Despite reports that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is asking the administration not to slash federal grants, word that cuts are coming has Texans on edge.

A White House budget that appeared last week would take 3,000 people from the 15,000-person EPA staff, subtract $2 billion from its $8 billion budget, and trim air and water programs, as well as state grants by 30 percent.

“I’m a little nervous,” said Jerry Parr, executive director of the NELAC Institute in Weatherford. “We get about a tenth of our budget from the EPA.”

Parr’s nonprofit organization, which accredits environmental testing laboratories, is in the second year of a five-year EPA grant, and Parr said that his grant officer has assured him that the money should continue to flow for the next three years.

But Parr said that it’s too soon to say exactly how the proposed cuts could play out in Texas. Even in a state that has opposed federal involvement in environmental regulation, there are conservatives with questions. 

“Less government is good government, but some things need to be regulated,” Johnson County Judge Roger Harmon said. “We don’t want to compromise our health.”

Some EPA funds, including the $500,000 earmarked for Parr’s institute, come directly from the agency to organizations in Texas.  

But millions of the federal dollars go to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

State programs funded by EPA grants totaled $48,416,241, or 9 percent of the TCEQ’s fiscal 2017 budget.

Eighteen separate programs receive EPA funds through the TCEQ.

They include dam-safety programs; Clean Air Act surveys; and the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Program.

But Harmon, a stalwart Republican, said, “TCEQ, I don’t think they’re looking after us enough.”

Because of weak TCEQ oversight, Harmon said that the city of Cleburne and Johnson County filed for a judicial review with the state over TCEQ’s permit approval that is allowing raw sewage runoff into the Nolan River, a tributary of Lake Pat Cleburne, which provides drinking water. 

Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, said that if cuts come, they’ll likely mean “fewer cops on the beat,” to enforce regulations. 

“We’re already seeing wide-spread non-compliance with clean air and water,” Metzger said. “Texas will likely have dirtier air and more-polluted waterways.”

Also likely: climate-change programs that could be completely eliminated, as well as less-politicized items such as the Energy Star programs that tell consumers which products are energy efficient. 

Brownfield cleanup would also likely take a hit, and since virtually state has some of the former industrial site, Metzger said Texas would feel cuts there too. 

Since the Brownfields Program began in 1996, the EPA’s Region 6, which includes Texas, grantees have received $73 million. 

Regionally, “over 1,400 sites have been assessed, 18,000 jobs created and $3.5 billion leveraged in redevelopment,” according to the EPA’s website. 

Jim Schermbeck, who directs the environmental group Downwinders at Risk, noted that one such success story is the American Airlines Center, home to the Dallas Mavericks, which opened in 2001.

Daniel Cohan, a Rice University environmental engineering professor, said that cuts will “probably mean a slowdown in the progress we’ve made.”

Cohan said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is also under the budget gun.

The Washington Post last week reported that the administration wants to cut the NOAA budget by 17 percent.

In Texas, that could affect a coastal resilience program that helps strengthen the cities along the Gulf of Mexico withstand storms and sea-level rise, Cohan said.

The administration’s next budget will prioritize military and security projects, according to published reports. 

“They also want to cut money for [NOAA] satellites,” Cohan said. “They want to spend billions for more warships but cut funding for the satellites that observe the oceans and weather and keep the ships safe.”

Calls for comments from Region 6 EPA and TCEQ were not returned.

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com