Republicans love local control, but not too local, and especially not when it’s towns or cities trying to do something to mediate odious regulations at the state level. So if you live in Houston and were expecting regulations passed there to help protect you from high levels of air pollution, you better hold your breath.
The Texas Supreme Court has blocked Houston from enforcing tougher clean-air laws over the hub of industrial pollution that makes it one of the smoggiest cities in the U.S.
Houston’s local government is headed by Democrats. Texas, it will not shock you to learn, is controlled by Republicans, many of whom view Houston (and Austin, and they’ve got their eye on you, Dallas) as foreign powers. The result is near-constant conflict with all three branches of the state government playing whack-a-law with cities.
The state's all-Republican high court ruled that the business-friendly Texas Legislature has already established a "flexible regulatory regime" and "consistent enforcement" of pollution laws. The court said Houston's ordinance would wrongly circumvent state regulators.
“Business friendly” being a catch-all phrase for anything that makes a buck, even if at the cost of health.
Houston worked in partnership with state agencies up until 2005, when the city grew frustrated by the refusal of state regulators to actually regulate. So Houston passed its ordinances in 2007, and has been fighting ever since to implement them.
The lousy air of the Bayou City isn't exactly news. Houston officials have been grappling with the city's air problem for years. … In a 2003 case before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Fifth noted that “Houston-Galveston has one of the most serious ozone problems in the country.” Houston is the fourth-largest city in the nation, and in 2014 the American Lung Association ranked Houston as the nation’s sixth most ozone-polluted city.
The state didn’t do any more after Houston went its own way … except to support companies that were fighting for the right to ignore their effect on Houston’s air.
Friday's ruling is a victory for ExxonMobil Corp. and other companies with nearby refineries that sued in 2008 after the nation's fourth-largest city essentially accused state environmental regulators of not doing enough. …