Texas has no shortage of bad environmental news these days. Here’s another bad tidbit. While Donald Trump brags about the “American energy renaissance” he’s supposedly ushered in, Texans are suffering from worsening air quality:
The creation of petroleum and natural gas in West Texas is flourishing but it’s coming to residents that are often exposed according to a report issued by an environmental group.
The Environmental Integrity Project mentioned in a report published Thursday the Permian Basin, which extends into New Mexico, is among the most effective hydrocarbon regions in the world, thanks largely to the advent over recent years of flat drilling and hydraulic fracturing. In another 2 years that the basin will account for approximately 40% of U.S. production, the group said.
However, a result of that production is harmful levels of sulfur dioxide from the air about Odessa and other places, according to the report, that adds pollution levels in much of Ector County, where Odessa is situated, exceed standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
“Controlling air pollution from West Texas hasn’t been a priority to the nation, as evidenced by the scarcity of air pollution monitoring stations in the Permian Basin,” the report stated. “And yet, the type of air pollution from the Permian Basin — dominated by excessive emissions of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide — is also known to have serious environmental and public health consequences.”
Ilan Levin, associate director of The Environmental Integrity Project, said while permits, authorities like the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have to have stricter oversight of air pollution permits.
In view of the Texas Commission on “Environmental Quality”’s overall lack of interest in actually doing its job, it’s utterly unsurprising that this situation would have become so bad. Any Democrat running in Texas in 2020 who doesn’t make an issue of this is missing an opening with potential voters.