{"id":131777,"date":"2026-01-21T11:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/131777\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T11:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:21:08","slug":"how-the-epas-easing-of-pollution-rules-affects-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/131777\/","title":{"rendered":"How the EPA\u2019s easing of pollution rules affects Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first year of President Trump\u2019s second term has seen an aggressive rollback of federal environmental protections, which advocacy groups fear will bring more pollution, higher health risks, and less information and power for Texas communities, especially in heavily industrial and urban areas.<\/p>\n

Within Trump\u2019s first 100 days in office, his new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced a sweeping slate of 31 deregulatory actions<\/a>. The list, which Zeldin called the agency\u2019s \u201cgreatest day of deregulation,\u201d targeted everything from soot standards and power plant pollution rules to the Endangerment Finding, the legal and scientific foundation that obligates the EPA to regulate climate-changing pollution under the Clean Air Act.<\/p>\n

Since then, the agency froze research grants<\/a>, shrank its workforce<\/a>, and removed some references to climate change and environmental justice from its website \u2014 moves that environmental advocates say send a clear signal: the EPA\u2019s new direction will come at the expense of public health.<\/p>\n

Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, said Texas is one of the states that feels EPA policy changes directly because the state has shown little interest in stepping up its environmental enforcement as the federal government scales back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were a state that was open to doing our own regulations there\u2019d be less impact from these rollbacks,\u201d Reed said. \u201cBut we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have an EPA that isn\u2019t interested in enforcing its own rules,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Richard Richter, a spokesperson at the state\u2019s environmental agency, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said in a statement that the agency takes protecting public health and natural resources seriously and acts consistently and quickly to enforce federal and state environmental laws when they\u2019re violated.<\/p>\n

Methane rules put on pause<\/p>\n

A major EPA move centers on methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps heat far more efficiently than carbon dioxide over the short term. It accounts for roughly 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is a major driver of climate change. In the U.S., the largest source of methane emissions is the energy sector, especially in Texas, the nation\u2019s top oil and gas producer.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Biden administration finalized long-anticipated rules requiring oil and gas operators to sharply reduce methane emissions<\/a> from wells, pipelines, and storage facilities. The rule, developed with industry input, targeted leaks, equipment failures, and routine flaring, the burning off of excess natural gas at the wellhead.<\/p>\n

Under the rule, operators would have been required to monitor emissions, inspect sites with gas-imaging cameras for leaks, and phase out routine flaring. States are required to come up with a plan to implement the rule, but Texas has yet to do so. Under Trump\u2019s EPA, that deadline has been extended<\/a> until January 2027 \u2014 an 18-month postponement. <\/p>\n

Texas doesn\u2019t have a rule to capture escaping methane emissions from energy infrastructure. Richter, the TCEQ spokesperson, said the agency continues to work toward developing the state plan.<\/p>\n

Adrian Shelley, Texas director of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said the rule represented a rare moment of alignment between environmentalists and major oil and gas producers. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the fossil fuel industry generally understood that this was the direction the planet and their industry was moving,\u201d he said. Shelley said uniform EPA rules provided regulatory certainty for changes operators saw as inevitable.<\/p>\n

Reed, the Sierra Club conservation director, said the delay of methane rules means Texas still has no plan to reduce emissions, while neighboring New Mexico already has imposed its own state methane emission rules that require the industry to detect and repair methane leaks and ban routine venting and flaring.<\/p>\n

These regulations have cut methane emissions in the New Mexico portion of the Permian Basin \u2014 the oil-rich area that covers West Texas and southeast New Mexico \u2014 to half that of Texas, according to a recent data analysis<\/a> by the Environmental Defense Fund. That\u2019s despite New Mexico doubling production since 2020.<\/p>\n

A retreat from soot standards <\/p>\n

Fine particulate matter or PM 2.5, one of six pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act, has been called by researchers the deadliest form of air pollution. <\/p>\n

In 2024, the EPA under President Biden strengthened air rules<\/a> for particulate matter by lowering the annual limit from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter. It was the first update since 2012 and one of the most ambitious pieces of Biden\u2019s environmental agenda, driven by mounting evidence that particulate pollution is linked to premature death, heart disease, asthma, and other respiratory illnesses.<\/p>\n

After the rule was issued, 24 Republican-led states, including Kentucky and West Virginia, sued to revert to the weaker standard. Texas filed a separate suit<\/a> asking to block the rule\u2019s recent expansion.<\/p>\n

State agencies are responsible for enforcing the federal standards. The TCEQ is charged with creating a list of counties that exceed the federal standard and submitting those recommendations to Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>, who then finalizes the designations and submits them to the EPA.<\/p>\n

Under the 9 microgram standard, parts of Texas, including Dallas, Harris (which includes Houston), Tarrant (Fort Worth), and Bowie (Texarkana) counties, were in the process of being designated nonattainment areas \u2014 which, when finalized, would trigger a legal requirement for the state to develop a plan to clean up the air.<\/p>\n

That process stalled after Trump returned to office. Gov. Greg Abbott submitted his designations to EPA last February, but EPA has not yet acted on his designations, according to Richter, the TCEQ spokesperson.<\/p>\n

In a court filing last year, the Trump EPA asked a federal appeals court to vacate the stricter standard, bypassing the traditional notice and comment administrative process. <\/p>\n

For now, the rule technically remains in effect, but environmental advocates say the EPA\u2019s retreat undermines enforcement of the rule and signals to polluters that it may be short-lived.<\/p>\n

Shelley, with Public Citizen, believes the PM2.5 rule would have delivered the greatest health benefit of any EPA regulation affecting Texas, particularly through reductions in diesel pollution from trucks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still hold out hope that it will come back,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Unraveling the climate framework<\/p>\n

Beyond individual pollutants, the Trump EPA has moved to dismantle the federal architecture for addressing climate change.<\/p>\n

Among the proposals is eliminating the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program<\/a>, which requires power plants, refineries, and oil and gas suppliers to report annual emissions. The proposal has drawn opposition from both environmental groups and industry, which relies on the data for planning and compliance.<\/p>\n

Colin Leyden, Texas state director and energy lead at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said eliminating the program could hurt Texas industry. If methane emissions are no longer reported, then buyers and investors of natural gas, for example, won\u2019t have an official way to measure how much methane pollution is associated with that gas, according to Leyden. That makes it harder to judge how \u201cclean\u201d or \u201cclimate-friendly\u201d the product is, which international buyers are increasingly demanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just bad for the planet,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes the Texas industry less competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration also proposed last year rescinding the Endangerment Finding<\/a>, issued in 2009, which obligates the EPA to regulate climate pollution. Most recently, the EPA said it will stop calculating how much money is saved in health care costs as a result of air pollution regulations that curb particulate matter 2.5 and ozone, a component of smog. Both can cause respiratory and health problems. <\/p>\n

Leyden said tallying up the dollar value of lives saved when evaluating pollution rules is a foundational principle of the EPA since its creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really erodes the basic idea that [the EPA] protects health and safety and the environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: The Environmental Defense Fund has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7285,27,56515,29,28],"class_list":["post-131777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-texas","tag-texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-tceq","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}