10 March 23-29, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents of policies and procedures related to com- plaints,” the agency said. Springer’s office didn’t respond to a re- quest for comment, but he recently dis- cussed his bill during a meeting of the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. He gave an example of two people who filed 39 complaints in 2022 against the same asphalt operator, resulting in no findings by the TCEQ. From December 2019 to the present, Springer said there have been 44 com- plaints filed by eight individuals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that resulted in no findings of air quality violations. He said these are examples of vexatious complaints for which people should be fined. The TCEQ would be tasked with es- tablishing a fee for each type of complaint, with each fee less than or equal to the cost of investigating the complaints. Springer said investigations can cost anywhere between $700 and $9,000. The commission could also decide to waive the fee “for good cause,” Springer said. He said he wants the TCEQ vexatious filing rules to be more like what the court system has to make the process “more tried and true and more fair and equi- table.” “We have a finite amount of resources to investigate things,” Springer said. “Those fi- nite amounts of resources we have at the state [level] would be better served investi- gating other things that the agency sees as potentially a real threat to our environ- ment,” he said. Springer said he’s not trying to discour- age people from filing legitimate complaints. “I’m just trying to find a common ground here,” he said. “We’re not trying to say you can’t file complaints. Look, if you think something’s wrong, we want to hear from you. But when we’ve done it over and over and over again, I think it gets to the point that we’re getting abusive and weaponizing the agency.” Three people turned out to testify against the bill last week. No one from the public testified in favor of it. Danielle Gos- hen, the policy specialist and counsel for the National Wildlife Federation, told the committee the bill discourages public en- gagement. “There’s many reasons for peo- ple to file multiple complaints,” Goshen said. “There could be another complaint about the same subject. There could be more evidence that was found. So, we just really hope people aren’t discouraged from participating.” She added, “I understand that the TCEQ needs more resources for investigation. I think that should be more of the focus in- stead of really punishing folks if they’re fil- ing multiple complaints.” Tim Doty, a former TCEQ employee, also testified against the bill. “The pro- posed legislation could unnecessarily pun- ish economically challenged communities living adjacent to big polluters,” he said. Mary Evans, an economist and profes- sor of environmental economics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the Univer- sity of Texas at Austin, told the commis- sion she’s been researching environmental policy for 20 years. She and her colleagues have looked at tens of thousands of com- plaints submitted to the TCEQ from 2003 to 2019. What they found was that investi- gations resulting from these complaints uncovered violations more often than in- vestigations the TCEQ conducts for other reasons. These complaint-prompted in- vestigations are also more likely to un- cover serious violations. Evans said while she understands that the TCEQ doesn’t have unlimited re- sources, she doesn’t think SB 471 is the so- lution. “I’m an economist, so I do recognize the TCEQ doesn’t have unlim- ited resources to respond to citizen com- plaints,” Evans said. “However, the bill as written risks creating a chilling effect that may result in Texans hesitating to report important, valuable information to the TCEQ.” The bill is still in committee and was left pending last week. SB 471 would take ef- fect on Sept. 1 if passed and signed by the governor. Getty Images Filing mulitple environmental complaints could result in a fine in Texas. Unfair Park from p8
