and lobbied for revised state public school standards that would “emphasize the critical role of energy in modern life” with a focus on how fossil fuel energy produced in Texas is “eradicating global energy poverty.”
Another nonprofit with oil and gas industry ties that qualifies as an SEP under Texas law is the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp., which has received more than $950,000 in deferred SEPs from the state since 2016 to subsidize existing air monitors that it maintains. The corporation is a nonprofit but was first formed as a private entity about 40 years ago by refineries and plants operating along the Houston Ship Channel, according to the corporation’s lawyer, Christopher Amandes.
Yet some of Houston’s biggest fossil fuel and chemical companies with facilities around the Houston port — Arkema, BASF, Chevron Phillips, Shell, TPC Group and Dow Chemical, among others — also pay the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. annual membership fees. But as the SEP agreement is set up, Chevron Phillips has been able to defer $171,292 in fines to the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. for 13 violations since 2018 — essentially benefiting by redirecting fines to a nonprofit that provides the industry a service.
“There’s a real concern that TCEQ is effectively subsidizing a private corporation that is not publicly accountable in terms of the data they are collecting,” said Corey Williams, a director at Air Alliance Houston, about the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. “A more equitable distribution of those fines would help draw a more direct line from the pollution to the public health impacts associated with it.
what an incestuous relationship
.TedCruz JohnCornyn GovAbbott TXAG
Those families affected get nothing and the company basically gave a non-profit a big cash payoff to STFU This is why Texas is such a great place to do business right GovAbbott We poison cheap 😡
huh?
TedCruz JohnCornyn TXAG