By State Rep. Brooks Landgraf
In 2021 I was honored to be appointed by Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan to serve as chair of the House Environmental Regulation Committee. In addition to oversight of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the committee has jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to waste disposal and pollution, including environmental regulation of industrial development.
Now, more than ever, it’s up to Texas to defend American energy and protect oilfield jobs – especially those right here in the Permian Basin. For that reason, I am incredibly grateful that Speaker Phelan appointed me as chairman to a committee that has directly allowed me to be on the frontlines protecting the livelihoods of the people I serve.
As chairman, I successfully ensured that radical environmental bills referred to the committee, such as legislation seeking to implement aspects of the “Green New Deal” or to outlaw flaring, were not passed into law. Not a single one of these bad bills made it out of the House under my watch during the 2021 legislative session.
Instead, I worked to only pass legislation out of the committee that allows the Lone Star State to continue being the oil and gas epicenter of the entire globe while also balancing having clean air.
Federal law requires Texas to operate a grant program to reduce emissions in the state’s most polluted regions. Therefore, I filed House Bill 4472 to expand, reform and modernize the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) to ensure operators in the Permian Basin can obtain grants to lease or purchase oil and gas technologies that reduce flaring and site emissions. HB 4472 is now law, making meaningful changes right now in the field with existing state revenue sources.
Last month, Speaker Phelan joined me in Odessa to stand in support of our West Texas oil and gas workers in response to Biden’s ongoing war on Texas energy and the EPA’s continued push for a nonattainment redesignation of the Permian Basin. We affirmed our commitment to continue protecting Texas energy by using the full force of the state to fight the EPA.
To that end, as chairman of the House Committee on Environmental Regulation, I’ve scheduled a committee hearing here in Odessa to investigate the proposed EPA regulations and the impact they may have on Texas. I’ve even invited the EPA administrator to come out to Odessa and attend the hearing, but they have so far declined the opportunity to experience our West Texas hospitality.
The House Environmental Regulation Committee hearing is open to the public and will take place at the historic Ector Theatre at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19th.
God bless Texas!
