AUSTIN, TX -- Tuesday The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disapproved another portion of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s (TCEQ) clean-air permitting program the federal agency says does not meet federal Clean Air Act requirements.

Tuesday's disapproval is the latest in a series of significant rebukes from the EPA and focused on changes TCEQ proposed making to the New Source Review (NSR) program it administers. The NSR program requires new plants or existing plants that undergo major modifications to install “state-of-the-art” technology to reduce emissions.

Further, according to an EPA press release, the NSR program “requires the best type of pollution control technology, requires permits in order to emit air pollutants, looks at how reducing one form of air pollution can sometimes cause another form of pollution to increase, and provides the state, federal government, and the public the means to know what pollutants are being emitted.”

“Governor Perry keeps saying that Texas is the poster child for air quality programs,” said EDF energy program director Jim Marston. “But this is the third significant federal rebuke of TCEQ’s air permitting program in the last six months. So he must either be talking about another state’s program, or he doesn’t know what poster child means.”

On June 30, 2010, the EPA disapproved TCEQ’s Flexible Air Permitting program, stating that it failed to meet minimum federal Clean Air Act standards.

In March 2010, the EPA disapproved the “qualified facilities” exemption rule that the TCEQ had submitted for inclusion in its State Implementation Plan. The “qualified facilities” rule allows companies that have been issued air permits in Texas to avoid certain federal clean-air requirements, such as public review, when their plants are modified.

The string of EPA disapprovals follows a contentious relationship between Governor Perry and the EPA that stretches many years back into President George W. Bush’s administration. For example, EPA’s disapproval of Texas’ Flexible Air Permitting program occurred more than two years after President Bush’s EPA put all industries affected by the program on notice (2007). Similarly, the EPA issued a “proposed” disapproval of Texas’ NSR program in 2007.

“The Bush EPA warned Texas for years that its air program violated the Clean Air Act, and Governor Perry and his political appointees at TCEQ continually ignored those warnings,” Marston said. “Now Perry wants Texans to believe that Washington is picking on him all of a sudden.”