On Thursday, June 21, the U.S. EPA announced proposed revisions to the federal health standards for ozone. Though the proposal would make the ozone standard slightly more stringent, it doesn't go as far as recommended by the EPA's science advisors. It also leaves open the possibility of leaving the standard as is.

Houston's first deadline to meet federal health standards for ozone was 1975. Now, 32 years later, we still haven't reached that goal, and Governor Perry is asking the EPA to extend our deadline (yet again) to 2018, according to a Houston Chronicle article by Dina Cappiello.

Texas officially asked the federal government Friday for an extra nine years to meet health standards for ground-level ozone, saying that it would be "practicably impossible" for the eight-county Houston-Galveston region to comply with the law by 2010.

An editorial in the Sunday, June 10 edition of the Houston Chronicle noted that while state legislators failed to improve air toxics laws this spring, not all the news is bad.

It could have been worse. A bill to prevent cities from using nuisance laws against polluters outside their borders failed to pass muster, leaving Houston free to use that strategy.

Good point. Now that the legislative session is over, let's get back to work. Mayor Bill White has outlined a plan for reducing toxic air pollution in Houston, and we need to move forward with it.

On Monday, June 4, the air quality monitor at Wallisville Road in Baytown exceeded the 1-hour ozone standard for the second day this year. As a result, the Houston region lost its last hope of meeting the 2007 deadline for attaining the 1-hour standard – or rather, of getting an extension of it.

According to federal guidelines, a region can meet the standard if it has no more than three exceedances in three years at any one monitor. For the period of 2005-2007, Houston blew that chance in the first year. However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the position that Houston would be eligible for an extension if no monitor in the region exceeded the standard more than once during 2007.

The 80th session of the Texas Legislature ended on Monday, May 28, and ultimately, none of the 20 or so bills that could have reduced toxic air pollution in the state passed.

In recent weeks, our biggest hope hung on SB 12. That bill passed the Senate and was amended during the House debate to include language that would have improved air quality policies in Texas. The bill passed the House with the amendments, but they were stripped out over the weekend during the conference committee hearings.

Rep. Dennis Bonnen was the chair of the House conference committee, and Sen. Kip Averitt was the chair of the Senate conference committee.

At last, a decent bit of news from the Texas Legislature. This week, SB 1924 (Gallegos) passed the Senate. Finally, one of more than 10 air quality bills introduced this session is getting somewhere!

Of course, that's partly because this is the least "offensive" bill of the bunch. It requires TCEQ to report on its efforts to clean up air pollution, but doesn't actually include any new pollution reduction measures.

Which is not to say it isn't a good bill. It is. But it would be even better if it included ambient air quality standards. Unfortunately, all the bills that would have set such standards (including another one by Gallegos) died in committee.

Texas Rep. Dennis Bonnen, chair of the House Environmental Regulations Committee, has said he won't hear any air toxics bills in his committee unless they pass the Senate, according to an article in the Brazoria County Facts.