Written by Jack McDonald
Each green dot represents as well permitted by the Texas Railroad CommissioPollution is built into the American environmental protection framework. Even in circumstances where the environment is already damaged, our regulations allow new facilities to be built in the same area–doubling down on environmental degradation to protect profits. With a climate disaster looming, that is a dire situation.
In Texas, when an extraction company wants to drill an oil well, they usually receive the permit to drill in 24 hours. They are then required to submit a series of additional forms and permits, though there is little in place to ensure that they actually do. This process is split across two agencies. The first is the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), the Texas agency tasked with regulating oil and gas operations in Texas. The second agency is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which is tasked with protecting the environment of Texas. Both agencies issue permits to oil and gas facilities which can lead to confusion about what exactly each agency is permitting.
Texas Railroad Commission Permits
The RRC issues the permit that is commonly thought of when permitting an oil well. The permit is called a W1 and it allows a company to drill a well and then registers the well in the RRC’s database of current wells. The RRC prides itself with being able to issue a drilling permit in 1-day. However, the W1 application requires disappointingly little information from an operator. W1 forms don’t require information about expected emissions or the equipment being used on site. This form doesn’t even require the operator to disclose the nearest residents who may be impacted by the well.
TCEQ Permits
At the TCEQ, the operator has to apply for an air permit. These permits serve a less obvious function by “permitting” the unavoidable pollution that accompanies oil and gas extraction. Oil and gas infrastructure inevitably pollutes our air. Despite decades of research and development and countless promises to reduce emissions, no company has figured out a way to extract oil and gas without pollution being released (seemingly because such a process cannot exist). The oil and gas industry wants to portray these pollution releases associated with oil production to the public as aberrations, small leaks and releases that don’t add up to much, but the reality is that they are significant pollutant releases that happen frequently and annually can release thousands or even millions of tonnes of CO2 and other air pollutants. Though the TCEQ is charged with protecting the air that Texans breathe and these operators must pollute that air to operate, the TCEQ has decided to play nice with these operators and let them pump toxins into our air to continue their operation. Central to that relationship is the TCEQ air permit which legitimizes these emissions as legal.
No Permits Needed for Carbon Dioxide or Methane Emissions
Permits are typically sorted based on how much pollution they allow with a general trend that high polluting facilities are required to go through more rigorous approval processes. However, methane, one of the largest contributors to climate change, is not regulated by the TCEQ, so the determination of what type of permit a facility needs is divorced from the facility’s methane releases and therefore climate impacts.
The De Minimis Loophole
While large facilities require permits, for the smallest facilities, De Minimis authorization allows operators to build infrastructure without an air permit or notification to the TCEQ. This authorization is premised on the idea that some sites pollute too little to be harmful. The original intent of this policy is clear. It is designed to allow small residential activities to occur without permits (like campfires), but oil and gas companies have taken advantage of it to stretch the policy to its absolute limits. The lack of notification to the TCEQ also makes estimating the cumulative impacts of these sites virtually impossible. Further, the lack of oversight built into the authorization has been documented by Oilfield Witness’s Sharon Wilson to allow facilities to pollute far beyond the limits of the De Minimis authorization.
This optical gas imaging frame depicts large emissions from storage tanks at the Lazarus 67 well operated by Colgate Natural Resources. Despite these emissions the facility does not have a permit with the TCEQ and appears to be operating under De Minimis authorization.
Regulators Can Overrule Public Opposition to Pollution
For larger sites, the TCEQ has permits that set acceptable levels of pollution. Operators can register for certain types of infrastructure and receive automatic approval. This allows facilities to be permitted with no opportunity for public input nor any information verification by the TCEQ. For the largest sites, operators are expected to provide emissions estimates for their facility, which are used to create acceptable emissions limits for the facility. For these larger facilities, the TCEQ has to approve the permit. This process can involve public meetings to judge the public’s feelings about the facility, but ultimately the TCEQ is able to make a final approval to allow pollution even in a community that demonstrates a strong desire that the facility not be built.
The System Permits Pollution
There are several obvious shortcomings in this process. First, cumulative emissions can be dangerous for residents and workers even if individual pollutants may not rise to an unsafe level; the automatically approved permits ignore these cumulative emissions entirely by not setting rules about proximity to other wells. Even if those new wells had to consider other nearby facilities, De Minimis authorization creates a web of facilities that are invisible to the TCEQ and are therefore ignored both in emissions inventories and in considering cumulative emissions impacts. Second, across these permitting systems there are several conspicuously absent pollutants. Methane, a greenhouse gas more than 80x more potent than CO2, is not regulated by air permits, a failure that arises from the climate change denialism that has become commonplace in Texas regulations. How can the TCEQ fulfill its responsibility to Texans if it ignores the existence of climate change and facilitates the continued release of greenhouse gasses? Third, the opportunities for operators to receive permits or authorizations without TCEQ’s explicit approval through both De Minimis and automatic approvals, normalizes and routinizes pollution. We are in the midst of a climate crisis. It is appalling that operators are given a rubber stamp to pollute protected by the law.
Though I have focused on Texas, the air permitting system in Texas arises in large part from the EPA’s deployment of the Clean Air Act. Air permits legalize pollution across the country. In some places, that legalization may consider whether a facility is “worth” having given its pollution, but ultimately, pollution has become a normalized and accepted part of our environmental regulatory process. While some industries may require some pollution and people may be willing to accept that, the widespread normalization of huge amounts of pollution is something that we need to meet with more scrutiny. This system of pollution permitting further confirms the main fieldwork conclusion of Oilfield Witness: oil and gas extraction necessitates pollution. In fact, climate destruction is built into the regulatory system the government has created. With readily available renewable alternatives to fossil fuels and a looming climate crisis responsible permits of new oil and gas facilities cannot exist. Our best hope for a liveable future is for governments to stop permitting new oil and gas projects.
