The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality meets Monday morning to take up the budget request it will send the Legislature, four days before that request is due. The agenda sets aside no time for public comment.
The one open item covers two things: what the agency plans to spend in the year starting September 1, and what it will ask lawmakers for in the two years after that. The ask comes with a ceiling. On July 14 the governor, the lieutenant governor and the House speaker sent every agency a joint letter requiring each one to “reduce its base appropriation request level by three percent.” Public schools, debt service, Medicaid and related health programs and the state’s new education savings accounts are among the carve-outs. Environmental regulation is not. Anything above the line has to be filed separately, and agencies that ask for more are told to be ready to point to lower-priority programs or other savings.
Most of the agency’s money is not general revenue. The commission runs largely on fees — waste disposal, permits, air emissions — that sit in dedicated accounts, and the letter does not say which pots of money the three percent comes out of. The Legislature’s budget board put those dedicated accounts at $651 million for the current two years against $46.2 million in general revenue. The agency did well overall last session: the conference committee report on the budget gave it $919.4 million in all funds, up 15.8 percent, the largest gain of any natural resources agency in a year when that whole section of the budget shrank by more than a quarter.
Two features of the notice are worth knowing before Monday. It labels the request “FY 2027/2028,” which matches no Texas budget cycle — the request now due covers the two years ending in August 2029, and the agency used the correct convention on the same item two years ago. And the four closed-session items, including one covering the executive director and other top officers, are standing entries that turn up on every TCEQ agenda. The commission seldom acts on them, though it used that officer docket in January to name a new chief auditor.
Work sessions are the informal half of the commission’s calendar, meant for staff briefings and policy direction rather than permits and enforcement. This item is worded “consideration for approval,” which means the three commissioners can vote on it.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:00 a.m. CT Monday, August 17, 2026. The notice was filed August 7. The commission has a second August work session scheduled for the 28th.
- Where
- 12100 Park 35 Circle, Building E, Room 201S, Austin.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — three full-time commissioners named by the governor to staggered six-year terms, with a two-term limit. Brooke T. Paup, chairwoman.
- Format
- In person, with a Zoom webinar and a call-in line. No general public comment item is noticed; four closed-session items are.
- Live video
- TCEQ webcasts · Zoom webinar ID 817 7183 5638, access code 879428 · dial-in (346) 248-7799.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · TCEQ work session agenda (PDF)
Commissioners
- Brooke T. Paup — chairwoman; designated by the governor.
- Catarina R. Gonzales — commissioner.
- Tonya R. Miller — commissioner; appointed October 2025.
Roster from the agency’s organization chart dated January 15, 2026 and the governor’s appointment announcement, not from the agency’s Office of the Commissioners page, which still lists a former commissioner. Commissioners are full-time state officials based in Austin; the agency does not publish hometowns. Kelly Keel has been executive director since December 2023. Other officers named on the org chart: Mary Smith, general counsel; Laurie Gharis, chief clerk; Chance Watson, chief auditor. The agency’s public pages and its organization chart disagree on who now holds the public interest counsel post, so no name is given for it here.