House Environmental Regulation to Check Concrete and LNG Permit Laws, Weigh Streamlining TCEQ Reviews

The Texas House Committee on Environmental Regulation will gavel in at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 in Capitol Extension room E2.016 to review four environmental laws the 89th Legislature passed through this committee and to open a broader inquiry into whether Texas permitting can be made faster without being made weaker. Texans who do not testify in person may file written comments on every item through the committee’s online portal until the hearing is adjourned, and public testimony may be limited at the chair’s discretion, according to the hearing notice.

Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R–Odessa, chairs the nine-member panel — five Republicans and four Democrats — with Rep. Claudia Ordaz, D–El Paso, as vice chair, according to the committee’s page. Under House rules the committee’s jurisdiction runs to air, land and water pollution, waste disposal, the environmental regulation of industrial development, and oversight of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The monitoring charge will be heard on invited testimony only; the two substantive charges are open to public and invited witnesses.

The monitoring charge covers four bills that all took effect Sept. 1, 2025, and one of them belongs to the chair. House Bill 3866, by Landgraf, governs the installation and operation of intermediate bulk container recycling facilities and authorizes a fee. House Bill 4413, by Rep. Dennis Paul, R–Houston, sets rules for mass balance attribution of renewable biomass feedstocks used to make renewable chemicals; this committee reported it 7-0. Members will be asking whether the rulemaking that followed matches what the Legislature intended.

The two Senate bills on the list are the ones with organized constituencies behind them. Senate Bill 763, by Sen. Carol Alvarado, D–Houston, and sponsored in the House by committee member Rep. Keith Bell, R–Forney, and Rep. Armando Walle, D–Houston, changed the standard permits that authorize certain concrete plants — the air authorization that neighborhood groups have fought over for years, and which the commission has amended repeatedly, including a 2023 amendment to the concrete batch plant standard permit. Senate Bill 2037, by Sen. Kevin Sparks, R–Midland, rewrote permit application review and contested case procedures for environmental permits tied to building or modifying a liquefied natural gas export terminal, and authorized a fee.

The improving the regulatory process charge is the open-ended one. It directs members to study environmental regulations governing air, land and water quality, waste disposal and industrial development; to look for permitting steps that can be streamlined or duplicative requirements that can be dropped; and to judge how the current rules affect economic development and infrastructure investment while keeping environmental safeguards effective. Similar complaints have surfaced elsewhere in the interim: the Dispatch reported in August that desalination and air-to-water companies told a House panel the state’s own rules are blocking new supply.

The agency oversight charge, brought under Section 301.014 of the Government Code, reaches TCEQ, the environmental matters regulated by the Department of State Health Services, and the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. Each has been in the news this interim. The Dispatch reported that TCEQ met a 3 percent budget-cut order partly by trimming contaminated-site cleanup and then asked lawmakers for the money back, and that the agency approved more than $2 million in penalties against 84 regulated entities in a single month. The compact commission, meanwhile, met in Vermont in August to weigh 20 applications to import out-of-state waste to the disposal site in Andrews County.

Because this is an interim hearing, the committee will take no votes and no legislation is before it. What members hear will shape the panel’s interim report and the environmental bills filed for the 90th Legislature, which convenes in January 2027.

Meeting at a glance

Committee members

• Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R–Odessa (HD-81) — Chair
• Rep. Claudia Ordaz, D–El Paso (HD-79) — Vice Chair
• Rep. Rafael Anchía, D–Dallas (HD-103)
• Rep. Keith Bell, R–Forney (HD-4)
• Rep. Ben Bumgarner, R–Flower Mound (HD-63)
• Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, D–Houston (HD-148)
• Rep. Tom Oliverson, R–Cypress (HD-130)
• Rep. Ron Reynolds, D–Missouri City (HD-27)
• Rep. Steve Toth, R–Conroe (HD-15)