As Texas prepares for the 2025 (89th) legislative session starting January 14, it’s worth reflecting on key environmental and regulatory laws passed in 2023. Many of these bills set long-term regulatory policies and programs that will shape future legislative priorities. By understanding these laws, stakeholders can better anticipate the state’s environmental regulatory landscape in 2025 and beyond. Let’s jump into the ring.

The Main Event: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Sunset Bill

The centerpiece of the 2023 session from an environmental standpoint was Senate Bill 1397, the TCEQ Sunset Bill. The legislation reauthorized the state’s primary environmental regulator for another 12 years and introduced reforms aimed at improving agency efficiency, transparency, public engagement, and enforcement. Key provisions include:

• TCEQ’s Reauthorization Secured. The bill ensures TCEQ’s reauthorization through September 1, 2035, while also continuing the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission.
• Air Quality Permit Updates. TCEQ will establish a new air quality standard permit for temporary concrete batch plants near public works projects, essentially formalizing existing agency practices for these facilities. The TCEQ anticipates adopting a final standard permit by May 2025.
• Public Comment and Contested Cast Hearings. For air permit applications with consolidated public notices, the bill extends the comment period by 36 hours after a public meeting (if held) and grants a 36-hour extension for requesting contested case hearings. While this affects numerous permit types, concrete batch plants are likely to be most affected.
• More Transparency in Permitting. The bill mandates that TCEQ post permit applications online, with exceptions for large supporting materials that cannot be posted due to size limitations.
• Small Business Program Expansion. A new Enforcement Diversion Program will provide support for local governments and small businesses with fewer than 100 employees to help them comply with environmental regulations.
• Stiffer Penalties for Violations: The bill increases the maximum daily penalty for the most “egregious” violations, raising it from $25,000 to $40,000 per violation.
• Public Outreach and Education. TCEQ will enhance its efforts to educate the public on how to engage in the permitting process, thereby fostering greater transparency.
• New Dust and Water Management Guidelines. TCEQ is required to develop best management practices (BMPs) for aggregate production operations (extraction sites), focusing on dust mitigation and water management. These BMPs will serve as guidance—non-binding recommendations—rather than enforceable rules with penalties for non-compliance.
• Retention of Traditional Public Notice. Despite initial proposals to prioritize electronic public notice, the Sunset Bill ultimately retained newspaper publication, notice to legislators, and placement of permit applications in public spaces as standard notice practices.

Lastly, SB 1397 ensures TCEQ will undergo another sunset review in 2033, requiring it to demonstrate continued effectiveness and efficiency in carrying out its regulatory mandate.

The Undercards: Other Key Environmental and Energy Bills

While the TCEQ Sunset Bill was the highlight, several other significant environmental and energy-related bills were also passed in 2023. Some of the most notable include:

• SB 1017 (Birdwell): Prohibits cities, counties, and other political subdivisions in Texas from restricting access to specific fuel sources or prohibiting the sale of engines based on their fuel sources, such as banning gas-powered lawn equipment and generators.
• HB 4885 (Landgraf): Establishes the new Texas Hydrogen Infrastructure, Vehicle, and Equipment (THIVE) Program, which provides funding for emission-reduction projects in ozone non-attainment areas and affected counties in Texas. TCEQ began soliciting stakeholder input on THIVE in November 2023.
• HB 2847 (Darby): Extends the Railroad Commission of Texas’s (RRC) jurisdiction over hydrogen pipelines and underground storage facilities, giving the RRC oversight over the subsurface geological storage of hydrogen.
• HB 1598 (Darby): Clarifies that permits for hazardous waste and municipal solid waste facilities do not require local government approval before receiving TCEQ approval, ensuring consistent statewide regulations.
• HB 3060 (Thompson): Expands recycling regulations, adding new recycling methods like depolymerization and solvolysis to qualify for exclusions from solid waste regulations. 
• SB 784 (Birdwell): Preempts local governments from regulating greenhouse gas emissions beyond federal mandates, prohibiting local carbon pricing or cap-and-trade systems but allowing local regulation on other environmental matters, provided they do not conflict with state authority over GHG emissions.
• SB 1210 (Blanco): Authorizes the RRC to designate geothermal operators as responsible parties for orphaned oil or gas wells, allowing them to take over and convert these wells into geothermal electricity production sites.

Preview of Coming Attractions

Failed legislation often resurfaces in the next legislative session as pre-filed bills, and several such bills have already been introduced or are expected to emerge in the coming weeks. These may include proposals related to environmental justice, the analysis of cumulative impacts in air permits (a practice already followed by TCEQ), affirmative defenses for emissions events, and the criteria for requesting contested case hearings for concrete batch plants. In our next post, we will take a closer look at some of these early bills.