Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Glenn Shankle

The job description for the top spot at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has not been posted yet, but it could read something like this:

Oversee a state agency with 2,900 employees and a $566 million budget; calculate penalties for polluters; wade into thorny policy issues that invite a scrum of industry execs, regulators and environmentalists; advise commissioners on hot-button issues like whether to approve a power plant. Thick skin a must in the face of criticism from interest groups and scrutiny from the press.

The selection could signal the willingness of the agency to be an environmental watchdog, or, as state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, recently described it, an industry lapdog.

The current executive director of the agency, Glenn Shankle, announced earlier this month that he would step down to spend more time with his family as soon as the three commissioners find a replacement.

Commissioners may not succeed until the end of summer, but agency observers are already placing bets on Shankle's replacement.

Favorites include Mark Vickery, Shankle's second-in-command; David Schanbacher, the agency's chief engineer, who has appeared before lawmakers to explain air quality issues; and Carlos Rubinstein, a water specialist at the agency who hails from Brownsville, the hometown of Commissioner H.S. Buddy Garcia, the environmental agency's chairman.

Gov. Rick Perry appointed the three commissioners, so people close to Perry with environmental policy knowledge are also on the list. They include Zak Covar, who until recently served as Perry's environmental policy analyst, and Ken Armbrister, Perry's legislative director.

All five possible candidates declined requests for interviews.

Technically, the executive director job is largely an administrative one, executing the policy set by the three commissioners, said Drew Miller, an environmental lawyer who represented the agency in the 1990s as a lawyer at the state attorney general's office.

But the director advises the commissioners on major permitting cases that involve radioactive waste dumps, landfills and power plants.

Shankle and the agency have often received criticism that they cozy up to industry.

In January, the commission renewed an air permit for a smelter belonging to Asarco, which shuttered its El Paso operations in 1999 and wants to reopen because the value of copper has increased.

But the City of El Paso and residents and officials in Mexico and New Mexico opposed the move because the plant exceeded authorized levels for emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide in the 1990s. New Mexico officials have asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency to weigh in.

And Shankle's recommendations, which the commissioners typically follow, occasionally differ from conclusions reached by lower-level agency inspectors, the agency's office of public interest counsel and outside judges.

The new director will have to enforce carbon dioxide levels, should Congress pass a law this year on global warming; weigh in on permits for new power plants; get involved with water supply issues as the state grows thirstier; and endure long days when the Legislature is in session.

The commissioners should look for someone interested in "aggressive enforcement of existing laws, and proactive in developing strategies to reduce existing levels of pollution," said Tom Smith, the head of the Austin office of Public Citizen, a government watchdog group.

"They can either hire someone who is another weak executive director — who maintains status quo — or someone who will propel the agency forward, doing what executive directors at most state environmental agencies do, which is protect the environment," Smith said.

Shankle has said he favors neither industry groups nor other special interests.

The Texas Chemical Council, a trade group, offered a different take on the matter.

"The commission is committed to protecting the state's natural resources and environment, a position which we share," said Hector Rivero, president and CEO of the council. "We look forward to working with whomever the agency selects to serve as its new executive director."

The clout of the executive director "depends on the personalities and degree of real expertise of the political appointees," said Thomas McGarity, who teaches environmental law at the University of Texas.

Commissioner Larry Soward has served since 2003, and Garcia and Bryan Shaw, the third commissioner, were appointed in 2007. Because the executive director determines what information the commissioners hear — or don't hear — to make their decision, McGarity said, the director "is the most powerful person in the organization, including the chairperson."

While the commissioners could hire from the private sector, they typically hire within the ranks of state government, Miller said. The new hire can expect a salary of about $145,000, Shankle's current pay.

Vickery, 48, a longtime agency staffer, ran the permitting and enforcement divisions before taking over the deputy director spot in 2004.

He would be "same old, same old," said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment and a critic of the commission.

Schanbacher, a 52 year-old engineer, has appeared often before lawmakers the past couple of years to explain air quality issues such as the ins and outs of biodiesel emissions.

"Both are experienced internal agency people," Miller said. Schanbacher "is more experienced in air matters. Air is a very hot topic. They may give him the nod because of that. But Mark (Vickery) is also very experienced."

Rubinstein, the Rio Grande watermaster and area director for the agency's field operations in South and Central Texas, has had a hand in water negotiations with Mexico and steered parts of South Texas through drought.

"He's an incredibly competent administrator," said Mary Kelly, a water specialist at Environmental Defense. "It would be fabulous to have someone knowledgeable about water rights enforcement."

Rubinstein, 49, has also worked with Garcia, who grew up along the border and said when he took office that he wanted to improve border and environmental relations with Mexico.

Covar, 32, had worked at the governor's office until November, when he joined Shaw's office. Covar had previously worked as an aide to state Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton.

In an October interview with the American-Statesman, when Covar was still an adviser to the governor, he said scientists were still debating whether mankind contributed to global warming.

Armbrister, 61, is Perry's legislative director and a former state senator from Victoria who served as chairman of the senate Natural Resources Committee. Krista Moody, a spokeswoman for the governor's office, said Armbister wouldn't seek the environmental commission job.

"He already has a job," she said.