Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN — Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, and two other state senators urged Gov. Rick Perry on Monday to order a top-to-bottom review of the state’s environmental regulatory agency amid charges that is too close to industry and lax in enforcing pollution standards.

Davis joined Sens. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, in urging an internal housecleaning of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. "The time has come to clean up the mess at TCEQ," Shapleigh said.

The commission released a statement countering the criticism.

"We don’t agree with that assessment," said Terry Clawson, a commission spokesman. "To the contrary, we are proud of our permitting and aggressive enforcement programs that are leading to a cleaner environment across Texas." But Davis assailed the commission’s recent approval of a 10-year renewal of Dallas-based TXI’s permit for cement kilns in Midlothian that residents blame for exacerbating pollution in North Texas.

More than 200 residents urged the commission not to grant the renewal without first permitting a public hearing.

"Here again is an example of the TCEQ working for industry, and not for the people it is tasked with protecting," said Davis. The commission received 195 requests for a public hearing on the permit renewal, she said, "but clearly, those community concerns fell on deaf ears.

"It is time to take a hard look at the TCEQ, and determine what needs to be done . . . to ensure that it is actually fulfilling its mission statement. Because right now, industry is having their way with the regulators, and it must stop."

Davis also cited media disclosures that the commission’s former executive director, Glenn Shankle, later became a lobbyist for a company licensed by the TCEQ to build a radioactive-waste dump in West Texas. While director, according to news accounts, Shankle overruled staff scientists who recommended rejecting the dump.

Clawson said that Shankle has not appeared before the agency or asked to do so.

Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Perry’s office had not heard directly from the senators about their concerns.

"At this point we haven’t seen any information to warrant a review of that nature," she said. "We would be interested in reviewing any information they have."

Shapleigh said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that several Texas permitting programs are inconsistent with federal law, including notification requirements.

Shapleigh been seeking internal documents, including e-mails and cellphone records, that he contends could shed light on potentially improver behavior between the regulatory agency and Asarco, a copper smelter. Shapleigh sought the information after the commission approved an air quality permit that would have allowed the company to reopen an El Paso plant. Asarco has since decided against reopening the plant.