Saying he wanted to spend more time with his daughter, Glenn Shankle announced Wednesday that he will step down as executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Shankle, 54, said that after 32 years of working for the state, including four years as the environmental agency's head, he "needed more flexibility" and time with his 16 year-old daughter, Alexis.

Shankle said he would not leave until the three commissioners find a replacement, which may not happen until the end of the summer. Previous executive directors have become lobbyists, and Shankle, who makes $145,200 a year, said he would "explore that option."

With 2,900 employees and a $566 million budget, the state agency is enormous. And even as it expanded its enforcement activities and handed down higher fines for polluters, the agency has been battered in recent years by environmental and watchdog groups who say it is too cozy with industry: "I have embraced environmentalist groups as well as regulated entities equally," Shankle said. "In this job, we have to make decisions based on science and the facts we have before us. Someone's not going to like the decisions I make."

The announcement is "great news for (the TCEQ) staff," said Bob Gregory, the operator of the Texas Disposal Systems landfill and a longtime foe of Shankle's. The pair tangled for years as the disposal company tried to get the agency to force a trucking company to remove hazardous waste from its landfill. (The trucking company removed the waste after the sides struck a deal in November.)

The agency has been the subject of angst among many environmentalists. In June, for example, commissioners, following Shankle's recommendation, approved a permit for a coal plant about 100 miles northeast of Austin despite recommendations against it by state administrative law judges and the commission's own Office of Public Interest Counsel. And earlier this year the commission, again following Shankle's lead, rejected recommendations from administrative law judges as it approved a renewal for a permit for a controversial smelter in El Paso.

The agency is "rotten" and "a lapdog for polluters," Eliot Shapleigh, a Democratic state senator from El Paso, said after that decision.

Last month, the American-Statesman reported that Shankle supported a proposal for a radioactive waste landfill in West Texas despite misgivings by the agency's staff about the makeup of the site.

Shankle's tenure has been marked by attempts to respond to a state auditor's report in 2004 that said the agency needed to beef up the fines doled out to polluters. Shankle has also sought to make the agency more customer-friendly.

"The State of Texas was extremely fortunate having Glenn Shankle ready, willing and able to lead the agency forward from those difficult times," Commissioner Larry Soward said. "It didn't take a step back in a moment when it could have, but instead took strides forward."

Shankle joined the environmental agency in 1995.