Moeller on The Man

Staff Editorial

Editorial Cartoon

Craig Stewart

We all agree that the environment is important, but the way the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Council is trying to fix it is irresponsible, naive and just plain dumb.

At the forum held in Houston on Monday night, hundreds of people showed up, far more than the room, and an overflow room, could had, leaving scores of people jostling in the hall to hear what was going on.

As one speaker mentioned, this is just one example of the TNRCC not being able to accurately predict what will happen in the future, and is a bad harbinger for an organization whose sole purpose is to help prepare us for the challenges of the future.

The TNRCC has proposed changes that would dramatically alter the lifestyle of the average Houstonian. Some of the changes proposed include not being able to drive your car every fourth day, not allowing road construction (or lawn mowing) between 6 and 10 a.m. during the summer and fall, mandating lower-emission water heaters, and several other similarly asinine suggestions.

The consensus last Monday evening (and into last Tuesday morning) was that not only are these asinine ideas, but that this is far too much government intervention into people's lives. Road construction must be conducted between 6 and 10 a.m., especially in the summer, when work cannot be done from noon to three, because it is too hot.

Water heaters are obviously not the primary culprit of pollution.

Everyone who has lived in Houston for more than eight seconds knows where the majority of our pollution comes from: industry. It is a common practice for petrochemical companies to release toxic pollutants every time it rains, because they cannot be caught during that time period. They have not shown good faith to us, the average people, and the time has come for them to clean up their act.

The TNRCC should do away with grandfather clauses, voluntary compliance and self-monitoring in industry if they truly want to make a difference in pollution levels.

If we do not meet these standards, we will lose all of our federal transportation dollars by the year 2007, a situation which would be economically devastating to this city. But there is also more at stake: the lives of ourselves, the lives of our children and the lives of all future generations.

We must find solutions that will be acceptable to the people of Houston and will preserve our base of industry, but will clean it up and cut our pollution dramatically.