This presentation will overview critical community lawyering tools for environmental justice matters. The first part of this session will briefly address general ways to mitigate adverse community impacts from the lack of industrial oversight by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the drastic changes at the Environmental Protection Agency. The second part of the session will provide examples of community empowerment in action that can be duplicated elsewhere. This will include sample public documents from actual concrete batch plant cases that address: 1) the Texas Clean Air Act (including public participation in concrete batch plant standard permit process; submitting citizen evidence with citizen complaints/requests for a TCEQ investigation; participating in enforcement actions; and appealing adverse TCEQ decisions); 2) the interplay of the Texas Public Information Act (including filing the initial request; participating in the agency’s request for an Attorney General opinion, and seeking a writ of mandamus/declaratory judgment/injunctive relief); and 3) the role of the Federal Clean Air Act (including the interplay of Texas’ state implementation plan (SIP) and citizen suit action provisions). The session concludes with an audience participation discussion.
Participants: Wendi Hammond, Michael Bates and Haley Varnadoe (most likely to be substituted with Adam Pirtle upon his return from parental leave).
