Setting the Bar Low on Houston Air Quality

The Pump Handle passes along a news report that Bill White, the mayor of Houston is crossing swords with Lyondell’s refinery over benzene emissions. He wants the refinery to achieve further emissions reductions, and wants the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to monitor more stringently emissions and fenceline concentrations in air. Benzene emissions from the refinery are below TCEQ permit limits, but the story in the Houston Chronicle says it’s not clear how those limits were developed.

I’m for reducing emissions to as low as reasonably achievable, because it’s a sign that you’re committed to the best industrial practices. However, there's another perspective here. When the Mayor's own task force on Houston air quality concluded:

Air pollution levels in the City of Houston are considered to be unacceptable by knowledgeable experts and the general public and are likely to cause air-pollution related health effects for Houston residents. Pollutant levels are driven by many sources including: tailpipe emissions from cars, trucks and buses; toxic pollutants emitted into the air by more than 400 chemical manufacturing facilities, including 2 of the 4 largest refineries in the U.S.; the petrochemical complex along the Houston Ship Channel and the Port of Houston; and many small operations spread geographically across Greater Houston, such as surface coating processes, dry cleaners, gas stations, printing processes, restaurants, charcoal barbecues, and gasoline-fueled lawn maintenance equipment,

what does he hope to accomplish by singling out Lyondell?

The leaders and citizens of Houston and the state of Texas made their choices long ago to become "business-friendly" which correspondingly meant a lack of commitment to environmental quality; they also chose to become highly reliant on motor vehicles (which by the way are probably the more widespread and significant sources of exposure to air toxics such as benzene). If Mr. White is really interested in improving air quality and public health in Houston, he really should be aiming his sights a little higher than one oil refinery. Lyondell could reduce its benzene emissions to zero and I would defy anyone to show any meaningful reduction in community exposure to benzene, without any action to control the mobile and area sources. I suppose focusing on Lyondell is a start, but at the same time, couldn’t he try to persuade Houstonians not to drive their cars so damn often?