Issues

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has been captured by special interests and is failing Texans, slapping polluters on the wrist at the expense of public health. Every Texan regardless of income or ethnicity deserves an opportunity to breath clean air and live in an environment free of toxins or pollutants. The birthplace of the environmental justice movement under Dr. Robert Bullard, greater Houston finds itself subject to much higher rates of cancer among its inhabitants from rampant pollution. This is unacceptable.

Karthik visiting the Houston climate justice museum to learn about the 5th ward cancer clusters

Karthik believes in

• Vastly increasing funding to aid Texans subjected to past environmental injustices. For example, the 5th ward creosote cancer clusters as a result of legacy issues with Union Pacific are abhorrent, and the state should increase funding available to residents for relocation

• Ensuring environmental justice planning principles are incorporated into all TCEQ planning, permitting, and decision making, as well as those of the Texas Railroad Commission, and giving the agencies both the mandate and increased ability to hold polluters accountable

• Directing the TCEQ to consider the cumulative effects on health of approving multiple air permits in the same neighborhoods in line with the guidance of Public Citizen and the Houston Air Alliance, and granting commissioners the right to refuse permitting based on issues of pollution and justice. Mandating greater outreach by the TCEQ (both virtual and in-person) so communities can feel heard, and also increasing transparency

• Pushing back against the capture of the TCEQ by polluters and mandating stricter ethics rules to strengthen it, as well as stopping TCEQ from using state resources to challenge efforts to regulate climate change or stop pollution at the federal level

• Providing sufficient funding to school districts to easily transition school buses to electric to lower emissions, increase grid stability, and most importantly lower pollution on students