Houston area smog producers may elude penalties

Houston's biggest sources of smog-forming pollution may avoid millions of dollars in penalties for the region's failure to achieve clean-air goals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently concluded that Houston and other places still in violation of a smog standard set 30 years ago would no longer be obligated to pay fines if they met a newer, more stringent limit for the widespread air pollutant. By meeting the tougher standard for the first time last year, Houston has potentially dodged $125 million a year in fines for major polluters, such as chemical plants and refineries. While industry welcomed the decision, state regulators and environmentalists said the federal agency's stance conflicts with a 2006 federal court ruling that prompted the push to collect the fines for chronically dirty air. Texas, for one, was about to finalize the procedures for penalizing as many as 300 industrial facilities in the eight-county Houston area in response to the court ruling. "This isn't helpful," said Susana Hildebrand, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's chief engineer.