On the heels of the passage of legislation to debottleneck the expedited permitting program at TCEQ, the Commission has announced the creation of a team to focus solely on expediting air permits.
TCC promoted the passage of SB 698 during the legislative session to allow TCEQ to utilize expedited permit surcharge funds to hire and fully fund the cost of additional permit writers to process expedited permits in a timely manner. Since the expedited permitting program’s inception in 2013, there have been growing delays in obtaining air permits through TCEQ. The permit bottleneck has led to extended delays that could take as long as 475 days for an expedited NSR permit.
The new expedited permitting team will be managed by Beryl Thatcher, who currently manages the NSR Permits Section of the Air Permits Division. The team will consist of current staff from all three New Source Review Permits Sections and will have a dedicated modeler on the Air Dispersion Modeling Team (ADMT). The team will be dedicated to working only on expedited projects.
Current staff from the Air Permits Division will continue to process air permits and utilize the existing system of staff overtime and contractors to work on expedited permits.
The new expedited permitting team will begin working on permits on July 1, 2019.
