Road plan conflicts with new state smog levels
Environmental dispute could jeopardize federal highway funds

AUSTIN -- A dispute over Houston's long-range highway plan that threatens federal funding for upcoming road projects, including the Katy Freeway expansion, may be reignited as early as this week. Environmentalists contend that a highway plan adopted in late 1999 by the Houston-Galveston Area Council fails to meet the strict air-quality standards in the state's new smog plan. Two groups, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club, sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last fall to force the strict standards upon local road planners. A court-ordered stay of that suit ends Thursday. Environmentalists say they are suing because the Houston region's plan essentially calls for too many new roads. More roads leads to more traffic, they say, which means more smog.

H-GAC's transportation plan, written nearly two years ago, was devised to meet a limit of 195 tons of nitrogen oxide per day. But the state's new smog plan for Houston, likely to be accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency on about April 15, sets a limit of 151 tons per day from roadway sources. Ultimately, that disparity could cut off federal funding for future freeway expansion in an eight-county region, including the Katy Freeway widening and new sections of the Grand Parkway. "There's no doubt it brings risk to the region," said Jim Marston, the Texas director of Environmental Defense.

Yet the issue has been largely ignored until very recently, say politicians who are growing increasingly concerned. Even as Texas sent its overall smog plan to the EPA last December, the disparity in Houston's transportation plan was a white elephant in the corner, one environmental official said. But now, with deadlines of Thursday and April 15 looming, the issue has sent local planners, EPA officials and political operatives scrambling to fashion a compromise with the environmental groups before the area faces a lapse in federal funding, which could come as early as April. Officials, including Harris County Judge Robert Eckels and Greg Cooke, the EPA regional administrator from Dallas, will meet this week to decide whether they will go to court or try to negotiate a solution. Cooke, the lawsuit's only defendant so far, prefers negotiation.

"We think it's best to get all the parties together in one room to talk and determine if there is a way to settle the lawsuit," he said. Officials with the environmental groups, the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the Texas Department of Transportation and politicians have said the same thing. Yet reaching an agreement may be difficult. In any compromise, the environmental groups say, some road projects will have to be pared from the region's transportation plan to meet the stricter emissions levels. But a key H-GAC official said that was not necessarily the case. New pollution controls in the state's smog plan, such as lower speed limits, will help lower overall emissions while keeping the same number of road projects, said Alan Clark, the region's chief transportation planner. That argument is not likely to sway environmentalists. For some, the suit could be a tool to remove projects they don't like from the transportation plan. The Sierra Club has opposed the Grand Parkway because of its effect on urban sprawl.

But removing the Grand Parkway from the transportation plan would almost certainly be a deal killer, said state Sen. Jon Lindsay, a Houston Republican who intends to take part in negotiations. "If the compromise is too onerous, we would have to opt out," he said. In almost all cases, area road projects must be included in the H-GAC transportation plan to receive federal and state money. Without a compromise, it's unclear what will happen in two months, when the EPA is expected to accept the state's plan. At that point, the H-GAC will still be seeking certification from the Federal Highway Administration that its 1999 plan meets the level of 195 tons of nitrogen oxide per day. But the EPA already will have adopted the stricter standard of 151 tons.

Clark calls it a Catch-22.

His agency is usually given 18 months to develop a transportation plan consistent with the state's emissions standards, he said. In November 1999, the standard was 195 tons. Because the state didn't adopt the revised 151-ton standard until December 2000, Clark believes his agency should have until June 2002 to change its plan to meet the stricter emissions standards. Environmentalists are unlikely to go that far. Marston said that would require trusting the road planners not to begin building roads in the current plan that might have to be cut from a revised plan later. "It's not my preference to sue, but that's a pretty significant burden to ask," Marston said.

Clark said the belief that his agency, in its zeal for new roads, is out to circumvent clean-air requirements is simply mistaken. "I think it's everybody's objective to meet the clean-air requirements and that we need to do so expeditiously," Clark said.

If the lawsuit goes forward, and there is a federal court ruling that Houston's transportation plan does not meet the emissions requirements, the region will then fall into a so-called "conformity lapse," which has only happened in one other large U.S. city. Atlanta saw its federal transportation dollars frozen for more than two years beginning in January 1998. If a project has not yet received final federal approval during a conformity lapse, then all projects that increase capacity of the area's roads are shut down. Highway departments may not plan the projects, acquire rights-of-way or begin construction. Transportation officials said one major Houston project, the reconstruction of the West Loop, probably would not be endangered because it does not add to the capacity. But all construction designed to ease Houston congestion by adding new lanes would be affected, said Carol Nixon, a planning director for the state Department of Transportation's Houston district. "We'd be dead for a minimum of six months or even two years, depending on how things might go," he said.