Las Brisas Political Commentary: What (or who) can you buy with a $3 billion project in Corpus Christi?

The Las Brisas story took another turn on May 11th with was essentially a vote of support for the project by our “pro-business” city council. The Council decision would allow the city to provide water to the plant if they are granted their highly contested air permit by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The only real effect of the council action may be to restore some of the shaken confidence of potential Las Brisas investors that resulted from the recommendation by the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) judges that Las Brisas should not be granted their air permit. The motivation behind the push to approve Las Brisas’ water contract may have been nothing but an effort to reassure their investors. Guaranteeing a water supply to a facility whose air permit may not be granted would otherwise seem to be a rather empty gesture.

What was actually revealed by this rush to judgment is the amount of influence Las Brisas has over some of our local politicians.

What was being contested on May 11th was whether the city council should have to approve a contract the city manager is negotiating to provide Las Brisas with 15-20 thousand acre feet - more than 7 billion gallons of water - from the Corpus Christi water supply every year. That is the equivalent of over 10% of the current water usage for our city. More to the point, while our water department says we could provide that water with our current water supply, they still recommend that the citizens of Corpus Christi spend over $100 million to build a pipeline to the lower Colorado River to draw on our reserve water supply. That would mean that you and I would be helping to finance Las Brisas, like it or not. The vote taken on May 11th allows the city manager to move forward on contract negotiations with Las Brisas to provide access to the water, if they get their other permits. No further approval will be needed by our city leaders.

This was the one chance city leaders had to control whether Las Brisas can be built. For over a year our mayor and some of the city council members have been saying they had no power to keep Las Brisas from being built. That was not true. They said that only the TCEQ could make decisions determining whether Las Brisas can be built. That was also not true. The water contract was the one way a concerned city council could have prevented the plant from coming here. Las Brisas would not be able to operate without the water contract. The decisions that will determine whether Las Brisas can be built are now truly out of the control of our city leaders, and hopefully will be made by people more cognizant of the risks this facility would present to the health of this community.

The public hearing on May 11th was supposed to allow the citizens of Corpus Christi an opportunity to influence the City Council’s decision. Six physicians, including the president of the Nueces County Medical Society, testified that Las Brisas would predictably cause lung and cardiac disease. The council was provided with data from medical studies that have shown that the detrimental health effects of the pollutants that will be generated by this plant occur at levels below current EPA standards and therefore within current permitting guidelines. They were informed that current EPA standards for ozone, particulate matter, and SO2 are being reduced, in some cases by court order, within the next few months. (The bad news for us is that because of changes in EPA “standards”, it is quite likely that by this time next year Corpus Christi will fall into non-attainment for ozone.) Las Brisas is trying to get its permits before those changes are enacted. If they can, they might still be able to build the facility because of “Grandfather clauses” built into changed regulations.

The City Council was also told that there is a growing body of evidence that the people of Corpus Christi are already suffering adverse health effects caused by our existing industries, and that Las Brisas would produce as much pollution as all seven of our refineries put together. Specifically, they were told that data from the CHIPs Medicaid program in Corpus Christi shows that we have twice the number of pediatric ER visits for acute asthma as the average in the rest of the state. They were told that other data from the CHIPs program shows that children living within a five mile radius around our refinery area have over twice the incidence of asthma of children living outside that area.

For anyone in the profession of medicine that kind of data cannot be ignored, but it was soon obvious that the physicians testifying before the City Council on May 11th were wasting an afternoon out of their offices. The meeting might as well have been scripted. The council members had already made up their minds; Chris Adler even told us all she had written her speech the night before.

We did see a hero emerge in the council chambers. Nelda Martinez was the first to cast her vote. She very eloquently stated that she had changed her mind about Las Brisas during the last year after listening to both sides and doing her own research. She spoke strongly in opposition to the plant stating that detrimental health effects would clearly occur. She stated that because of the danger they pose to public health, no one had ever previously attempted to build a coal or petroleum coke powered plant near a metropolitan area in Texas. She reported that another company considering construction of a power plant in Corpus Christi in recent years had rejected the idea of using petroleum coke and had planned to use natural gas instead because of the health concerns associated with the use of Pet Coke. Ms. Martinez also argued that instead of helping our economy, Las Brisas was likely to damage it. She believes the construction of Las Brisas would lead to our city either going into non-attainment due to the additional pollution from the plant, or coming so close to non-attainment that existing industries could not be allowed to expand and no other industry would be allowed to come here.

Priscilla Leal also came out firmly against the plant saying she was concerned for the health of her children and grandchildren.

Coming down on the other side of the issue, Chris Adler voted yes to allowing Las Brisas to have the water contract, saying we need the tax revenue and that she would rely on the TCEQ to protect public health. Kevin Kieschnick was rather sarcastic and with some justification has been accused in a letter to the editor of mocking the parents who voiced concerns at the council meeting about the potential effects of increased air pollution on their children’s asthma. He went on to accuse the physicians who testified before the council of trying to manipulate the council with exaggerated data. He didn’t bother to provide any theory of why we might do that. Kieschnick’s concluding statement was that he had run for office stating he would back Las Brisas, and he was going to keep his promise.

Several people spoke to the City Council stating that Mark Scott should recuse himself from voting on anything related to Las Brisas since his wife was working for them just last year. In spite of that, Mr. Scott refused to recuse himself, stating that the city attorney told him he was not legally obligated to do so. You can draw your own conclusions as to his ethical standards. Scott’s wife’s company was paid about $30,000 for public relations work done for Las Brisas in 2009. She ended that relationship when he was elected to the city council. Scott submitted his yes vote to allow the water contract to go forward and spoke against an amendment to delay that decision from going into effect.

Mr. Elizondo recused himself because he works for a refinery that would be selling petroleum coke to Las Brisas. Mr. Chesney also recused himself. Mr. Marez announced at great length that he had decided to depend on the TCEQ to determine whether the plant might cause adverse health effects. He voted to provide Las Brisas the water as long as they got their air permit. The mayor, without further comment, also voted in favor of Las Brisas.

As I said previously, the entire procedure could have been scripted. Maybe it was. If you’re interested in a conspiracy theory, after over a year of dealing with people fronting a 3 billion dollar company, my now near paranoid suspicions would suggest the following:

Well before the Council meeting, Ms. Leal and Ms. Martinez had taken public stands against Las Brisas. They would clearly vote against providing them the permit. Mr. Chesney had written e-mails to numerous parties stating he would also vote against anything about Las Brisas brought before the City Council until the TCEQ had published its final ruling on their air permit. Mr. Marez was supposedly undecided as of the Monday before the meeting. All together, the day before the Council meeting there were four possible votes to refuse Las Brisas its water contract. Our mayor, Ms. Adler, Mr. Kieschnick, and Mr. Scott have been in favor of Las Brisas from the beginning. All four of their votes would be needed to guarantee that Las Brisas would not lose the vote and be denied the water access. The $3 billion plant hung in the balance.

Two somewhat strange things happened at the meeting; the first was obviously Scott’s refusal to recuse himself when he has a much more obvious conflict of interest than those who did recuse themselves. His vote, given after he was publicly challenged about its ethical implications in front of the audience in the council chambers, indicates far more than a cavalier attitude about his duty to make unbiased decisions while representing the citizens of Corpus Christi. Scott has had his eye on the mayor’s job for years. His willingness to expose himself to accusations of unethical behavior, putting his political career in jeopardy, is the most damning evidence of just how much influence Las Brisas has over him. In other words, his refusal to admit to his conflict of interest proves just how much of a conflict of interest he has. It is an issue that may well wind up in a court of law.

The second strange thing that happened at the City Council meeting was that at the last minute while Scott was refusing to recuse himself, Mr. Chesney decided he would recuse himself. His excuse was that he had just discovered that a company in which he has financial interests provided insurance to Las Brisas. The question you might ask is why Mr. Chesney would need to recuse himself if he was going to keep his word and vote against the Las Brisas water agreement. No one could have accused him of having a conflict of interest in voting against a water agreement when a yes vote might provide him financial benefit. That choice would not have appeared unethical, it would have appeared laudable. The only logical conclusion is that Mr. Chesney was also pressured by the 3 billion dollar company. In his case, he did not compromise his integrity by voting in favor of Las Brisas. He just found a way out of keeping his promise to vote against it.

As it turned out, with Chesney out of the way, and with Marez deciding to ignore all the physicians who told him the regulations the TCEQ was using would not protect the health of our community, they didn’t actually need Scott to ignore his obvious conflict of interest.

The TCEQ has just put discussion of the State Office of Administrative Hearing Judge’s rulings concerning the Las Brisas permit on their schedule for the end of June. As I mentioned above, the EPA will announce its revised air pollution standards in August. Those standards will go into effect at the end of this year. One would wish that any TCEQ decision would center on whether Las Brisas would push pollution levels over those new air quality parameters rather than whether they qualify to get a permit based on the current standards. That may not happen. While it may seem to be ridiculous, it is quite possible that as this plays out we will be fighting to keep them from building a plant that is projected to push Corpus Christi out of attainment with 2011 EPA air pollution standards before construction is even begun.
The political and legal games being played here are almost comical. Unfortunately, when the decisions being made could have enormous impact on the health of this community, the humor is lost.