Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
environmental agency of the state of Texas, USA
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is the environmental agency for the state of Texas. The commission's headquarters are located at 12100 Park 35 Circle in Austin. The fourth-largest environmental agency in the United States (and the third-largest state environmental agency, behind the US Environmental Protection Agency, the California EPA, and the New York DEC), it employs about 2,780 employees, has 16 regional offices, and has a $420 million operating budget for the 2016 fiscal year.
History
Creation
The history of natural resource protection by the State of Texas is one of gradual evolution from protecting the right of access to natural resources (principally surface water) to a broader role in protecting public health and conserving natural resources for future generations of Texans.
At the start of the 20th century, Texas created natural resource programs to address concerns about water management and water rights. By the mid-20th century, these efforts expanded to include the protection of air and water quality, and later, the regulation of hazardous and nonhazardous waste.
During the 1990s, the Texas Legislature moved to make natural-resource protection more efficient by consolidating programs. In 1991, it combined the Texas Water Commission and the Texas Air Control Board to create the first version of the TCEQ, known as the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission until fall 1993. Sunset legislation passed by the Texas Legislature in 2001 changed the agency's name to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and continued the agency until 2013. During the special session of the 81st Legislature (2009), legislation was adopted amending the 2013 date to 2011, when the agency was continued for an additional 12 years and subject to review in 2023.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7707592. VIAF identifies the subject as 142232419. The Library of Congress control number is no2002097758. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 1991, 1993 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Texas Commission on Environmental Quality” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.