Analyze

The Sunset Advisory Commission is tasked with evaluating the efficiency of over 130 Texas state agencies. A November 2022 news article points out that the group has not reviewed TCEQ's operations for over a decade (Douglas & Martinez 2022). The article also summarizes the Sunset Advisory's recommendations to improve regulation of polluting industries in Texas: 

• suspending a company's compliance history after major accidents (complicating approval of future permits)
• increasing of non-compliance penalties from $25,000 per day to $40,000 per day
• increasing the notice for public hearings and possbility to submit comments up to 36 hours after the hearing

Read more in the Sunset Advisory Commissions 2022–23 staff report.

"TCEQ regulates air, water and land pollution and had a $429 million budget in 2021; it oversees more than 250,000 permits ranging from small-scale landscape irrigation to major petrochemical plants." (Douglas & Martinez 2022).

"TCEQ Commissioner Jon Niermann said the agency’s permitting decisions could not be racist because the TCEQ does not choose the location of industrial facilities." (Douglas & Martinez 2022)

Yuanni Wang is a PhD student at the Department of Sociology at Hohai University in Nanjing China and Xinhong Wang is Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK.

This study has additionally been published with additional guides to project and organizational management, such as the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, published by the Project Management Institute. It serves as a source of reference for other organizations hoping to operate within China’s semi-autonomous state. As a case study of effect bargaining and collaboration with government actors, this text has further been referenced across non-profit management guides, as well as environmental justice studies within similar academic settings to our class.

What does an environmental justice movement look like in a semi-autonomous state? Green Yunnan and their organizational approach to operating within a government well known for its restrictions on free speech, can serve as a proxy for other environmental organizations seeking to do the same. In a similar context, Vietnam’s semi-autonomous state has rendered it extremely difficult for victims of the Formosa environmental disaster to achieve redress. Protests and opposition to government actors in this case has resulted in  deaths, injuries, and collective trauma for members of Central Vietnam’s fishing community. As research on this case builds, another important dimension worthy of investigation includes understanding  how current Vietnamese environmental organizations can employ the same diplomatic strategy to achieve environmental redress. A greater understanding of effective organization could lead to future “soft” confrontations that do not end in bloodshed or engender  greater government animosity against affected communities. 

“Soft confrontation” perhaps sounds oxymoronic, yet under the current political system in China, it has provided the opportunity for the local organization to play an effective role in pushing forward its aim of environmental protection.”  (Wang and Wang, 2020, p 232).

“Yet with the Chinese government gradually increasing its control over civic organizations, the question of whether future soft confrontations will continue to be acceptable is impossible to answer..” (Wang and Wang, 2020, p 232).

 This text focuses on articulating the various political strategies employed by environmental organizations in China to accomplish their demands. The study itself analyzes the efforts of Green Hunnan, a Chinese civil environmental group, in navigating the complicated bureaucracy and hierarchies of China’s water management bureau. Specifically, the text employs empirical data generated from focused interviews and media analysis to outline how community groups diplomatically engage with government groups to achieve observable redress to environmental pollution.

The main narrative of this text centers on addressing how civil environmental organizations can negotiate with, as well as “push back” (Wang and Wang, 2020, p 229) against government inaction in a semi-autonomous state. The tightrope these organizations must navigate, as exemplified by Green Yunnan’s efforts, show that demands for environmental redress are possible in such contexts, but requires heightened attention to diplomacy and engagement with wider social support. The ways in which Green Yunnan employs media publications, as well as their strategy in leveraging governmental hierarchies, serves as additional guidelines for other environmental organizations operating in similar political environments. 

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