TCEQ Proposes Expedited Compliance Orders to Increase Efficiency

Why is TCEQ proposing the Expedited Compliance Order process?

TCEQ’s stated motivation for advancing the ECO process is efficiency. This new enforcement path will enable eligible respondents with qualifying violations to skip the current time-consuming enforcement process in favor of a formulaic, true-to-its-name Expedited Compliance Order. TCEQ hopes the process will achieve: (1) faster overall time-to-compliance for all regulated facilities and (2) a reduction in the agency’s backlog of pending enforcement matters. TCEQ plans to offer respondents that elect to use an ECO significant penalty reductions (up to 50 percent of the base penalty), if they bring their facilities back into compliance within 60 days.

Who is eligible for an Expedited Compliance Order?

The ECO process will be open to all TCEQ-regulated entities, provided they meet the following criteria:

1. The respondent has no active or pending matters before the Office of the Attorney General;
2. The respondent has no pending or active default, shutdown, or revocation orders at any of its facilities;
3. The respondent has no outstanding, unpaid penalties or fees;
4. The respondent and regulated facility have not been offered an ECO for the same violation within the past two years; and
5. The respondent is not a TCEQ-designated “Repeat Violator” or “Unsatisfactory Performer.”

Which violations qualify for an Expedited Compliance Order?

ECOs will only be available for violations with no significant impacts on the human environment. At the public meetings, TCEQ explained that “actual” events like emissions events, releases, or spills generally will not qualify for the ECO process given their impacts and often lengthy remediation timelines. TCEQ did advise that under rare circumstances, extremely low-impact actual events could conceivably qualify for an ECO depending on how TCEQ investigators categorize the level of harm to public health and the environment. TCEQ will publish a comprehensive list of all violations which may be resolved via an ECO before the program is finalized. While the agency has not yet shared its list, it has shared, at the public meeting, that the current draft includes: 102 types of drinking water violations, 76 types of waste violations, 11 types of water violations, and four types of air violations.

All of the violations in the applicable Notice of Enforcement must be enumerated in TCEQ’s published list of qualifying violations. TCEQ indicated it would not “split” an enforcement matter into ECO-qualifying and non-qualifying cases.

What must a respondent do to obtain an ECO?

To resolve a Notice of Enforcement through an ECO, the respondent must be able to resolve all of the violations within 60 days of receipt of notice from the TCEQ. TCEQ explained that this truncated timeline is one of the reasons more serious violations — like unauthorized emissions and discharges — are ineligible for ECOs; if the violations take more than 60 days to correct, they are ineligible for an ECO. Violations that are not resolved in 60 days will be rerouted to TCEQ’s standard enforcement process. As an example, in circumstances where the purchase, delivery and installation of equipment necessary to correct a violation would take more than 60 days after the Notice of Enforcement was issued, the violation would not qualify for an ECO. As another example, if resolving a violation involved additional permitting that would require more than 60 days, the respondent would likewise be unable to take advantage of the ECO process.

What are the benefits of the ECO program?

The public would benefit from quicker compliance, the agency would recover enforcement capacity, and respondents would be able to quickly resolve enforcement matters with a significant reduction in penalties.

The penalty reductions would be based in the existing Penalty Policy. For example, a 50 percent overall penalty reduction would consist of a 20 percent reduction from the respondent’s expedited deferral, a 20 percent reduction from the respondent’s good faith effort, and a 10 percent reduction from the respondent’s satisfactory compliance history.

Like any other administrative enforcement order, TCEQ will publish a proposed Agreed Order and a proposed penalty in the Texas Register for a 30-day public comment period. However, because violation characteristics that are normally evaluated in a Penalty Calculation Worksheet (PCW) are mostly fixed, threshold criteria to an ECO — effectively pre-answered — a PCW is unnecessary and will not be issued as part of the ECO process.

When will the ECO program go live?

As a formal enforcement policy, the ECO process requires approval by the TCEQ Commissioners. TCEQ indicated it expects the policy to be reviewed at either the TCEQ’s second agenda meeting in January 2026 or the first agenda meeting in February 2026. TCEQ will not be accepting formal comments, but will hear public comments at its agenda meeting. Clients wishing to offer informal comments before the agenda meeting are encouraged to contact us for assistance.

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