Governor Abbott Orders Regulators to Reconsider the Pipeline-Tunnel Permits His Own Agency Just Approved

LANSING — Governor Abbott announced Wednesday that state environmental regulators will review permits they recently granted for a pipeline tunnel beneath a major waterway, citing a state supreme court ruling that the state must scrutinize the project's environmental consequences and alternatives more thoroughly, and, less officially, a week of backlash from the governor's own supporters.

In the same breath Abbott wrote to the pipeline company's outgoing chief executive calling the existing line "a ticking time bomb" and demanding it be shut down "within months," a stance The Press notes is difficult to square with the permit his own agency had issued days earlier for the line's replacement.

The Press's energy desk observes that a governor reversing his own regulators after political pressure is 'caving to activists' when the other party's governor does it and 'listening to the people' when yours does. The tunnel, originally due to be finished in 2024, now has an uncertain completion date and a certain number of press releases.

The company said it would keep pursuing the project. Opponents said the state should never have approved it. The governor said both, on different days, which has been the project's schedule since it began.

At press time the permits were issued, under review, and possibly void, a status the state's own regulators described as 'in process.'