With the revocation of our permit on April 17, 2007, the Commissioners Court suggested that the understanding the EHD used in applying the 1997 density rules was incorrect. (See Law Not Retroactive for more details.) Therefore, even though a prior Commissioners Court had approved the permit and agreed with this interpretation, and the TCEQ had agreed with this interpretation of the law, they revoked our permit anyway. This leads to a very important question: how many other permits did they revoke? Did they apply their new interpretation of the law in a fair and consistent manner?
We know that there are other permits that meet this qualification. In The Free Press on June 6, 2007, Tom Pope of the EHD states the following:
“If we went back and did the same interpretation on all existing businesses that we’ve permitted since ’97, I wouldn’t say it would be hundreds of businesses impacted, but it would be quite a few.”
To date, no other permits have been revoked based upon this new construction of the law. The only permit that has been revoked is ours. It is possible that it is the intention of the Commissioners Court to revoke the permits of all these other businesses, putting all of their employees out of work. But at present, that has not happened. We hope, for their sake, that we are the only business that has to suffer such action by the Commissioners Court. To allow the Commissioners Court to get away with the revocation of our permit will open the door to further injustices for other businesses in the future. Let those who would revoke our permit know that you do not support them! (See What You Can Do for more details.)
