You simply must read this. The Dallas Morning News has an excellent article, heavily researched about the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approving the Asarco smelter plant in South Texas.

I am confident in the decision made today because, like all decisions, it was based on the legal requirements set forth by state and federal statutes," Buddy Garcia said in a statement last February about Asarco's copper smelter in El Paso.

What Garcia didn't mention were his three private meetings with an Asarco lobbyist at which, by the lobbyist's account, the topic was Asarco's pending permit. Asarco's opponents say those meetings may have violated the state's administrative procedures law. The company's lawyers say the meetings were legal.