The Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission (TNRCC), recently renamed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), is the state agency in charge of implementing federal and state environmental regulations and policy. Lovingly nicknamed the Train-wreak as a pronunciation of the acronym TNRCC, the agency is comprised of several former state agency including the Texas Air Control Board, Texas Water Commission, and various other specialized environmental state agencies.
Throughout the years, the TCEQ has significantly reduced the emissions released by the large chemical and oil industries, stopping the erstwhile ever present columns of black smoke that marred the landscape of Texas in the '60s and '70s. However, the TCEQ still has the persisting problems of the Houston metropolis, which has been a non-attainment area under federal air quality legislation for some time. Recently the agency called for the reduction of all of the speed limits to 55 mph in the Greater Houston Area to try and reduce the overwhelming contribution of automobile emissions to the air quality dilemma. U.S. vehicles have been tuned to be most efficient, in regards to toxic gas emmissions, at the 55 mph mark.