# Tex. Comm'n on Env't Quality v. Paxton Supreme Court of Texas, No. 23-0244 **Tex. Comm'n on Env't Quality v. Paxton, No. 23-0244 (Tex. Apr. 17, 2026). Holding: TCEQ did not miss the ten-business-day deadline: its July 2 email was a good-faith attempt to narrow a request for a large amount of information, which under City of Dallas reset the clock until the requestor responded, and TCEQ also gained timeliness from the mailbox rule through its affidavits showing the letter was deposited in the interagency mail on July 17.** Practice areas: open records, environmental law ## Key issues - TCEQ did not miss its ten-day deadline to ask the Attorney General whether it could withhold documents requested by the Sierra Club: its follow-up email seeking to narrow the request reset the clock, and it also gained time by proving it deposited its request in interagency mail. - The Court reversed the summary judgment ordering TCEQ to produce the documents and remanded, noting the Attorney General's office disavowed its own late-request decision. ## Factual History On July 1, 2019, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) received a three-page Public Information Act request from the Sierra Club for a broad swath of records relating to a recently issued Development Support Document, "Ethylene Oxide Carcinogenic Dose-Response Assessment" (Opinion, PDF p. 2). On July 2 TCEQ emailed the Club asking it to clarify whether its request sought confidential information, saying TCEQ would need an Attorney General opinion for confidential material and that the opinion could take up to 60 days, and within minutes the Club answered that it wanted all responsive information (Opinion, PDF p. 2). TCEQ then asked the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) whether it could withhold documents under the deliberative-process privilege, and its letter, which was due within ten business days of receiving the request, reached OAG on July 18 (Opinion, PDF p. 3). ## Procedural History In a September 23, 2019 opinion OAG decided TCEQ was two days late because, in counting business days, it excluded the date the request was received, July 4, and weekends, putting the deadline at July 16, and a missed deadline made the information presumptively public (Opinion, PDF p. 3). TCEQ asked OAG to correct its decision, arguing among other things that its July 2 email reset the ten-business-day period and that its initial letter was deposited in the interagency mail on July 17, and when OAG declined to reconsider, TCEQ sued OAG under the Act for a declaratory judgment, and the Sierra Club intervened to seek a writ of mandamus compelling disclosure (Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). OAG conceded, based on the new information, that its own opinion was wrong and that TCEQ met the deadline, but the district court granted summary judgment for the Sierra Club and ordered TCEQ to produce 6,414 pages (Opinion, PDF p. 4). The Third Court of Appeals (Austin) affirmed, holding TCEQ's request was untimely (Opinion, PDF p. 4). The vehicle in this Court is a petition for review filed by TCEQ, argued September 9, 2025, and decided April 17, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 16). ## Issues Presented The Court identified three disputed issues: whether TCEQ's emails with the Sierra Club reset the ten-business-day clock, whether July 5, 2019, was a business day, and whether TCEQ gets the benefit of the "mailbox rule" (Opinion, PDF p. 5). TCEQ frames the questions as whether the court of appeals erred in defining "business day" to exclude only Saturdays, Sundays, and legislatively defined holidays and whether a request for clarification resets the deadline (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 9). ## Standard(s) of Review The Court construed the Public Information Act's deadlines and the Court's own precedent in *City of Dallas v. Abbott*, and treated the summary-judgment record as properly before it, including affidavits establishing when TCEQ's letter was deposited in the interagency mail (Opinion, PDF pp. 5-7, 11-14). ## Legal Arguments **Whether the ten-business-day deadline reset or was met.** **TCEQ (Petitioner):** The court of appeals' ruling contradicts *City of Dallas* and the statute, because the timeliness of a request for an Attorney General decision is measured from the date a requestor responds to a governmental body's good-faith request for clarification or narrowing, and the 2023 amendment defining "business day" to exclude agency-designated holidays applies retroactively and is outcome-determinative (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF pp. 11, 13; Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 15). **Attorney General (Respondent):** The court of appeals misinterpreted "business day," contrary to OAG's long-standing interpretation, the Legislature then enacted a definition, and the deadline was met, so the court of appeals' timeliness holding should be reversed (Brief on the Merits (Ken Paxton), PDF p. 11; Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 11). **Sierra Club (Respondent):** The Legislature's recent amendment codifies the court of appeals' definition of "business day," so July 5 was a business day, and the Club asks the Court to deny review or affirm on alternative grounds, including that the deliberative-process privilege does not apply and that the judgment requiring production of six documents TCEQ called nonresponsive was not challenged (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 4; Brief on the Merits (Sierra Club), PDF pp. 8, 13). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case TCEQ argued that the court of appeals' ruling directly contradicts the Court's construction of Government Code Section 552.222(b) in *City of Dallas v. Abbott* and the statute's language (Brief on the Merits (Petitioner), PDF p. 11). ## Practice Area Tags open-records, environmental-law ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Third Court of Appeals (Austin) after summary judgment; argued September 9, 2025, and decided April 17, 2026 (Opinion, PDF pp. 1, 4, 16). ## Amicus Involvement - The Texas Association of School Boards Legal Assistance Fund, et al. filed an amicus brief. ## Holding TCEQ did not miss the ten-business-day deadline: its July 2 email was a good-faith attempt to narrow a request for a large amount of information, which under *City of Dallas* reset the clock until the requestor responded, and TCEQ also gained timeliness from the mailbox rule through its affidavits showing the letter was deposited in the interagency mail on July 17 (Opinion, PDF pp. 5-11, 13-14). ## Court's Reasoning **The Court's "best-of-three" structure.** Because TCEQ needed to win only two of the three disputes, the Court did not resolve whether July 5 was a business day (Opinion, PDF pp. 5, 14-15). **Game 1: the clock reset.** Under *City of Dallas*, the timeliness of a request for an attorney general opinion is measured from the date a requestor responds to a governmental body's good-faith request for clarification or narrowing, and the Act allows an agency to discuss how the scope of a request for a large amount of information might be narrowed; the Club's three-page request swept up a large amount of information, TCEQ's July 2 email was an effort, though unsuccessful, to narrow it by offering the option of fewer documents quickly or more documents slowly, and the Club declined that day, so July 3 was the first of the ten business days (Opinion, PDF pp. 6-10). The Court rejected the court of appeals' view that the email could not be a narrowing request because it did not narrow the information requested, and noted the Legislature requires a standard form that asks whether the requestor seeks confidential information (Opinion, PDF pp. 8-10). **Game 2: the mailbox rule.** A deadline is met if the agency provides evidence sufficient to establish that the request was deposited in the interagency mail within the period, and the affidavits from TCEQ's legal assistant and mail supervisor show a July 17 deposit, which would be timely even if the Club were right that July 5 was a business day (Opinion, PDF pp. 11-14). The Court rejected the Sierra Club's argument that Section 552.301(f) barred TCEQ's request for correction (Opinion, PDF pp. 12-13). **Remand.** The lower courts can decide in the first instance whether TCEQ's records are protected by the deliberative-process privilege (Opinion, PDF p. 16). **Dissent.** Justice Busby, joined by Justice Lehrmann, would hold the request untimely, reasoning that the Court excuses an agency's untimely attempt to withhold records by treating a question whether the requestor sought confidential information as a narrowing inquiry, although TCEQ does not contend any responsive documents are confidential, and that the Act must be construed in favor of disclosure (Busby, J., dissenting, PDF pp. 1-2). ## Disposition Court of appeals' judgment reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings, including the deliberative-process-privilege question (Opinion, PDF p. 16). ## Vote Breakdown Justice Sullivan delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Blacklock and Justices Devine, Bland, Huddle, Young, and Hawkins (Opinion, PDF p. 1). Justice Busby filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Lehrmann (Opinion, PDF p. 1). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/23-0244. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.