Perry aide gets No. 2 job at TCEQ

AAS 9/3/09
Ex-Perry aide gets No. 2 job at environmental agency
As deputy executive director, Zak Covar will oversee day-to-day operations.

(snip)

Covar's promotion, made by the executive director of the agency, is another stage in his meteoric rise. It also raises questions about the interplay of politics, policy and personnel at the state agency.

The appointment of Covar, who is 33 and has a bachelor's degree in poultry science from Texas A&M University, is unusual because he has a background in policy and politics; his predecessors as the agency's chief operating officer were longtime state employees.

Covar began his career clerking for the House Environmental Regulation Committee and then advised Perry from 2005 to 2007, defending, among other things, the governor's stance that scientists were still debating global warming.

(snip)
One of those lawmakers, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, a critic of TCEQ, said Covar's promotion reflected the way the agency operates.

Air pollution in Texas, Shapleigh said, could be "traced to a revolving door of insiders whose real job is to protect polluters and not Texas."