EPA Doesn't Blink in Standoff with Texas

In a world of strongly-worded letters and blustering statements for the press, last week was pretty dramatic as Obama's EPA prepares to regulate greenhouse gases in 2011. Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator to EPA chief Lisa Jackson, wrote to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's Chairman, Bryan Shaw, and stated that the EPA was poised to take over the permitting of power plants, refineries, and other sources of greenhouse gases in Texas, since the TCEQ clearly has no plans to obey federal law and implement the climate regulations. 

"Officials in Texas have made clear ... that they have no intention of implementing this portion of the federal air permitting program," McCarthy wrote. "The unwillingness of Texas state officials to implement this portion of the federal program leaves EPA no choice but to resume its role as the permitting authority, in order to assure that businesses in Texas are not subject to delays or potential legal challenges and are able to move forward with planned construction and expansion projects that will create jobs and otherwise benefit the state's and the nation's economy."

Facilities reporting annual emissions of greenhouse gases more than 100,000 tons (that means large steel mills or power plants, not small businesses) will be subject to the rule requiring they consider ways to reduce their emissions, such as energy efficiency improvements for example. More than 167 facilities in Texas, including power plants and oil refineries, will be subject to the permit rule.

It's an aggressive move following months of blustering about states' rights by Texas politicians like Governor Perry and Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst.  Negating the science of climate change and beating their chests about states' rights, they have brought cases and petitions against the EPA's jurisdiction in Texas.  Other states have done so too, but at least these other leaders have the foresight to try and consolidate federal and state regulations so businesses can get permits when the GHG rules are implemented.  No such foresight in Texas, and it will be businesses who are caught in the middle of two mountains of paperwork and bureaucracy.

Perry, a governor whose presidential ambitions have the same transparency as plastic-wrap, has taken his show on the road, touting his new book and his defiance of the federal government on the political talk-show circuit as an act of heroism.  But his ridiculous states' rights narrative is running dry, much like the beloved rivers his environmental agency is supposed to protect.

The Clean Air Act is the Clean Air Act. The law is the law. And science is science- climate change is real, and if out-of-touch, politicized bureaucracies can't get it together, then enforcement is inevitable.

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