EPA: Texas refinery permit violates Clean Air Act

[kpete]

Source: Seattle Times

EPA: Texas refinery permit violates Clean Air Act

The Environmental Protection Agency moved Tuesday to end a long-running dispute with Texas over how the state regulates emissions, including cancer-causing toxins such as benzene and butadiene, from dozens of refineries that produce a third of the nation's gasoline and billions of dollars of petrochemicals.

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI

Associated Press Writer
HOUSTON —

In a step it called unprecedented, the agency barred Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery in Corpus Christi - a power it has traditionally delegated to state regulators. The EPA said it would do the same in dozens of other cases in which it believes the state's permits violate the Clean Air Act, and could potentially do so statewide by June 30.

"For me, July 1 is a very important day," Al Armendariz, an EPA regional director, told The Associated Press. "The state of Texas has to let me know if they can issue permits that are consistent with federal requirements, and if they can't, then we will."

The decision comes after months of unsuccessful talks between the EPA and the state over how Texas issues permits that stipulate how companies should measure pollution from refineries and other petrochemical plants. It is also the latest dispute between the EPA and a state that leads the nation in the emissions of greenhouse gases and industrial pollutants.

Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011951573_apusepavstexas.html?syndication=rss

[Toots]

1. Wallowing in their own filth and happy about it..

Texas takes the cake IMO for low class and no heart.

[scentopine]

2. Rick Perry is the Sarah Palin of Texas -nt

[happygoluckytoyou]

3. SAVES THEM A LOT OF MONEY IN RETIREMENT BENEFITS....

[apnu]

Wow, it has to be bad if it violates the Bush era, Orwellian-named, "Clean Air Act" (nt)

[apnu]

4. Wow, it has to be bad if it violates the Bush era, Orwellian-named, "Clean Air Act" (nt)

[Ed Barrow]

5. EPA Says Texas Is Violating The Clean Air Act; Perry Calls It A Power Grab

Source: KWTX

It will take federal and state environmental regulators at least five years to unravel Texas' rogue permitting process and to determine how much air pollution the nation's largest refineries are producing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says Texas is violating the Clean Air Act, and documents that The Associated Press obtained show that the state is letting plants spew twice as much pollution as the law allows, including emissions of cancer-causing toxins such as benzene and butadiene.

State regulators say the EPA's data is faulty, however, and Gov. Rick Perry says it’s all an attempt by the Obama administration “to harm our economy and impose federal control over Texas.”

The EPA announced Tuesday it would directly issue an operating permit to a Corpus Christi refinery and would begin taking similar action in 39 other cases.



Read more: http://www.kwtx.com/centraltexasvotes/localheadlines/94966659.html

[snappyturtle]

6. I am soon to leave this mess here (TX). Perry can say what he

wants but according to my husband's family members living in Houston, Baytown and the greater Houston area...the air quality is awful. We have lost three living there to cancer since 2005 and two more are currently battling the dreaded "C". I live 125 miles west of Austin and 60 miles north of San Antonio....thank God. The air here is so much better than Houston.

edit: Thanks for posting! Welcome to DU!!

[hatrack]

7. Well, what did anyone expect the Lone Star Hair Helmet to say?

After all, he's a bold freedumb-fighter who's all about secession . . . and freedumb and stuff.

Until the next hurricane, or if BP can't shut in Deepwater Horizon. Then he'll be all about what Evil Government ISN'T doing for the proudly independent state of Texas.

:puke:

[glinda]

8. Golly. If the EPA kept doing its job, not only would the environmental issues start

being addressed but the Repubs would loose some power.

[BrightKnight]

9. TNRCC (Train Wreck) can't be trusted with anything. n/t

[DeadEyeDyck]

10. Brownville Tx is a stinking shitpit

[MilesColtrane]

11. Not just refineries, also cement plants, chemical plants...you name it.

Hard to say which is more of an anti-regulatory wet dream for Republicans, China or Texas.

[NavyMom]

12. Texas, hands down..nt

[BrightKnight]

16. Midlothia has steel mills and cement plants burning very hazardous waste imported

from all over the Country. I have heard that a large percentage of DFW pollution comes form these operations. I had family living there and I persuaded them to move. I would love to see the EPA involved.

http://www.midlothiannow.com/MIDLOTHIAN__TX.html

[caseymoz]

13. Power grab? Grabbing the power of keeping people from being poisoned?

Yes, people in government are going to gain wealth and power on that one. Really, unless they could point to the people in government who actually benefit from extra power and wealth from the "power grab" the whole thing is a strawman.

How about the people who grab power as a result of letting industry get away with poisoning and suffocating people? There's definitely a demonstrated shortcut to success with doing that.

[Jennicut]

14. Yeah, that caught my eye too. It seems like Perry is making the

power grap by letting industries get away with what they want. If they don't want to follow federal law, I guess they can always "secede", though I think a lot of people in TX don't actually want that.

[BrightKnight]

15. Perry feels threatened because much of his power comes from

enabling industries to do things that are not in the public interest.