In Absence Of Action From Perry & State, EPA To Seize Authority To Issue GHG Permits In TX

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it will seize authority from Texas to regulate major emitters of greenhouse gases because Gov. Rick Perry and state regulators refused to implement the rules. The move caps a long dispute between Texas and the EPA, which have clashed over the Obama administration's push to regulate industrial sources of carbon dioxide emissions.

State officials complain the rules will unfairly punish Texas and its energy-hungry industries when they take effect Jan. 2.

While the EPA makes the rules, states implement most of the requirements of the Clean Air Act. The most likely practical effect of the EPA awarding permits instead of the state is that companies will find it takes longer to acquire them, said Jeff Holmstead, an EPA assistant administrator from 2001 to 2005.

"EPA takes forever to do permits," said Holmstead, the head of environmental strategies at law and lobbying firm Bracewell & Giuliani in Washington. "No state wants to be at EPA's mercy." Other states have joined Texas in lawsuits challenging the EPA's permit rule and its legal basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. But only Texas refused to set up the permit program. Top Texas elected officials deny the scientific basis for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, Perry and others have warned that the rules will harm Texas' dominant fossil-fuel industry.

EDIT

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-epatexas_24bus.ART.State.Edition1.4368de3.html

[ananda]

1. Will Perry go to his tea party base and threaten to secede again...

... and then beg for money from the fedtit when he needs it again?

[pscot]

2. If the Texas Elect were raptured right now

the country would be a better place.

[txlibdem]

3. RePukes prove that government doesn't work... whenever THEY're in power

It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy. They constantly beat the drum that government can't help you, that government doesn't work. Then when they get elected, they prove the ineffectiveness of governance that RePukes are well known for.