And those fighting against Texas’s sovereignty are the usual progressive suspects.
The EPA assault on Texas
J.E. Dyer
HotAir.com
6/19/2011
The necessary precondition for Texas’s unique economic success – a beacon in a deep recession – is energy. And the EPA is closing in for the kill.
This would be one thing if Texas were an outlier among the 50 states in terms of dirty air or an otherwise demonstrably imperiled environment. But the truth is closer to the opposite: the air in Texas has been getting cleaner; in the urban areas, much cleaner. And in spite of being by far the largest electric power producer of the 50 states, and heavily reliant on coal, Texas has been steadily reducing its emissions of the EPA’s least-favored compounds from coal combustion (e.g., sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide). Its emissions of NOx and SO2 are substantially lower than the national average; Texas is ranked the 11th lowest in NOx emissions (.098 lb/mmBtu in 2009, versus a national average of .159 lb/mmBtu), and 24th in SO2 (.309 lb/mmBtu in 2009, versus a national average of .458 lb/mmBtu).
But the EPA isn’t really making the argument that Texas is an environmental pigsty. It’s not putting any data or findings behind that premise, at any rate. Instead, it is simply acting high-handedly, assuming an authority that nothing in written law confers on it, to pronounce Texas’s procedures in violation of EPA rules – even when there is no basis for making that claim. To put it bluntly, the EPA is making a power grab…
…From regulating the naturally-occurring fine dust in the countryside, to treating the byproducts of coal combustion as hazardous waste, and preventing them from being sold for use in cement, the EPA’s proposals would shut down one aspect of human economic life after another…
…Ben Voth wrote a piece for American Thinker in January calling out the new EPA assault on the production of natural gas in Texas. And if you think the EPA’s particular beef is with fracking (hydraulic fracturing) chemicals, think again. The basis for the EPA’s abrupt move against a Texas natural gas driller in December 2010 was methane and benzene found in local water…
…Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) is pursuing this issue. The Republicans in Texas’s congressional delegation have sent a letter to Cass Sunstein expressing strong disapproval of the EPA’s failure to abide by its own rules in implementing the new air quality and emissions regulations. As Pajamas notes, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has sent a letter of its own decrying the new regulations – although the Texas Democrats have remained silent.
The fight continues among the states. At least 15 (including Texas) filed suit against the EPA over its “climate-change” regulations in 2010, even before the full slate of new air quality/emissions regulations were published. On the other side are 16 states
fighting back on behalf of the EPA, saying without regulations, climate change will adversely affect them.
Those states are: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
Remarkably, the states “fighting on behalf of the EPA” include the ones with the biggest state deficits, the ones with the highest taxes, the ones with the highest unemployment, and the ones hemorrhaging businesses and revenues and losing seats in Congress after the 2010 census…
Read the entire article at HotAir.com
Weasel Zippers has more. The EPA is Trying to Put Its Jackboot on the Neck of The Highly Successful Texas Economy Because we just can’t have none of that success and real progress going on around here…
More at HotAir: Everything’s bigger — and now also brighter — in Texas
Texas Gov. Rick Perry today signed a law that will free Texans from the federal government’s impending incandescent light bulb ban:
The measure, sent to Gov. Rick Perry for consideration [he subsequently signed it], lets any incandescent light bulb manufactured in Texas – and sold in that state – avoid the authority of the federal government or the repeal of the 2007 energy independence act that starts phasing out some incandescent light bulbs next year…
And, from the 10th Amendment Center, BREAKING – Perry adds Texas TSA bill to special session
…NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICK PERRY, Governor of the State of Texas, by the authority vested in me by Article IV, Section 8, and Article III, Section 40, of the Texas Constitution, do hereby present the following subject matter to the Eighty-Second Texas Legislature, First Called Session, for consideration:
Legislation relating to prosecution and punishment for the offense of official oppression of persons seeking access to public buildings and transportation…
Related: [U.N.] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) These People Haven’t Learned a Thing, at Blazing Cat Fur (as well as a link to an article about Global Cooling. Because Cool is the new Warm, or something.)
And previously at HotAir.com, Shocking! EPA cost benefit predictions based on “feelings”
…In “Assessment of Obama Administration’s Cost-Benefit Analysis of Clean Air Act Regulation,” economist David Montgomery reveals the very large net regulatory benefits touted by EPA rely on apples to orange comparisons, where the vast majority of the benefits have none of the financial reality that the costs do.
“In its Clean Air Act appraisal, EPA substitutes calculated misdirection for solid analysis” explained NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp. “Nearly all of EPA’s promised $2 trillion in benefits from existing regulations stem from feelings rather than fiscal improvements.
“Federal regulators arrived at their staggering figures by polling individuals on how much they’d be willing to pay to reduce risks in general, mostly using estimates from studies of occupational risks unrelated to air pollution.”
But the EPA did get one thing right. It’s going to be expensive…
Update: Oh, what the heck! Here’s more…
Report: Cost Of Obama’s Green-Car Mandate Will Add $10K To Vehicle Price, Eliminate 260,000 Jobs… at Weasel Zippers.
GatewayPundit, Another Obama Propaganda Fail… Green-Car Mandate Will Eliminate 260,000 Jobs
