Texas AG files another petition to stop EPA from implementing greenhouse gas regs

EPA to regulate TX emissions

Alex Wukman, Jan 03, 11.

Despite the fact that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled against Texas’ attempt to stop the EPA from implementing new greenhouse gas regulations while a lawsuit challenging the agency’s authority is underway, Attorney General Greg Abbott is determined not give up. He has already filed a petition with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In the latest filing Abbott states that the EPA’s move to take over air permitting in Texas violates a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires “a cooperative relationship between the federal government and states,” reports the Austin Business Journal. The fact that the EPA’s justification for intervening in Texas’ air permitting process hinges on the idea that the agency made a mistake when it approved Texas flexible permitting plan in 1992 has some commentators believing that the EPA, and by extension the Obama Administration, is engaging in “pure political revenge.”

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “The EPA says Texas’ flexible permits allow Shell’s Deer Park refinery to emit nearly twice the sulfur dioxide as would be allowed under a federally acceptable permit. Exxon Mobil in Baytown emits twice the volatile organic compounds, such as benzene, as a federal permit would allow, according to the EPA.” Jeff Holmstead, an EPA assistant administrator from 2001 to 2005, told the Dallas Morning News that the practical effect of the EPA taking over Texas’ permitting process will be that it will take longer to get permits. Governor Rick Perry, and other Republicans, have said that the EPA’s involvement in Texas’ air permitting program will kill jobs in industry and agriculture, states the New York Times.