TEXAS SEEKS TO DELAY ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Texas challenges EPA's global warming findings
Matthew Tresaugue (w/Eric Berger), February 17, 2010 (Houston Chronicle)

"Texas…[is] the first state to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's finding [of 2 months ago] that gases blamed for global warming threaten public health [and should be regulated as pollutants under the Clean Air Act] …Gov. Rick Perry and other Texas officials said the federal finding is based on flawed science [and]…rules would have a profound impact on Texas, which pumps more carbon dioxide into the air than any other state because of its scores of coal-fired power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities."

[Texas Governor Rick Perry:] “The EPA's misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ…This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas' freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach.”

All it will take is uninformed, self-serving politicians causing a delay in responding to bring on the worst consequences of global climate change. (click to enlarge)

"Texas asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to review the finding, with its petition coming on the heels of similar filings by business and conservative groups…The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling…The state's petition argues the EPA improperly relied on the scientific conclusions of other groups, particularly the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to make the endangerment finding on heat-trapping gases…Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said [recent insignificant controversies about details of climate science suggest] there is a legal rationale for a court to order the agency to reopen its scientific analysis…"

[Victor Flatt, professor of environmental law, University of North Carolina:] “[The Texas petition is] essentially baseless…The scientific basis of EPA's endangerment finding is overwhelming…and certainly rises above the level of evidence they need to make the finding.”

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"The EPA moved to regulate carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases in December in the absence of congressional action to cut emissions…[T]he Clean Air Act would require that industries use the “best available control technology” — which the EPA hasn't yet defined…U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry's main rival in the Republican primary for governor, also questions the EPA's finding. She has joined other senators in seeking to strip the agency of the power to regulate climate-altering emissions…Environmentalists said they wish Texas officials would work with the EPA to reduce emissions through new, cleaner energy sources, rather than fight the agency in court…"

[Jim Marston, Texas director, Environmental Defense Fund:] “Not only is it legally unsound…it puts Texas on the side of the 1950s economy, against the clean energy economy of the future.”