EPA taking over greenhouse gas permits in Texas

[sonias]

AAS 12/23/10
EPA taking over greenhouse gas permits in Texas
DALLAS — The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it is taking the unprecedented step of directly issuing air permits to industries in Texas, citing the state's unwillingness to comply with greenhouse gas regulations going into effect Jan. 2.

EPA officials indicated they reluctantly were taking over Clean Air Act Permits for greenhouse gas emissions because "officials in Texas have made clear . . . they have no intention of implementing this portion of the federal air permitting program."

(snip)
Texas, which estimated 167 projects would be affected by the new rules, stands alone in refusing to modify its permitting process. The Lone Star State has more oil refineries, chemical plants and coal-fired power plants than any other state and leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions and industrial pollution.

Texas and the EPA have repeatedly clashed over environmental issues, a division Gov. Rick Perry used on the campaign trail as an example of Washington trampling on states' rights.

:woohoo: :toast: to cleaner Texas air and water!

[sonias]

1. EPA takes over Texas pollution permits

Houston Chronicle 12/23/10
EPA takes over Texas pollution permits

(snip)
EPA Regional Administrator Al Armendariz in a letter to industry said that as of Jan. 2, 2011, all greenhouse gas air quality permits that are pending at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality or may be filed in the near future will now be reviewed and issued by the EPA. Armendariz said the TCEQ has estimated that 167 projects in Texas will be affected.

The action has no effect on existing air quality permits and only will impact businesses that are expanding facilities or building new operations. The impact most directly will affect petrochemical refineries.

Armendariz said a U.S. Supreme Court opinion gave the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions for the "Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD)" of air quality. He noted that Texas has been fighting the EPA in court over the issue.

"State officials in Texas have made clear in letters to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, statements in the media and in legal challenges to EPA's greenhouse gas rules … that they have no intention of implementing this portion of the federal air permitting program," Armendariz said. "The unwillingness of Texas state officials to implement this portion of the federal program leaves EPA no choice but to resume its role as a Clean Air Act permitting authority in the state."

:loveya: Al Armendariz!

[sonias]

2. EPA to issue greenhouse gas permits in Texas

Dallas Morning News 12/23/10
EPA to issue greenhouse gas permits in Texas
WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency will announce today that it will seize authority from Texas to award permits to plants that emit large amounts of greenhouse gas, because Gov. Rick Perry and state officials have refused to implement federal regulations.

(snip)
As of Jan. 2, those plants will have to seek greenhouse-gas permits if modifications increase their greenhouse-gas emissions by 75,000 tons per year. New facilities that emit more than 100,000 tons annually become subject to the permit rule in July.

(snip)
By assuming control for greenhouse gas permits, the EPA said businesses would avoid the uncertainty that plagued the other clean-air program.

“We are simply now going to supplement the state actions to insure that we have an emission standard that … governs greenhouse gases,” EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy said Thursday. Permits “will be legally defensible. The industries will be able to rely on them and have certainty they are enforceable under federal law.”

The Clean Air Act allows states to implement their own federally-compliant programs to regulate industrial sources of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, ozone and sulfur dioxide. Texas is the only state that refused to add greenhouse-gas controls to its existing permit program.

:kick:

[sonias]

3. E.P.A. Challenges Texas Over Rules on Emissions

NY Times 12/22/10
E.P.A. Challenges Texas Over Rules on Emissions

HOUSTON — The feud between Texas and the Environmental Protection Agency reached a new level this week, with federal officials saying that they will take over the granting of permits for new power plants and refineries in the state because Texas refuses to regulate its emissions of greenhouse gases.

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has fought federal environmental officials’ efforts to crack down on industrial polluters in his state.

The showdown centers on Texas’ opposition to the Obama administration’s program to rein in heat-trapping emissions, which has become a symbol of a broader struggle by industry and some Republican politicians to thwart such regulatory efforts.

(snip)
Facing more muscular threats in the incoming Congress, the Obama administration has retreated somewhat on its timetable for some long-delayed rules governing smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers.

Nonetheless, the E.P.A. has said that it is proceeding with plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial plants under the Clean Air Act starting Jan. 2. The regulations will in principle curb emissions by requiring plants to use the best available technology to control them. The plants will also have to monitor those emissions and report back to the government.

Please don't back down on this Obama administration. We're dying in Texas!

[northoftheborder]

4. States' Rights?

This is a good example of why, in some cases, such as this, the federal government needs to step in to protect the citizens of this state. The state regulators and all the state office holders including the governor, are bought and paid for by the chemical, oil, gas, coal industries. And it is not just the state of Texas that is being harmed; the adjoining states, and of course, the contributions to the national and world air pollution and global warming are affected by what happens in Texas. I hope the EPA doesn't back down. I think they would win in court, if it goes that far.

[sonias]

5. This is a great example of how we depend on the Fed to step in

And the latest example of how Perry sells Texas off to polluters is this one:
Don’t Trash Texas—
Unless You Pay Perry $1.1 Million
A billionaire gives the governor $500,000 more
to make Texas the nation’s nuclear waste dump.

Copy of the article is available from Nuke Free Texas
nukefreetexas.org/downloads/SimmonsNukeImport.pdf

This is related to douglas9's thread
Texas Could Foot Bill for Radioactive Waste Dump

[white cloud]

6. Great

A good past example of the horror this can cause is the old RML lead battery smelting plant in SW Dallas. Turned Superfund site. Numerous birth defects and mental health problems over a big area of Dallas county. Probabaly a 3/4 radius residents had to move out of the area.
Clean up cost tax payer millions and the owner never payed a dime of clean up. Then on top of that you add 5 to 10 dollars to ever battery you buy.

[onestepforward]

7. Good news!

It will be interesting to see what Perry's next move will be to protect his campaign contributors.

[white cloud]

8. Anybody remember the name of the Enviromental or Petro group

that meet in Biloxi and elected Perry president?

TIA

[sonias]

9. No idea

:shrug:

[white cloud]

10. Thanks I found it.

http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/biloxi-2009


2010 IOGCC Chairman Gov. Rick Perry, Texas

As big reason for him to be bullying the EPA.


His video.

http://governor.state.tx.us/news/speech/13750/

[sonias]

11. Very interesting

Thanks for sharing the link. He's always been a sellout and usually goes for cheap - but I bet the oil and gas industry still pay him very well.

Here is where Perry shows his dinosaur DNA and backwards thinking about our energy future:

I believe that anyone discussing energy in our nation and world must begin by acknowledging the essential role that oil and gas have played throughout our history and the reality that they must continue as fundamental elements of our energy portfolio.

:kick:

[white cloud]

12. Read this one

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2648318/posts

[sonias]

13. OMG - The horror!!!

You can never have enough protection to wander over to freeperville. :)

Note their selective use of facts - cherry picking to suit their world view is typical. They conveniently overlook the huge budget deficit Texas is facing - you know the $25-28 billion dollar hole that's entirely due to republican rule for the last two decades. No instead they wash over the issue with this:

Until this year, Texas has had a budget surplus and still has $7.5 billion in a rainy-day fund created by voters in 1988.

No their tiny little heads can't possibly wrap around the fact that bush & perry drove this state into a ditch too, and the time to pay the bill is coming due. Perry plugged that hole in 2009 with $14 billion dollars of federal funds. But not a peep from the freepers about how the federal government was just "messing with Texas" by giving them $14 billion in stimulus funds right?

In 2009, budget writers filled the hole by using $14 billion in federal stimulus money to balance the budget. Despite what Rick Perry wants you to believe, out of 35 states that used federal stimulus funds to balance their budgets, Texas relied most heavily on it, using President Obama's funding to fill 96.7 percent of its budget gap.

You can read the whole rest of this history of why Texas is in the shape we're in from former Texas State Senator Elliott Shapleigh's http://shapleigh.org/news/3848--red-ink-in-the-red-state">"RED INK IN THE RED STATE" - January 7, 2010

:kick:

[white cloud]

14. Another fine example

BASTROP, Texas –
Along a stretch of Highway 21, in Texas' pastoral Hill Country, is a vegetative wasteland. Trees are barren, or covered in gray, dying foliage and peeling bark. Fallen, dead limbs litter the ground where pecan growers and ranchers have watched trees die slow, agonizing deaths.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101228/ap_on_re_us/us_vegetative_wasteland_3

[sonias]

15. Coal is dirty and dying

The enormous of amounts of water that coal plants need will be the death of them too. We can not afford to use water for coal power plants.

That equation should be a no brainer - water and food beat dirty energy needs.

:kick:

[white cloud]

16. "The State of the Gulf-America’s Sea,"

A one-hour video documentary, "The State of the Gulf-America’s Sea," will air in late February on all Texas public television stations, taking a broad look at the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the massive BP oil spill that followed the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig on April 20.

The program will air at 8 p.m. Feb. 24 on most PBS stations in Texas, including Dallas-based KERA-TV, Channel 13. It’s the fifth in a highly praised series of water resource documentaries produced by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and broadcast in partnership with PBS stations.

Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/barnett_shale/2010/12/a-look-at-the-gulf-following-bp-oil-spill.html#ixzz19XY9UyLB

http://blogs.star-telegram.com/barnett_shale/2010/12/a-look-at-the-gulf-following-bp-oil-spill.html








http://www.texasthestateofwater.org/

Overpopulation. Climate Change. Urbanization.

View the trailer transcript Explore the vital importance of water for people and for the diverse bounty of Texas fish and wildlife that depend on it for survival.
Examine the threats facing Texas’ water and what can be done to protect our most precious natural resource.
Learn how simple steps people take collectively can do a lot to diminish future water shortages.

[sonias]

17. Thanks for the link

I've put it on my calendar to tape.

:hi:

[sonias]

18. Federal Court Denies Greenhouse Gas Stay for Texas

Texas Tribune 12/29/10
Federal Court Denies Greenhouse Gas Stay for Texas

Texas' bid to stop the federal government's efforts to regulate greenhouse gases hit another roadblock today, when the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals turned down the state's request for a stay of a move to force states to implement federal plans.

"Petitioners have not met their burden to satisfy the legal standards required to allow a stay pending appeal," the court said, in its short denial.

(snip)
Environmentalists praised the court's move. The Environmental Defense Fund "urges Governor Perry and Attorney General Abbott to stop wasting tax payer dollars on frivolous lawsuits, which only seek to protect big polluters," said Jim Marston, director of the group's Texas office, in a statement.

Happy New Year to all Texas lungs!

:toast:

[white cloud]

19. Great

Stick by your gun when needed. Look at love canal , Bapahl India,

[sonias]

20. Union Carbide - prime example of a morally corrupt global corporation

Union Carbide murdered thousands of innocent people including children. After fighting litigation for decades and successfully having the case transferred to the Indian courts the paid a mere pittance of $470 million for damages. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200.

Learn your lessons people - corporations including those chartered in the U.S. just see human life as a bottom line expense. You are expendable to them when they cut corners to make their profits. Never forget Bhopal or the murder of the Gulf Coast by BP!

Wikipedia entry on Bhopal Disaster of 1984
(snip)
March 1986 saw Union Carbide propose a settlement figure, endorsed by plaintiffs' US attorneys, of $350 million that would, according to the company, "generate a fund for Bhopal victims of between $500–600 million over 20 years". In May, litigation was transferred from the US to Indian courts by US District Court Judge. Following an appeal of this decision, the US Court of Appeals affirmed the transfer, judging, in January 1987, that UCIL was a "separate entity, owned, managed and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India". The judge in the US granted UCC's forum request, thus moving the case to India. This meant that, under US federal law, the company had to submit to Indian jurisdiction.

Litigation continued in India during 1988. The Government of India claimed US$ 350 million from UCC. The Indian Supreme Court told both sides to come to an agreement and "start with a clean slate" in November 1988.<43> Eventually, in an out-of-court settlement reached in 1989, Union Carbide agreed to pay US$ 470 million for damages caused in the Bhopal disaster, 15% of the original $3 billion claimed in the lawsuit. By the end of October 2003, according to the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, compensation had been awarded to 554,895 people for injuries received and 15,310 survivors of those killed. The average amount to families of the dead was $2,200.

Throughout 1990, the Indian Supreme Court heard appeals against the settlement from "activist petitions". In October 1991, the Supreme Court upheld the original $470 million, dismissing any other outstanding petitions that challenged the original decision. The Court ordered the Indian government "to purchase, out of settlement fund, a group medical insurance policy to cover 100,000 persons who may later develop symptoms" and cover any shortfall in the settlement fund. It also requested UCC and its subsidiary "voluntarily" fund a hospital in Bhopal, at an estimated $17 million, to specifically treat victims of the Bhopal disaster. The company agreed to this.

:kick:

[Manifestor_of_Light]

21. the air is greener in Pasadener.

Refinery trash and proud of it, here. Please ignore the scar tissue in my lungs on my x-ray; I do not smoke cigarettes and never have. It's from BREATHING the fumes from the Ship Channel.

[sonias]

22. Video: Obama, Perry Face Off Over EPA Climate Rules

National Journal 1/3/11
Video: Obama, Perry Face Off Over EPA Climate Rules
The Environmental Protection Agency rolls out its long-awaited, long-fought new climate change rules, but Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry has thrown down the gauntlet to President Obama. The potential presidential contender is daring the EPA to step in and take over state environmental permitting activities.

:kick:

[white cloud]

23. Just like

school yard bullies. More crony perry