Perry challenges EPA on greenhouse gases

[sonias]

San Antonio Express 02/16/2010
Texas challenges EPA on greenhouse gases

DALLAS — Gov. Rick Perry and other top Texas officials on Tuesday announced a legal challenge to the federal government's finding that greenhouse gases are dangerous to people, claiming the ruling was based on flawed science.

The EPA in December issued an "endangerment" finding about carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, setting the stage for future rules restricting such emissions.

Texas — the which leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions and is frequently at odds with the EPA — announced it has asked a federal appeals court to review the endangerment finding. The state also asked the EPA to reconsider it. EPA officials in Washington didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Perry has is head stuck where the sun don't shine again! He's a big ass-hat and a Texas sized global warming denier. And as long as that polluting industry keeps putting money in his pocket, he'll say anything to protect them.:puke:

Sonia

[sonias]

1. Professor Perry Sues EPA, Lectures on Climate Change

Texas Observer Forrest for the Trees blog 2/16/10
Professor Perry Sues EPA, Lectures on Climate Change

(snip)
I'll say this: Perry is up to his neck in pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and he's bringing Attorney General Abbott and Ag Commissioner Todd Staples along with him. The ("frivolous") lawsuit today is neither a legal nor scientific document. It is a political one: poorly-reasoned, poorly-sourced and containing enough tin-foil hat conspiracies to block a Mexican border blaster.

However, I’m sure it will please the conspiracy-minded tea party crowd and the Big Money donors in the fossil fuel industries. The lawsuit can’t possibly be intended for anyone who has even a cursory understanding of climate science.

In the second paragraph, there's already a tip-off that the thing was thrown together. The document refers to the International Panel on Climate Change. Problem is, there's no such thing. There is an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the world authority on the issue that won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

:spank: Perry!

[sonias]

2. Perry and Abbott are the bad science twins

AAS 2/16/10
Texas sues to stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gases
Perry and Abbott say rules would be based on bad science and put jobs at risk.

(snip)
As he had done previously, Perry said Washington should look to Texas for ways to solve energy and environmental issues. He cited the state's "all-of-the-above approach," which encourages the construction of coal-fired power alongside wind turbines. Texas leads the country in wind power. About 6 percent of energy on the state electric grid last year was produced by wind, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the grid.

Tuesday's actions are the latest sign of a profound rift between the Obama administration's EPA and Texas government officials and regulators about how to address environmental and energy issues.

Already, the EPA has threatened to take over the state's air permitting program that regulates emissions of industrial facilities. The federal agency has questioned whether the program has enough public participation and said it gives too much leeway to polluters.

That profound rift between the Obama administration's EPA and Texas government officials and regulators is called "reality meets head up their asses Perry style stupid. Obama's EPA has science on their side and Perry has polluter industry money and global warming deniers. Oh yeah Perry, we should have D.C. do like Texas. Stupid is as stupid does is not a sound environmental policy.:grr:

Sonia

[onestepforward]

3. Perry may be in for a hard fight. Meet Al Armendariz.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/6865931.html

DALLAS — As a scientist and environmental activist, Al Armendariz has long been frustrated by the government's inability to clean up Texas' notoriously polluted air.

He's called the Environmental Protection Agency broken, labeled both the EPA and the Texas environmental agency failures, and testified on behalf of activist groups about just how badly the agencies have botched things up.

Now, in a dramatic turn that makes him a poster child of sorts for the changing EPA, he's in charge of the agency's operations in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico.

snip-

One of Armendariz's top priorities now is fixing Texas' program for issuing industrial air-pollution permits. The EPA told the state last year that parts of its program didn't comply with the federal Clean Air Act. As a result, at least 140 facilities, including oil refineries and chemical plants, possibly need new permits.

The TCEQ insists the existing program has improved air quality. Shaw says he believes the fixes are just a matter of Texas more accurately describing its pollution-control procedures.

Industry officials have expressed concern that any repermitting process could be costly and force businesses to leave the state, and Perry says the same thing about various EPA pollution rules. But Armendariz says every state must meet the same national standards and doesn't think any companies will leave.

"We don't want industry or utilities to try to find a state where they can get away with the most," he said. "These are major corporations that operate facilities all over the world, so they know how to make money, they know how to operate and operate very profitably in dozens of places, in hundreds of places."

snip-

This should be very interesting! Hopefully we will all be breathing cleaner air in the near future.

[sonias]

4. We have big hope for Al Armendariz

He grew up in El Paso under the polluting spew of ASARCO. I'd say he knows first hand what pollution does to a community.

He's no lightweight either. Solid science background credentials

Education: Bachelor's in chemical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; master's in environmental engineering, University of Florida; Ph.D. in environmental engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Best of luck to Al at the EPA. Texas air breathers need all the help we can get from the EPA.

:kick:

Sonia

[sonias]

5. If At First You Don't Secede ... Sue The EPA

Talking Points Memo 2/17/10
If At First You Don't Secede ... Sue The EPA: Texas Guv Uses Climate-Gate Emails To Take On Feds

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to stop it from regulating global warming pollution. The centerpiece of his argument? Those leaked "Climate-Gate" emails.

Last year, the governor -- who faces a contested GOP primary race, which includes a Tea-Party-backed candidate who has lately caught fire -- raised the threat of seceding from the union. And on Tuesday, he opened a new front in his quest to tout his conservative bona fides.

Flanked by his attorney general, Greg Abbott, Perry declared at a press conference that the lawsuit was intended to "defend Texas' environmental successes against federal overreach." And he slammed the Obama administration for "using sweeping mandates and draconian punishments to force a square peg of their vision into the round whole of reality."

(snip)
The leaked emails caused a storm on right-wing blogs last fall, but did not shift the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a threat. Nonetheless, a "Petition for Review," submitted to the EPA in the name of Perry and other Texas officials and examined by TPMmuckraker, uses what it calls the "disturbing revelations" contained in the emails as the centerpiece of its argument, claiming that the leaked emails have "shocked and appalled policy makers, regulators, scientists, and concerned citizens worldwide."

(snip)
This isn't the first legal challenge to the EPA's ability to regulate global warming pollution. Last week, an alliance of conservative business groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Dick Armey's FreedomWorks filed a similar suit, which also referred to the "Climate-Gate" emails.

Coordinated crazy. Dick Armey and Rick Perry are two very nutbag people.

:crazy: Perry.