Court Sides With Texas, Overturns EPA Rule
Update, 1 p.m.: More reactions are rolling in. Al Armendariz, who was the regional administrator of the EPA when the cross-state rule was finalized and now works as a senior representative from the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in Texas, said:
"The ruling, I think, only delays the inevitable, which is that there is going to be a transport rule that requires utilities to significantly reduce their emissions. And ironically, the judgment is critical of steps the agency took which were designed to make the rule cost-effective. And if anything, the judgment could result in EPA putting a ...
Comments (6)
EyesOfTX
Man, it is all Dr. Al all the time these days at the Texas Tribune. The guy is forced to resign in disgrace, is then hired by a newly-radicalized Sierra Club, and suddenly he is the Tribune's go-to person on anything having to do with the Coal Industry. Unreal.
Mars Bonfire
What is unreal is the "competitive" market in Texas. If you think it is, I have a botle of Shi-nola for you. Even after a century of subsidy receipts- and on a scale that dwarfs the meager handouts for renewables, the Petroleum Club is still the largessee of a completely unacknowledged flood of capital- the cost avoided by being allowed to pump their hazardous waste byproduct into the airshed. That tab is picked up by forest interests, water utilities, agriculture, and of course, homeowners and healthcare policy holders- as their premiums (2x faster than inflation in 2010) and tax rates rise to cover the cost of asthma related visits to the emergency room by the 1-in-4 uninsured Texans who are doubly unfortunate enough to live down wind of a coal-fired power plant. Just because coal plant owners and their ratepayers aren't directly paying those costs now doesn't mean they aren't being paid by somebody.
No industry has the right to push its pollution off on other industries, individuals (who may have made significant capital investment locally to avoid crappy air quality) and future generations. No more than I have the right to stand beside your dinner table farting the EyesOfTX.
raffaele cafagna
Of course, none of that matters now. Armendariz is just another casualty of a pissing match between the state of Texas and the Obama administration
raffaele cafagna
Al Armendariz , EPA , Sierra Club ,???? Socialist mentality at work to destroy America and put Americans out of work ; add Bloomberg , Al Gore , Soros and the vicious circle is complete. I feel sorry for America the most powerful Nation on the Planet becoming a third world ; why ???? Because someone say so and determined to do it. so.
raffaele cafagna
Al Armendariz, who was the regional administrator of the EPA when the cross-state rule was finalized and now works as a senior representative from the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in Texas, Check this one :
Everybody knows about the natural gas boom, of course, brought about by the new fracking technology. Prices have been driven so low that gas wells are now closing down, waiting for the glut to subside. Fracking has so much momentum that even the attempt by Matt Damon to do for fracking what The China Syndrome did for nuclear power slunk out of the theaters in about a week. Sorry, Hollywood, even star power won’t be able to stop this one.
But natural gas is only the beginning. Where indirect drilling and the new fracturing techniques will have an impact is on reviving American oil. Consider this. The Bakken Shale’s “tight oil” formation, opened for development in 2006, has lifted America’s oil output 38 percent over the last five years. That’s the equivalent of the entire output of Nigeria, OPEC’s 7th largest producer. North Dakota is booming as if it were the 1980s. Unemployment is 3.2 percent, lowest in the nation, and Wal-Mart is paying $17 an hour. Things have gotten so good that the New York Times has felt compelled to dispatch reporters to tell us how women are being harassed in oil towns and many roughnecks lack medical insurance. (But the roughnecks do have enough money to offer the women $3,000 a night to tend bar at private parties.)
raffaele cafagna
Any solution will cost money, and rate payers will bear the burden.
EPA will, most likely, get its way, no matter what it means for Americans