Is the Air in Texas Dangerous to Breathe?
The battle between Texas pollution regulators and the Environmental Protection Agency grows more contentious and complex by the day. Gov. Rick Perry accused the EPA on Wednesday of "seek[ing] to destroy Texas’s successful clean air program and threaten tens of thousands of good Texas jobs in the process." Environmentalists fired back, in their own news conference, threatening to sue the EPA if the agency doesn't make the state shape up.
The back-and-forth follows the EPA's announcement last week that it will strip the state of permitting authority for a huge refinery in East Corpus Christi. The ...
Comments (3)
printzapper
Nonetheless, there are areas in Houston area, near schools and neighborhoods, that regularly exceed the maximum allowed ppm for ozone, benzene, and other unhealthy pollutants. Perry, like his predecesser, will always be big money vs. the people. Folks just keep on voting for him tho...
namoyer
Well, once again, further clarification is necessary. EPA, in fact, has a major source permitting process very analogous to TCEQ's Flexible Permit--i.e., the Plantwide Applicability Limit (PAL). Neither EPA's bureaucrats in Dallas, nor the TCEQ ones in Austin have been willing to reconcile these two programs for several reasons. The Flexible Permit pre-dates the PAL, EPA had been in denial regarding the PAL in that it emerged from EPA HQ and the regional staff disowned it, and neither EPA nor TCEQ have been willing to work with Flexible Permit holders to reconcile the two programs differences. EPA's Dallas staff has had years of opportunities to intervene in the TCEQ Flexible Permit process during both the original permit application stage, and in the permit renewal phase. For nearly 15 years, EPA has been intractable, and TCEQ has be incapable of overcoming EPA's unwillingness to make the Flexible Permits satisfy their PAL process. As for the vocal environmental advocates, they would know a good permit from a bad one. Their ignorance is monumental.
think
Perry did the same thing Bush had been doing by planting industry people into the regulatory agencies they were supposed to regulate.
Perry is single handedly trying to destroy quality of life like Bush did just so toxic polluting agencies keep their profits.
Texans can eventually become weathered beef jerky walking sticks being exposed to Bush and Perry's deep pocketed cronies/lobbiests.