Posted on 07/12/2010 5:03:16 PM PDT by EBH
Leading U.S. independent refiner Valero Energy Corp faulted the decision. San Antonio-based Valero has six Texas refineries, the most owned by a single company. The plants employ 2,700 people.
"When the flex permit program was rolled out in 1994, EPA and environmental groups applauded it, and EPA approval seemed implicit," said Valero spokesman Bill Day in a statement. "Now, 16 years later, EPA is reversing course, and our facilities are caught in the middle, creating significant uncertainty at a time when our economy can least afford it."
(Excerpt) Read more at scientificamerican.com ...
Perhaps Texas should go private ... as an independent country. It would be good for Texas and good for America at this point.
Just another example of the Obama regime going after Red States by either failing to give them disaster aid or by imposing restrictions/suing.
AZ (illegal aliens); OK (no aid for flooding/tornadoes); TX (drilling and refineries); LA and MS (drilling and tornadoes); AL and FL (drilling); TN (flooding); AK (drilling).
Most corrupt regime in my life and they don’t even attempt to hide their dirty dealing like RMN, JFK and LBJ did.
Deliberate attack on a “red” industry. Oil is HATED by the liberals. Texas oil is particularly despised since the Johnson and Kennedy era. Deliberate (non-decision) to revoke previous administration process.
“Texas refineries have a combined crude oil throughput of 4.75 million barrels, equal to 26.8 percent of national refining capacity.”
~~~
Louisiana produces about 25% of the total energy for the US
and 80% of the home heating oil,,,
You folks that use oil for heat would be smart to top off
your tanks for next winter if you can,,,
The next thing they’ll try is to shutdown refineries in
the area of Lake Charles,La. ,,,
Get Ready,,,
INCOMING!!!...
Whatever. Won’t change my feelings or those of many others.
I do. All of the refineries in the country run year around at near full capacity to supply our needs. Even in the best of times a 26% reduction in production would mean the country would come to a standstill.
Those ain’t the only choices.
Forget your Ayn Rand corporate heroes. They do not exist.
The minute I heard about the EPA interferring with the Texas permits, I suspected that shutting down the Gulf refineries is a great plan if you happen to have a lot of oil that was spilled in the Gulf and skimmers were collecting it to be refined. Whoa! A great plan if you are Obama.
Once this administration is actually forced to collect the oil, there has to be a Plan B to screw it up.
Sounds like a RICO suit may apply here.
But they are not shutting them down. AT least not yet...they are just going to harass them for a while. They are going to drive the cost up, slowly over the next few years. People won't even realize what is driving the cost up. Sections of refineries will be shutdown to fit new pollution control devices etc. and they won't be able to restart unless they meet some insane, unscientific regulation standard. Unfortunately they won this round.
Add onto to this the other threads,Wave Of EPA Regulations Could Overshadow New Pollution Rule and EPA Agrees to Review Air Pollution Rules for 28 Industries we've got a heap of energy sector trouble brewing. Under a different administration I might not take a notice or be overly concerned. Traditionally over zealous EPA enforcement has been smacked down by the Regionals, but the Texas action indicates a whole new "attitude." That attitude is supported by an 'activist' administration in power.
An Activist Administration, means all the bureaucracies under their control will have no reasonable amount of restraint. 0bama and his whole cabinet and shadow czar government are activists, which ultimately is worse than being a liberal I think. Activists use the courts against the people, force, create crisis, and violence.
The takeover in Texas was a show of force.
Sierra Club got the court ruling to have the EPA review enforcement on a bunch of MACT rules. Like I said, in normal times the decade review wouldn't cause me to bat an eyelash. These are not normal times.
And this week the EPA introduced the "Transport Rule" in the energy sector.
These new regulations never even saw the congressional floor for appropriate legislative action. Congress years ago, under a different time, granted the EPA this kind of authority. As Matthew Spalding said,
The result is that many of the actual decisions of lawmaking and public policy—decisions previously the constitutional responsibility of elected legislators—are delegated to unaccountable bureaucrats in administrative agencies. While these agencies call their laws “rules,” there is no doubt that they have the full force and effect of law as if they were passed by Congress. Today, when Congress writes legislation, it uses very broad language that essentially turns legislative power over to agencies, which are also given the authority of executing and adjudicating violations of their regulations in particular cases Do we still hold these truths?
We are in a heap of trouble of our own creation. The trouble is so big we can't see the fire for all the smoke.
Who is John Galt?
A lot of the liberal Northeast runs on heating oil. Time to quit shipping it there.
People are now realizing just what the word "Progressive" means. The leftists needed a new name in America when the voters permanently soured on the direction "liberals" were pulling the country.
These super-liberals who call themselves "PROGRESSIVE" espouse a new form of government that is actually a synthesis of two previously existing government forms: Communism and Fascism.
When many use the word “fascist” they are simply using it as a pejorative. When people were calling Bush “fascist”, that was simply a smear. When I challenged them to define fascist, and they were unable to respond, I educated them. That reduced them to calling him monkey instead. Dear Leader has been RULING as a fascist (most recently demonstrated by this very article) as I will demonstrate.
However, when using "Fascist" here, I am NOT using it as a pejorative. It is attempting to describe as accurately as possible the system of government they espouse and are trying to bring about. I ran into a problem, though, when researching the question.
I excerpt part of http://open-encyclopedia.com/Fascism as a base for the analysis.
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that
- exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual,
- uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition,
- engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and
- espouses nationalism and sometimes racism or ethnic nationalism. ,
... The purpose of the government under fascism proper was to value itself as the highest priority to its culture in just being the state in itself, the larger scope of which, the better...
... The Nazi movement spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes. The Fascist movement, on the other hand, sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture...
...Fascism rejects the central tenets of Marxism, which are class struggle, and the need to replace capitalism with a society run by the working class in which the workers own the means of production. ...
[Fascism includes] capitalism ... This was a new capitalist system, however, one in which the state seized control of the organization of vital industries.
Look at the agenda the Progressives have undertaken since gaining control of Congress in 2006, and indeed before that time. Control of business, reduction of personal liberty, using propaganda and censorship to suppress opposition, social regimentation, higher taxes which clearly reduces personal liberty, expanding national government everywhere, even severe regimentation passing laws about light bulbs and on and on. Much of their agenda and methodology is VERY fascist.
However, bullet points 1 & 4 give us a problem whether we use nationalism or racism. Progressives certainly never goad people into a frenzy by extolling the virtues of the United States so are not nationalists in the typical sense of the word. They don’t use racism that way, either- they merely use it as a pejorative. Thus, we are not quite accurate in equating Progressivism with Fascism.
A digression concerning Nazi (National Socialist) vs. Fascist: Nazi is a subset of Fascist, but that subset does not include any more Progressive traits than Fascist.
What actually is needed to describe Progressives is Fascism that is NOT nationalist, at least nationalism in the sense of promotion of their own nation as superior.
They are not Socialist (Marxist), either. When have you EVER heard a Progressive politician or any of the Democrats extol the virtues of having a classless society? Certainly they don't desire that for themselves or their rich donors! They give lip service to "tax the rich" but never offer to divest themselves of the perks of their own office or wealth. They are most definitely in favor of a classes, with themselves in the highest class.
This brings up the following, from the same main source: http://open-encyclopedia.com/Communism
In terms of socio-economic systems, communism and socialism are two different things. For example, socialism involves the existence of a state, while communism does not...[and] abolishes private ownership altogether.
I’ve heard it argued that Communism has never been implemented, as a result. Apologies to Marx and Engels, but it is the supporters of communism who make that argument. Communism as it is now defined requires that there be NO “state”. Just as clearly, the "progressives" are not socialist as they aren't pushing for government ownership of industry.
This helps us gain some ground, though. Communism shares this major feature of "no state" with Progressivism! So, where are we now?
These super-liberals, including Dear Leader and those who are currently running congress, have been pushing CapNTax, ObamaCare, apologies for the US, making nice with sworn enemies, international law, eliminating military superiority, eliminating US economic superiority, etc.. In nearly EVERY area of our culture or economy that they have been pushing most fervently, they push for a leveling of the US with other nations, and attempt to remove national differences and boundaries. These fit with Communism, except that they have NO DESIRE to eliminate "classes" of people, or that the state OWN business- they only wish to CONTROL business as in Fascism (they have stated that they don't want to run the banks or auto companies) and they don't mind that their favored elites are billionaires and super-millionaires, just as in fascism. Like fascism, they desire to control individual thought and behavior and forcibly suppress dissent. (Witness the Dept.Justice dropping the charges of voter intimidation against the Black Panthers.)
Either we stipulate that the “whole world” is the “nation” for Dear Leader et al, to accurately describe their government philosophy, and state they are "ONE-WORLD FASCISTS", or we need a new word to describe their desired governmental system.
A word that would accurately synthesize their thinking is:
CommuFascist
The important point, though, is that whether this philosophy is labeled CommuFascist, or “Progressive” or One-World Fascists, analysis reveals that Dear Leader, Pelosi, and these super-liberals are espousing a MORE EXTREME FORM of Fascism and VERY extreme form of liberalism. Dear Leader is a “one-world” Mussolini.
Far from being pejorative, analysis reveals it is being generous when one describes as Fascist, not pejorative. We might be calling them something more extreme instead, “Progressive” or equivalently, CommuFascist.
My thoughts exactly - DEFY THEM.
And the Texas governor could give the go ahead and be as popular as Gov Brewer.
The “green dream” is simply a cover for their agenda - total control over the (reduced) population.
ANY “cheap” energy will be hated by the left,
because it allows the “commoners” to live a lifestyle
comparable to the “ruling class”.
It has nothing to do with any "green dream". It has everything to do with the seizing of power and with the communist manifesto and their decades-long goal of taking over America and/or destroying us from within. Obama has partially fulfilled their dream in less than two years. If allowed to continue, he will complete the destruction.
Yet still Americans sit around like apathetic morons and watch the Traitor-In-Chief while he 'putts' America into the toilet.
This is the most helpless, frustrating feeling I've ever experienced. Watching the train wreck and not being able to do a thing to stop it. Something's gotta give. I know I'm not the only one feeling this way.
We have to put an end to this deliberate destruction of our country.
I agree. And when I say green dream, I mean the communist detroy all those who disagree because they are bad for the planet anyway, green dream. It is about control 100%
“This is the most helpless, frustrating feeling I’ve ever experienced. Watching the train wreck and not being able to do a thing to stop it. Something’s gotta give. I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.”
That Winston Tunnel Scene in Full
As part of our “Atlas Shrugged” 50th Anniversary discussions, we present one of the most controversial passages from Ayn Rand’s bestseller. Here the doomed Comet train, part of the decaying infrastructure in slow motion collapse due to concomitant political, social and economic collapse, heads towards disaster in the eight-mile Winston tunnel:
“As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn.
It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.
The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.
The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion ‘for a good cause’ who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others - to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder - for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of ‘a good cause’,which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by ‘a feeling’ -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied souly on his own ‘good intentions’ and on the power of a gun.
The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing.
The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that mend are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another - and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice.
The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill.
The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying ‘frozen’ railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to ‘defreeze’ them.
The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had “a right” to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.
The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had “a right” to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not.
The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man’s mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it’s only a matter of seizing the machinery.
The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, ‘I don’t care, it’s only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.’
The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels.
The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.
The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, ‘Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.’
The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? - no reality - how can you prove that the tunnel exists? - no logic - why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? - no principles - why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? - no rights - why shouldn’t you attach men to their jobs by force? - no morality - what’s moral about running a railroad? - no absolutes - what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing - why oppose the orders of your superiors? - that we can never be certain of anything - how do you know you’re right? - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - you don’t want to risk your job do you?
The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, ‘Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?’
The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, ‘The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.’
These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt’s Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.”
- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged”, p566-568
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