Posted on 03/28/2012 5:21:30 AM PDT by thackney
A federal appeals court scolded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday for rejecting a series of state pollution control projects in Texas that federal regulators said failed to satisfy requirements of the Clean Air Act.
The ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stopped short of ordering the EPA to accept the previously rejected Texas measures. Yet the three-judge panel directed the agency to take another look at the state’s regulations and issue a quick decision.
At issue are state permits that govern pollution control projects at coal plants and energy producers in Texas....
(Excerpt) Read more at fuelfix.com ...
The arrogant bastages feel they don't need to respond.
EPA needs to disappear!
And Obama's EPA will look at it again and issue the same decision. The only thing these goons understand is an absolute and utter NO.
And I think we are getting to the point where good people are ready to start saying it.
I wonder what happens if/when a state says "No" and follows it up with, "Come enforce your regulations; if you can."
It's going to happen soon, and if the Republicans think they can continue down that road, as in "We're not as bad as they were" vs "This is a fundamental change BACK to a Constitutional Republic", then I truly believe they are in for a shock.
From your snout to God’s ear.
I live for such a day. Of course, implied in the statement is the fact that any federal agents attempting to enforce such illegal acts WILL be incarcerated.
Come to Texas, Yankees - come to a state with 50 million guns and try telling us what to do.
It is WAY past time to put the federal beast back in its cage, even if it takes a few lashes from a whip to force the issue.
Of course they will because this action flows from the 2007 SCOTUS decision on "New Source Review". The Flex Permits that Texas uses averages the emission from the old source and the emmissions from the new source and they have to be measured seperately.
Let me mention that most of the conflicts regarding EPA flow from two seperate SCOTUS decisons made on that same day in 2007. The SCOTUS decision on New Source Review was a broad 9-0 decision and the SCOTUS decision declaring CO2 a pollutant was a narrow 5-4
In reading this article you have to look at key phrases and sentences.
First, the phrase "stopped short". There is no dispute that EPA has to enforce the SCOTUS decision and Judge Elrod is not disputing that, she is criticising or "scolding" EPA and as it says in the 3rd paragraph she "condemned" the EPA for waiting 4 years rather than the 18 months
But in 2007 Bush decided not implement the 2007 SCOTUS because he didn't want to be the evil prez. He punted it to the next prez. Bush knew the enviros wouldn't sue him because he would be out of office before the case got to court. So EPA had to wait 19 months until the next prez(Obama). And then Obama had to put it off because his EPA had to first deal with the CO2 issue because Congress was working on the CO2 issue with the House Cap and Trade legislation. But eventually, in 2010, the EPA did get around to it but EPA knew Perry and Texas was delaying this for political/campaign reasons and for that reason thay didn't push to hard.
And in the next to the last paragraph of the article points out that Perry used the issue "on the campaign trail"
As I said above, Bush decided not to implemnt the court decision but Bush's EPA director did write a letter to Perry and told him that when the next prez implemented the court decision, Texas would be out of conformance.
But in 2007 Perry/Texas GOP knew democrat Houston mayor White of Houston would be running for higher office and they wanted to use it as a campaign issue. And everyone thought that would be the end of it, after the election Texas would change direction and fix their pollution problem.
But to everone's surprise, Perry jumped on it even harder in Dec after the Nov election and everyone knew the that Perry woud be running for prez.
Whatever benefit Perry thought he would get out of this, by spring/summer of 2011, most of these companies that Perry was supposedly protecting from the EPA had gone around Perry and made their side deals with the EPA. Even the infamously evil Big Koch Brothers refinery made a deaL with the EPA
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