TCEQ Gets Slammed: Feds Take Powers Away From Texas' Air-Pollution "Watchdog"
Is an agency a "watchdog" when it doesn't watch? Apparently the feds don't think so.
TCEQ step aside, feds say
In a bold move today, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was taking over the job of issuing greenhouse-gas permits in Texas because the Texas Council on Environmental Quality was utterly failing to do its job.
The EPAs' announcement did not directly reference our cover story "A Quiet Hell," which outlined TCEQ's rubber-stamp policy of issuing temporary permits, but we'll forgive them for that.
Governor Rick Perry and AG Greg Abbott have long derided the feds' insistence on clean-air standards, and will no doubt go to court, issue statements saying Texas workers will be tossed on the unemployment lines, the South will rise again, etc, etc.
The EPA is expected to announce that " 167 facilities in Texas - many of them power plants and oil refineries - would come under" EPA rules if they seek to increase b heir greenhouse-gas emissions by 75,000 tons a year, the Dallas Morning News reports.
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