Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 12/13/2010 11:51:43 AM PST by EBH
The EPA has threatened dozens of Texas refiners and chemical and plastic makers with penalties if they don't begin taking steps to bring their air pollution permits into compliance with federal law by late December.
The blunt threat was made in a recent letter by the Environmental Protection Agency's administrator in Texas, heightening tensions in a standoff that has already reached the courts.
Texas has sued to block the EPA from rejecting its so-called flexible permits. On Tuesday, Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a brief in the case, fleshing out his arguments in a July petition that the agency had no legal or technical justification for disapproving the 16-year-old program.
The EPA's rejection of the Texas permitting regime in June is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in accordance with law," Abbott wrote in the brief for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The EPA has defended the decision, saying the Texas rules fall short of the federal Clean Air Act's requirements. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issues the permits on behalf of the EPA, but the federal agency decides whether they are in compliance with the law.
The flexible permits cover 130 industrial facilities across the state, but most of them have made no attempt to fix their permits, the EPA said.
Last week, the agency sent letters to 74 companies, giving them until Dec. 22 to explain
(Excerpt) Read more at beaumontenterprise.com ...
bump
So what happens if the refineries ignore the EPA? I think that’s what it should do. Any fines that issued should be ignored. How can the EPA shut the refinery down? I think Texas law enforcement should protect the refineries from entry by feds.
I have lived in S. Texas since 1973, and moved to and from Los Angeles four times since 1988. Our air is so clear here, you can see all the way across Houston down Hwy 59 when it is not a cloudy rainy day. In Los Angeles we often couldn’t see the house across the street, due to the smog. Yet WE are the ones always being penalized.
Tell the EPA to take a long run off a short pier.
January can’t come soon enough. Defund the EPA.
The EPA is way too powerful, not elected poisitions, should be SHUT DOWN!
This is just Chicago politics in action.
Does the EPA realize that these actions will only hurt the economy, & with it Obama’s ability to get re-elected?
Keep it up, EPA!
This is a thug administration. Its not interested in hearing explanations. They could explain all they want well within the deadline and the EPA will still shut them down. Thats what the EPA, and by extension the Obama administration, really wants.
How about some brass balls...why don’t the refineries shut down and see where that puts the EPA
Back in Clintoon’s first term, a bunch of lads from Koch Refining damned near went to prison over an EPA permit issue.
EPA is not Constitutional, like a lot of other things this sorry excuse of a government has passed over the years.
Think Obamacare which now has been found UNconstitutional in Virgina. YES!!!!
Remember the movie with Jessica Lang? “NO SALE”.
Time to stop complying with the unelected, elite ruling class who sit as tyrants in positions created to bypass representative government.
I mean how do you have flexible laws? You comply to a standard or don't. You may be given temporary waivers as you show proof of coming to compliance with a plan, but this sounds askew.
It’ll put gas @ $5.00 a gallon, which was what Al Gore ran on in 2004. Half the folks in this country didn’t seem to mind then?????????
We need to castrate the EPA and defund it.
I think that Texas, et. al., should just ignore the EPA. What are they going to do, invade Texas? The Texas national guard could have ownership of the nukes at Carlswell AFB in about 3 hours. Plus, there’s truly a rifle behind every blade of grass and every stone. And there’s a lot of grass and stones in Texas.
The "Flexible" term is made up by the media. The dispute is the emissions should be an overall refinery total permit rather than a permit per individual exhaust stack in the refinery.
When it is overall, emission savings are done more efficiently by tackling the ones that have the most to reduce per dollar invested.
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