Why hasn’t Perry said no company in Texas has to abide by these EPA regulations that leave us shivering in the dark? Why hasn’t he issued permission for new power plants to be built regardless of what the feds said?
Or send back all the illegal aliens at gun point to free up jobs and reduce electrical demand, if the government won’t let us stop giving them welfare, jobs and utilities?
“....Texas is the only state that has refused to implement the new rules. President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass legislation capping carbon emissions. Perry, a Republican, calls the rules overreaching by the federal government that will cripple his state’s economy.”...
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/27/epa-texas-go-to-war-over-carbon-emission-rules/
The moves will lead to about 500 job cuts, the company said.
“While Luminant is making preparations to meet the rule’s compliance deadline, this morning it also filed a legal challenge in an effort to protect facilities and employees, and to minimize the harm this rule will cause to electric reliability in Texas,” the company said in a statement.
The company is asking an appeals court for a stay implementing the Cross-State rule, saying it is illegal because the EPA didn’t include Texas in the draft rules released in 2010. The final rules released in June 2011 included a heavy emissions reduction burden for Texas.
Texas officials quickly seized on the company’s actions as evidence of the need for regulatory reform in a slumping economy. Just a week before, ERCOT, the state’s main power grid operator, warned that the rules could threaten electric reliability with the forced retirement of older coal-fired units.
“As expected, the only results of this rule will be putting Texans out of work and creating hardships for them and their families, while putting the reliability of Texas’ grid in jeopardy,” Gov. Rick Perry said in a statement.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is charged with overseeing the state’s air quality, said the Luminant announcement is “a sad confirmation of the TCEQ’s previous statements” against the regulations.
“These rules, imposed on Texas without adequate notice and without adequate scientific justification, will kill jobs, put the brakes on economic growth, increase energy costs and impair our energy security—all with little or no positive environmental effects,” the TCEQ said in a statement.
Environmental groups hailed Luminant’s decision, however. …..” [end excerpt]
ICE blamed for Texas parolee law delayThe state has been unable to enforce a new law designed to increase the deportations of illegal immigrants from the Texas prison system amid concerns that federal immigration officials are unprepared to handle the anticipated influx of convicted criminals, state officials said.
Under the new law, which was scheduled to take effect Sept. 1, state prisoners who are granted parole and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials must either be deported or leave the country voluntarily - or risk being returned to state custody to serve out the remainder of their sentences.
The law was crafted to address a vexing problem identified by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which reported granting parole to some illegal immigrants and turning them over to ICE - only to later learn that they were not removed from the country, said state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano.”………………..
Mexico’s drug war is giving growers a break EL BARRIL, Mexico — The Mexican government is allowing domestic marijuana and opium poppy production to climb to record levels, as soldiers who once cut and burned illegal crops here in the vast Sierra Madre mountains are being redeployed to cities to wage urban warfare against criminal gangs.
Since President Felipe Calderon ordered his troops into the streets in late 2006, the acreage dedicated to marijuana farming has nearly doubled in Mexico, according to technical reports by the U.S. government and the United Nations, data provided by the Mexican military, and interviews with law enforcement agents and growers.
The acreage devoted to opium poppies has also soared, according to the U.S. State Department, making Mexico the second-leading heroin producer in the world, after Afghanistan, whose crop goes mostly to Europe and Asia.......
“Yes, it is a change in strategy, as the army now gives priority to catching criminals and seizing cocaine, which is far more valuable to the cartels” than marijuana or heroin, said Raul Benitez, an expert in drug trafficking and national security at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The Mexican government, Benitez said, also cares less about marijuana cultivation these days because the U.S. government appears to care less.”………………..
Still no solution for illegal immigrants' long-term care costs…………..”Still, the real problem isn't hospitals, which transfer most all patients, both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants, once urgent care is no longer needed and the bed is needed for other patients. It's long-term care facilities, unable to afford to accept patients, like Martinez, who don't have insurance. It remains for hospitals, obligated by federal regulation to arrange post-hospital care for those who need it, to find alternatives and to provide care indefinitely if they can't....