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Texas and the EPA

The State of Texas and the EPA have been at loggerheads on energy policy and federal regulation for some time. The latest blast from Texas comes in response to the EPA’s new proposed regulations to limit carbon emissions from power plants.  On June 2, the EPA published proposed rules that would require states to develop a program to reduce their carbon emissions. Under the proposed rules, each state is given a target for emissions reductions by 2030. Texas’ target: to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 38 percent by 2030. States are given broad flexibility in how to achieve their assigned target.

Texas emitted 656 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2011, nearly twice as much as California, and about 12 percent of the nation’s total. Power plants in Texas emit about 40 percent of Texas’ carbon dioxide. Texas generates more electricity than any other state, and a large portion of that comes from coal plants.

EPA measures states’ emissions of carbon dioxide in pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. Texas emits about 1,284 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of electricity produced. More than 30 other states emit more carbon per megawatt-hour than Texas. Under EPA’s proposal, 13 other states must make a larger percentage reduction in emissions per megawatt-hour than Texas, including Washington, Oregon and New York.

Governor Perry called the proposed regulations a part of the Obama administration’s “war on coal,” and said that the new regulations would devastate an important industry and “only further stifle our economy’s sluggish recovery and increase energy costs for American families.”  But in an Austin American Statesman article, Asher Price quotes Michael Webber, deputy director of UT’s Energy Institute, as calling the EPA proposal a “hug to Texas from Obama.” Texas has abundant natural gas, wind and solar resources, which could easily replace coal-fired power plants, resulting in a boon to Texas’ economy, according to Weber. Asher quotes Jim Marston, head of Texas’ office of the Environmental Defense Fund, as saying: “If Rick Perry were governor of West Virginia,” a coal-dependent state, “I could see why he might say this could harm the state’s economy some. The fact he’s from Texas and criticizes this rule is simply crazy.”

A New York Times article, “Taking Oil Industry Cue, Environmentalists Drew Emissions Blueprint,” says that the proposed EPA regulation is based largely on a proposal drawn up by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The proposal is highly innovative in leaving details to the states, but also more vulnerable to legal attack. Asher Price’s article quotes Scott Tinker, head of the University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, as saying that top-down regulation like that proposed by the EPA has not significantly reduce carbon emissions in other parts of the world. At the end of the day, Tinker said, “Will (the EPA regulations) even matter?”

An op ed piece in the American Statesman by Roger Meiners, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Arlington, criticizes the EPA proposal, saying that Obama’s “war on coal” will only harm the economy and that carbon emissions from coal will increase in other countries and increase fuel prices. He advocates government programs to encourage carbon capture projects.

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