Austin TX: Representative Flynn (R-Van) is taking the side of the Texas Attorney General (AG) Gregg Abbott as the federal government has kept General Abbott very busy lately defending Texans from unprecedented overreaches of federal power.
The Texas AG has also filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging the process they used in deciding to regulate carbon emissions.
Flynn advised Attorney General Abbotts lawsuit does not challenge the theory of global warming but instead challenges the process by which EPA determined the gas emissions to be harmful pollutants.
The Attorney General asserts that EPA should conduct a scientifically valid process before making a decision that could cost Americans trillions of dollars and thousands of jobs."
The costly and punitive measures EPA is considering to curb carbon emissions will have devastating effects on both the Texas and national economies cautioned Flynn.
The Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs. EPA found that EPA has the power under the Clean Air Act to issue an endangerment finding on carbon emissions emitted by motor vehicles.
The court held that in order to issue the endangerment finding the EPA Administrator must determine by scientific assessment whether carbon emissions cause or contribute to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare."
Though the Courts decision did not explicitly address other producers of carbon emissions such as factories or power plants the agenda of EPA and the current Administration suggest that the carbon endangerment finding is a prerequisite to regulating carbon emissions regardless of their source. In other words power plants factories and other industrial sources are next.
Flynn noted that before issuing an endangerment finding the EPA relied heavily on the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); which has been recently mired in scandal and whose assessment has been widely discredited. The studies that
led EPA to their decision have been manipulated lost or destroyed and often evaded peer review.
Texas will be hardest hit by EPA regulations warned Flynn.
Texas is the nations leading electricity-producing state and produces three times as much electricity as New England. Sixty percent of the petrochemicals produced in the United States are produced in Texas and thirty percent of U.S. gasoline and diesel refining occurs in Texas.
These heavy industries are essential for the country.
Flynn concluded that Texas will most certainly be unfairly penalized as a result of shouldering this load.
I proudly support General Abbotts challenge to the EPA as it is evident to me that this agency fails to use open fair and truthful processes before making environmental determinations that could put Texas out the energy business concluded Flynn.
