DALLAS The Obama administration has taken yet another step in its campaign to harm our economy & impose federal control over Texas. With their decision to take control of a permitting process that the Clean Air Act allows to be delegated to the states the EPA is on the verge of killing thousands of Texas jobs and derailing a program that has cleaned Texas air" said Gov. Rick Perry following the EPAs effort to take over Texas air permitting program.
An increasingly activist EPA is ignoring the 22 reduction in ozone and 46 decrease in NOX emissions that Texas has achieved since 2000" said Perry.
This is not a partisan issue: our emissions control program went into effect under Gov. Ann Richards in 1994 and was approved by the Clinton administration. Since then the EPAs unelected bureaucrats havent ruled on it once yet with the arrival of a new administration in Washington they have put a bulls-eye on the backs of hardworking Texans" Perry said.
Because Texas involves the Legislature
TCEQ business owners and the public in the process and focuses on results instead of big-government control our states air is cleaner than it was ten years ago and our economy is stronger than most other states" noted
Perry.
Texas largest business and Chambers of Commerce organization the
Texas Association of Business (TAB) had similar comments concerning Texas air quality improvements.
Said TAB President Bill Hammond By law EPA has 18 months to approve or disapprove any changes Texas makes to its air permitting program. For more than 15 years however EPA has been silent completely ignoring the statute while Texas businesses and industries implemented programs that both substantially improved air quality and reduced public health risks.
Texas could hardly wait for more than 15 years for the federal government to act. Instead we adopted programs that we knew were consistent with federal law and went about the business of cleaning up our air.
Today Texas citizens are breathing clean air as a result. Houston has achieved what many would have considered impossible - attainment of the ozone standards years ahead of
schedule" said Hammond.
On behalf of those Texans whose jobs are threatened by this latest overreach and in defense of not only our clean air program but also our rights under the 10th Amendment I am calling upon President Obama to rein in the EPA and instruct them to study our successful approach for recommended use elsewhere" Perry said.
Added Hammond Federal law allows Texas to design its own permitting program as long as it meets EPA requirements.
A simple reading of the Texas rules shows they violate no provision of federal clean air law. Simply looking at the results in air quality clearly shows they have accomplished exactly what
the federal Clean Air Act intends.
Texas has made enormous progress toward clean air while maintaining a health economy. EPAs action will divert business resources away from air quality improvements create uncertainty for businesses when more uncertainty in our economy cannot be tolerated and punish the State of Texas.
Why? Evidently Texas success in improving both our environment and our economy while Washington still argues about how to accomplish either is something that EPA and the administration finds troubling" said Hammond.
