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Austin – Today, the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV), which works to turn environmental values into national priorities, announced the inaugural state-level Dirty Dozen program. Rick Perry is one of 12 candidates for state office from around the country named to the list for his consistent stances against clean energy politics and conservation initiatives. The Texas League of Conservation Voters will work to defeat Rick Perry during the remaining months of the election cycle.

“Rick Perry has consistently put corporate polluters and other special interests ahead of protecting our natural resources and working to make Texas a leader in the new clean energy economy,” said David Weinberg, Executive Director of the Texas League of Conservation Voters. “Being named to the Dirty Dozen should put Rick Perry on notice; voters in Texas won’t stand for a Governor who fails to fight for a cleaner, healthier future.”

In 2006…Governor Perry tried to fast-track permits for eleven new, dirty coal plants, adding to the risk of asthma and premature death.

In 2009…Perry vetoed a bill passed by a Republican-controlled Legislature which would have required television manufactures to recycle their product, keeping toxic heavy metals from reaching Texas landfills.

Perry’s anti-environmental record has peaked in 2010. Just this year:

…Perry called the BP oil spill an “Act of God,” instead of calling for better regulation of off-shore drilling

…..Perry’s Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) dragged its feet on shuttering the highly polluting Asarco smelter in El Paso, and is green-lighting a toxic-waste dump near Odessa over the objections and resignation of agency staff

…Perry and his appointed commissioners at TCEQ have waged a legal and political war against the federal Environmental Protection Agency because it is finally requiring polluters in Texas to follow the same laws that all other 49 states are following

The full list of state-level Dirty Dozen candidates can be found at http://www.lcv.org/statedirtydozen.

“From Congress to the state house there has never been a more urgent time to defeat politicians who stand with Big Oil and block progress on clean energy reform,” said LCV President Gene Karpinski. “With the U.S. Senate’s recent failure to act on comprehensive energy and climate legislation, we need strong environmental leaders at the state level to move the ball forward on new energy policies that will put America on the path to a clean energy future.”

LCV’s trademark Dirty Dozen program targets candidates for Congress — regardless of party affiliation — who consistently vote against clean energy and conservation and are running in races in which LCV has a serious chance to affect the outcome. Since 1996, more than 60 percent of the federal candidates named to Dirty Dozen have been defeated. Today’s announcement marks the first time LCV has named a state-level Dirty Dozen consisting of gubernatorial and state legislative candidates.

For a list of federal candidates named to the 2010 Dirty Dozen, visit http://www.lcv.org/dirtydozen.

The League of Conservation Voters and CREDO Action are teaming up to help protect our planet from dangerous coal ash.

Coal-fired power plants are producing more than 130 million tons of coal ash every year. That’s enough waste annually to fill train cars from the North Pole to the South Pole!

And you know what is even more alarming? Coal ash contains toxins like arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury. And there are next to no federal regulations on it.

Right now, the EPA is considering options that could either reel in Dirty Coal’s assault on the environment or maintain the status quo. Will you let them know which option you support?

Click here and tell the EPA: No to the status quo! Set protective and federally enforceable regulations for toxic coal ash disposal NOW!

Coal ash is loosely regulated on a state-by-state basis. In some states, it’s less regulated than household waste. All too often, coal ash gets dumped into waste ponds and even our landfills– and from there it leaks into our drinking water and fragile ecosystems. The EPA is currently reviewing two options for the regulation of coal ash:

* Option One: Set federally enforceable standards for coal ash disposal. The EPA would set storage and handling safeguards and strict pollution prevention and monitoring requirements for coal ash disposal sites. And companies wouldn’t be allowed to operate a plant if they couldn’t prove they could pay for the consequences of a disaster.

* Option Two: No federal enforcement. The EPA would give non-binding “suggestions” instead of enforceable standards – and would maintain today’s unsustainable status quo where the states with the greatest amount of coal ash have the weakest regulations. Unsurprisingly, Dirty Coal and the powerful energy lobby are giving their full-throated support to this weaker option.

Tell the Environmental Protection Agency: Protect the environment, not Dirty Coal profits.

With your help, we can ensure that the EPA strengthens coal ash regulations and protects the environment from the perils of failed coal ash handling.

Thank you for all that you do for the environment.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters

If Texas chooses to support the clean energy sector with stronger state policies, the High Range scenario demonstrates that the economic benefits would be spectacular. If the 2011 Texas Legislature decides to raise the state’s RPS to 13,000 MW of clean power and sets aside 3,500 MW for solar photovoltaic energy, as the High Range scenario assumes, the state’s economic gains would be exponentially greater than the Baseline scenario. Job gains would jump to 22,900 per year, Texas GSP would increase by $2.7 billion per year, and state and local tax revenues would increase by $279 million per year, or more than half a billion dollars per biennium.

This is truly good news for building the green energy economy in Texas, and moving beyond old polluting energy sources like coal.

The full report can be found here.

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI Associated Press Writer © 2010 The Associated Press

Aug. 6, 2010, 3:50PM

HOUSTON — After a lobbying push by oil giants, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators have asked state environmental regulators to quickly solve a permit dispute with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that has left some of the nation’s largest oil refineries in operating limbo.

A letter signed by 46 legislators is the latest indication that while Gov. Rick Perry and his Republican supporters are ready and willing to wage war with Washington on everything from environmental regulation to education spending, some battles are wearing on the industries that have helped Texas weather the recession.

Now, the state is trying to tiptoe the line between its federal fights and the need to keep industry — especially the oil giants — happy.

Twenty-nine legislators who signed the July 23 letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) are Republicans and support Perry’s increasingly public and bitter battle against Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration.

“This isn’t a political issue for us. This is a jobs issue for our constituents,” said Republican Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, who supports the state’s challenges in court but wants decisive legislative and enforcement action that will allow industry to operate freely.

“The federal government is out of control in trying to interfere with the business of Texas on multiple levels and this is just one example,” Patrick said.

The permit issue has been rumbling quietly for years, but came to a head June 30 when the EPA officially disapproved Texas’ program, telling the state more than 120 industries were operating with papers that violate the federal Clean Air Act. Texas has challenged the ruling in court but still has to find a way to undo a permitting program that has been in effect since 1995 and involves some of the nation’s largest oil refineries, including Exxon Mobil in Baytown Texas and six owned by Valero Energy.

The crux of the debate is over the so-called flexible permits, which set a general limit on how much pollution an entire facility can release. The federal Clean Air Act requires state-issued permits to set limits on each of the dozens of individual production units inside a plant. The EPA says Texas’ system masks pollution, making it impossible to regulate emissions and protect public health. Texas insists its permits are enforceable and in line with the law.

“Regardless of who is correct in this dispute, the disapproval of this program has created a cloud of uncertainty for those businesses that are operating under a flex permit,” the 46 legislators wrote to the three governor-appointed commissioners who head TCEQ.

For companies that seek to “de-flex” their permits, “we strongly encourage the TCEQ commissioners and staff to dedicate all the agency resources necessary to address these permit alterations in the most expeditious manner necessary,” they added.

The letter was written after several oil companies lobbied legislators. The letter follows the format and wording suggested in an e-mail by Julie Klumpyan, Valero’s director of government affairs.

The letter and e-mails were obtained by The Associated Press from the Texas League of Conservation Voters.

Bill Day, a Valero spokesman, said the oil company is disappointed in the EPA’s ruling and supports Texas’ court challenge, but can’t wait the years it could take for a judicial ruling. So they asked TCEQ to “handle it as rapidly as possible because of this uncertainty we’re dealing with.”

“Uncertainty is the worst thing for business,” Day said.

Richard Hyde, TCEQ’s deputy director of permitting and registration, said the agency has been trying for months to find a structure that will be acceptable to the EPA, but has so far failed. In the meantime, at least three critical projects are on hold, including a major upgrade at the Motiva Enterprises LLC refinery in Port Arthur, Hyde said.

“We’re trying to work out an agreement with EPA that we can provide to those companies that will give them some certainty,” Hyde said. “This issue is totally a federal government issue.”

The EPA says it too is being approached by companies seeking federally approved permits, Al Armendariz, the EPA’s director of the region that oversees Texas, said in an e-mailed statement. “EPA encourages TCEQ to quickly provide flexible permit holders a pathway forward,” he added.

David Weinberg, executive director of the Texas League of Conservation Voters, a group that supports the EPA’s ruling on the flexible permits, said the letter and industry’s pressure indicates companies want a quick resolution.

“Valero is one of the largest flexible permit holders,” Weinberg said. “The fact that they’re rallying to get TCEQ to work tells you that what the governor is doing is not working.”

*****

The Valero letter from Texas State Legisators to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality can be found here.

This is getting tiresome. The state of Texas, which has been fighting for years to avoid complying with national standards on noxious emissions, is once again putting its energies — and our precious tax dollars — into suing the federal government instead of cleaning up our air.

This past week, for the second time in six weeks, it sued the Environmental Protection Agency. Last time, it was because the EPA announced it was taking over permitting authority from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for several plants because they were not compliant with Clean Air Act requirements.

The TCEQ grants permits to state facilities, but they must be in compliance with federal regulations, which the EPA oversees. After repeated warnings, the EPA granted the state agency an extended grace period to comply. When that expired, the TCEQ had still not fulfilled its requirements, so the EPA, which could have simply denied the permits, chose to try to work with the TCEQ to achieve compliance. No dice. The state sued.

This time around, the bone of contention is another long-running feud, the issue of “flexible permits,” by which plants report a facility’s entire pollutant emissions as a whole, under one cap, rather than calculating each individual emissions source inside that plant, as required by the Clean Air Act.

There are fewer than 140 such plants, all built before the Clean Air Act of 1990, but they include some of the state’s largest refineries and power plants. With generous overall caps, and essentially automatic renewal, these permits were finally declared invalid by the EPA.

That should have come as no surprise to the state. For years, under the three most recent administrations, new flexible permits were refused. Even during the industry-friendly Bush years, the EPA sent flexible permit holders a notice reminding them of their obligation to comply with federal requirements. Plus, the EPA has consistently offered to work with states and individual companies to achieve compliance. Again, no dice. The state sued.

There are times when bringing suit is an appropriate response when states’ rights are threatened. But in this instance, the law, and common sense – not to mention Texans’ right to breathe clean air – dictate otherwise. Of course, it’s an election year, so it’s pretty much obligatory for those seeking to change the balance of power to accuse “big government” of trampling on the rights of Texas. Gov. Rick Perry, true to form, calls the EPA’s actions a “power grab” and “federal overreach.” But the evidence suggests only that the state is wasting our tax dollars by stubbornly defending a status quo that is not only illegal but is continuing to pollute the air we breathe. That’s not a good deal.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston put it well when he told the Chronicle: “I’m all for states’ rights, except when the state is wrong, and neither the facts nor the law are on the state’s side. More lawsuits won’t fix Texas’ broken air permitting system or clean the nation’s dirtiest air. Families that I represent simply want to breathe clean air.”

We wholeheartedly agree with his sentiments. Enough with the lawsuits.

As legislators in Austin and Washington, D.C., we know that breathing clean air should not be a partisan issue. As a result, we urge the Environmental Protection Agency not to allow Texas’ election-year partisan politics to interfere with the agency’s legally mandated task of enforcing the Clean Air Act — a law that is integral to protecting Texans from the health risks associated with air pollution.

Recently, the EPA took some important steps to address shortcomings in Texas’ air permitting program by requiring three Texas facilities with deficient air quality permits to seek federally authorized permits directly from the EPA. This action was the end result of years of attempted negotiation between the federal agency and its state counterpart, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), over numerous controversial aspects of Texas’ air permitting program.

As a result, some have questioned whether the EPA’s actions represent an unprecedented interference in a state’s right to enforce its own air-permitting program. Others have claimed the EPA is seeking a power grab for the sake of power only.

The EPA, however, is simply weighing in on whether Texas is properly exercising the federal authority the agency delegated to the state to issue air permits, authority Texas has only because of this delegation. Further, the action taken was not the EPA’s choice. Congress has very clearly spelled out the steps the agency is required to take. By federal law, when the EPA finds that a state-issued operating permit fails to meet minimum requirements of the Clean Air Act, the agency “shall object to its issuance.” If the state agency fails to correct the deficiencies within 90 days, then the EPA “shall issue or deny the permit.”

By law, the EPA could have simply denied the facility’s operating permit. Instead, the agency has taken a more lenient approach, committing federal resources to write a new permit that complies with the Clean Air Act.

Indeed, the EPA’s actions are not about the EPA taking over a state agency, but about deficiencies in state regulations that ought to protect our health by ensuring we all have clean air to breathe. Not having a federally approved permitting program jeopardizes the hardworking Texas employers who want to follow the law, as businesses are well aware that their facilities must comply with both state and federal regulations. Air that is unhealthy to breathe endangers the lives of the 25 million Texans who live here, resulting in a poorer quality of life and increased health care costs that show up in insurance premiums and tax rates.

The previous presidential administration recognized this as well. In fact, under President George W. Bush, the EPA sent a letter to permit holders in 2007 regarding one of the more disputed portions of Texas’ air permitting program, the so-called flexible permit. The letter specifically stated that “permits issued under these flexible permit rules reflect Texas state requirements and not necessarily the federally applicable requirements.” The letter went on to remind permit holders that they “are obligated to comply with the federal requirements applicable to [their] plant, in addition to any particular requirements of [their] flexible permit.”

TCEQ is entering the Sunset Advisory Commission process later this year. This routine review process of state agencies will present the Texas Legislature with a unique opportunity to examine TCEQ programs and ensure that the agency’s air permitting program best protects the health of all Texans, as well as the environment. While we know that our colleagues in the Texas Legislature look forward to that discussion, we fully expect TCEQ to have corrected any outstanding issues regarding its compliance with the Clean Air Act long before then.

As representatives of the people of Texas, it is our responsibility to ensure that the state fulfills its responsibility to all Texans so that we may enjoy the same protections afforded to other Americans under the Clean Air Act. The environmental regulations in the Clean Air Act better all of our lives, and it is to everyone’s benefit that they be enforced.

This column was written by U.S. Rep. Llloyd Doggett, of the 25th Congressional District of Texas; U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, of the 30th Congressional District; state Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, of state Senate District 26, and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, of state Senate District 13.

Dear Director swift:

I am writing on behalf of the Texas League of Conservation Voters to express profound disappointment in how the Green Party of Texas funded its recent ballot petition drive with corporate, out-of-state, partisan-directed funds.

The Texas League of Conservation Voters is a statewide non-partisan organization that works to elect candidates who support clean air, clean water, renewable energy and the protection of open spaces and wildlife habitat.  TLCV supports third party ballot access and would, under normal circumstances, support Green Party candidates who share the organization’s values and goals.

Unfortunately, the League cannot support Green Party candidates in Texas at this time as it appears the Green Party used corporate money directed from out-of-state partisan sources whose positions on environmental policy are antithetical to those of the Green Party. The League believes the use of corporate, out-of-state money directed from partisan operatives for a petition drive corrupts and manipulates the electoral process.

We also believe that candidates for office who owe their place on the ballot to funders who do not support cracking down on polluters and a clean environment cannot be trusted by the public to adhere to a pro-environment agenda if elected to office.  For these reasons, we respectfully request that Green Party candidates remove their names from consideration for public office in Texas in 2010.

Texas has suffered for 10 years from having a Governor who has put polluters before people, and is in the pocket of big oil and big coal.  We believe that the best option for moving Texas forward in 2010 rests with candidate Bill White, who showed extraordinary leadership as Mayor of Houston in cleaning up Houston’s air and understands state environmental regulatory agencies must be responsive to the people of Texas.

It stands to reason that the ballot petition drive funders’ primary interest was to siphon votes away from Bill White to the benefit of a big polluter like Rick Perry.  It is profoundly dismaying that the Green Party decided, by accepting this tainted money, to be a willing accomplice in this endeavor.

Again, The Texas League of Conservation Voters respectfully reiterates its call for Green Party candidates to remove their names from the ballot in Texas in 2010.

Sincerely,

David Weinberg
Executive Director
Texas League of Conservation Voters

If air is important, the choice for Texas governor is clear

Posted Thursday, Jun. 03, 2010

By MIKE NORMAN

The sudden flare-up of hostilities between the EPA and state environmental regulators should make for a clearer choice in November’s election for Texas governor.

If you’re a refinery manager or a petrochemical plant owner, Republican Rick Perry is the candidate for you. Caricature of the rough-ridin’ Texan that he has become, the nine-year governor has gone to battle against “Washington’s command and control approach” and make it easier for you to poison the air.

Democrat Bill White — while his campaign has been slow to seek any real leverage from it — was an environmental crusader during his six years as Houston’s mayor. He fought for stronger regulations to reduce toxic emissions from the massive refining and chemical plants in and near the city.

The difference couldn’t be more clear.

The EPA said last week that it will take away the state’s ability to issue operating permits for heavy industries because the process followed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality does not comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

The Washington agency delegated its permitting power to the state in 1992, but since then Texas has changed its plan more than 30 times with no formal federal approval or disapproval. The EPA said there had been “lingering disagreements with Texas because of potential inconsistencies with federal air permitting regulations.”

The feds stepped up their complaints in 2006 under President George W. Bush. Perry blames an Obama administration “campaign to harm our economy and impose federal control over Texas.” Apparently Barack Obama was able to exert extraordinary influence on the Bush administration well before there was an Obama administration.

Then a group calling itself the Business Coalition for Clean Air, along with the Texas Association of Business and the Texas Oil and Gas Association, sued the EPA, seeking relief from the regulatory purgatory that had sprung from years of negotiations between the EPA and TCEQ. The business folks wanted the feds to hurry up and get out of the way.

The EPA agreed to hurry things along. In September, the agency published a notice in the Federal Register citing 17 points of law under which it planned to formally reject TCEQ’s permitting plan. It has continued negotiating with TCEQ, but the expedited schedule calls for the state to submit a plan to comply with the Clean Air Act by June 30.

So Perry’s in a tizzy. It’s all “a blatant example of obsession with red tape” and “yet another federal power grab.” It’s “on the verge of killing thousands of Texas jobs.”

He cites ways in which Texas air quality has improved since 2000, but they all have to do with lower levels of ozone and its precursors.

There’s more to air pollution than that, and White has seen it big time. Perry is right to say Texas refines more than 25 percent of the nation’s fuel supply and manufactures roughly 60 percent of the chemicals used in the U.S.

But while White was mayor, Houston issued a report showing that Texas has almost 50 percent of the nation’s carcinogen emissions related to petroleum refining. Texas refineries, the report said, emit more cancer-causing benzene per barrel of oil produced than those in any other state.

Last year, White fought renewal of an operating permit for Houston Refining, which he said emits more benzene into the air than any other refinery in the nation. TCEQ had amended the permit 17 times without full public input. It did so again this time, albeit with a long list of new emission caps.

Who can guess what would have happened if White had not spoken up? I can.

Mike Norman is editorial director of the Star-Telegram/ Arlington and Northeast Tarrant County.