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EPA Battles Texas Over Air Quality
The Environmental Protection Agency is demanding that Texas tighten its pollution laws. The EPA says the state, which is the top carbon-dioxide-emitter in the country, has air-quality regulations that break federal law, and it's studying whether oil refineries emit dangerous levels of toxins. Texas says its simpler regulatory system, which regulates facilities rather than individual smokestacks, is more efficient, but environmentalists say the rules are too lax. Air quality fights are intense in Texas; Houston and Dallas have violated federal air-quality standards for years, and city officials are cheering the EPA's move. But businesses aren't. The EPA has become far more aggressive under the Obama administration, and has said it will regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, set tougher limits on mercury emissions, and has held up dozens of permit applications for Central Appalachian coal mining projects. Business groups say the agency's mandates are too expensive and could drive jobs overseas.
Plantagenet
The Obama administration has found a new way to destroy American jobs....the oil industry is still healthy and still paying high wages to American workers so of course the BOers will now attack the oil and oil refining industries!
Granite
If you enjoy inhaling toxins so much why don't you just suck directly on a tailpipe!
Demsdisorder
Granite;,,, are you some kinda A-hole or what? do you drive a car or heat your home or use electricity? moron you need oil and im sure you would be the fist inline crying like a bitch if you didn't have it. koolaid doesn't burn in your car. are you just some 13year old listening to your hippy mom???
FatFreddy
Demsdisorder,
"koolaid doesn't burn in your car"
No, but ethanol and biodiesel do. So, why did Texas try to ban biodiesel? Too much competition for the oil companies?
Genni2002
Demsdisorder...are you some kind of ass or what? Are you in the oil industry? Do you make molecules for a living? Have you actually worked with pressure reactors or been on an offshore platform or in a petrochemical plan, refinery, what have you? I have and just like water, too much of ANY chemical in the wrong place, in the wrong conditions or environment can cause problems.
Shut your-pie hole if you don't know what you are talking about. Texas and into LA have a lot of armpit areas due to jerks like you!
FatFreddy
Really, Valero refinery in Delaware just shut down leaving 550 unemployed.
FatFreddy
..."is facing pressure from more efficient cars, inroads by renewable fuels, and the aging of the population in industrialized countries.
Those factors, along with last year's experience of paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, appear to have changed the upward trajectory of demand growth for gasoline and other petroleum-based fuels."
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/70687027.html
hfb1053
Bush says "No fuckin way". So there.
DakLak
The people will die before business stops polluting. If they made companies build their corporate headquarters at their most polluting plant and require officers and directors live within 50 miles of their polluting source things would be corrected quickly.
Demsdisorder
the best thing we could do for this country is to get rid of the EPA.
nortonclybourn
Then we could be more like China and India. Let's get rid of the minimum wage, too. When we're breathing pollution, wallowing in filth and working for 20 cents an hour, think how competitive we'll be! We know we can trust oil companies to take care of us.
Demsdisorder
no just the EPA
Johnnyappleseed
Why wait? Do it now then we can all suffer together
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n--Y--cvillekidgak001
Are you insane?
nortonclybourn
The differential diagnosis for dumbdisorder is insane vs mentally retarded
gak001
Where's the damn white board when you need it?
DeliaK
Good Luck trying to get Texas to do anything that would be right for the environment.
Demsdisorder
people how do you expect people to pay tax so we can fund you communist programs?? i mean really. HOW with windmills that are made in china??? I know you communists don't like to work but where will the money come from if we don't produce anything??? what will you tax??? skimming off the top will only go so far. so how will we make money???
Johnnyappleseed
Most of the inner workings of windmills come from Denmark.
DakLak
Germany, Denmark and China are the primary wind mill sources. Now some overseas manufacturers are building wind mills and transformers in the USA.
Does this make the USA a Communist state?
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n--Y--cvillekidjst4horses
Here in Los Angeles, it was well known that the coal based electric factories caused more pollution than any other entity, but finally they themselves are admitting it and turning to cleaner energy resources.
Actually Demsdisorder, many of the wind and solar plants are here in America, I just saw a PBS special on the plants and their own battles for keeping green in their own workings and the products they produce.
WE are in flux as humans, in an exciting time.
I think we can make great changes, and keep some of our favorite things, like huge television screems to watch games and big stoves to cook our treats.
We can make sure that those who work harder get more pay, and less hours, and those (like the bankers who do not want to work for the millions of CEO Lewis empty seat) who actually do NOT work so hard, but take that money out of the investors and the account holders (also investors) will get less, and it will even out.
One woman said the fifties were great, people had more middle class lifestyles and it was working. Whatever we allowed to happen, we have to look back and fix some things. I think we can, America is a great place, even if we have made some great big errors. Look at the mess we are in. Some great big errors must have happened somewhere:)
Shakker
We have probably passed peak oil, so to make a high profit the price of oil must go up, because there is not enough undiscovered oil to increase volume. An intelligent conservation program along with alternative energy will allow the remaining oil to be used as a chemical feedstock where it will be much more valuable. We really can't afford to burn up such a valuable resource. Also, some of the uses as plastics or other products may have a much lower carbon output as CO2. Otherwise the oil industry will just suddenly collapse when it can't meet volume needs. Reducing our consumption is the ONLY way to have an important oil industry.
Pollution is INEFFICIENT PRODUCTION. Many regulations requiring control of pollutants will cause innovation so that waste streams are reduced or marketed as a feedstock for some other industry. In the paper industry former waste streams provide 70% of the energy required to make the pulp and paper and reduce the purchase of massive chemical supplies, because 95% of the chemicals are recovered from former waste streams. Without these changes Wisconsin streams would have no fish and the Mississippi River would be the worst sewer in the world. Many changes to industry would be one time costs and are tax deductible at least and more likely will have a big government subsidy. I have worked in industry and most jobs are lost by lazy management that does not incorporate technology to make products better and production more efficient. The recent collapse of the auto industry was caused by Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler making too few cars that anyone wanted. If they were on the ball somebody else would have lost market share instead of them. Ford was smarter than the other 2 so they are somewhat better off. PEOPLE HAVE TO STOP LISTENING TO BUSINESS DEGREE MAJORS THAT STUPIDLY RUN LARGE BUSINESSES INTO THE GROUND AND BLAME EVERYBODY BUT THEIR OWN STUPIDITY. If these guys were so smart why did they go into a business with no prospects due to external, uncontrollable factors that management couldn't control?
MWaterman
Shakker - EXCELLENT post
texjonmac
Ever since we first elected the "enviornmental governor" Dubya, the stars have steadier gotten smaller and duller and our children's lungs have cleaned more and more air to save the polluters from doing what should be a simple cost of doing business. Go, Armendariz! Go get 'em.
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