Environmental group sues Texas over greenhouse gases

A truckload of coal.
(AP Photo/Daniel R. Patmore)

Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen is suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to require the commission to consider global warming emissions in their permitting process.

“Texas leads the nation in the emissions of global warming gases. If we were a nation, we would rank seventh in emissions among the countries on earth”, said Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. “The time has come for the TCEQ to take its head out of the sand and begin the process to regulate CO2 emissions from Texas sources. Because the agency will not do so on its own, we are seeking to have a Texas court order to do so”.

In the past four years, 11 coal plants have applied for permits under the EPA’s New Source Review program, which requires companies to install modern pollution controls when building new plants or expanding facilities. If approved they would add 77 million tons of carbon dioxide to Texas already overheated air Public Citizen said. 

Still, Texas is looking for ways of supplying energy while mitigating climate change, and earlier this year passed legislation that will create significant state-level incentives for the development of clean-coal technology.

“Texas produces more carbon dioxide than any other state, but it also has the greatest potential to sequester carbon underground”, said Texas House Representative Warren Chisum (R). “Our bill could eventually lead to a multi-billion carbon sequestration industry in Texas”.

But according to Smith the TCEQ is undermining the mitigation strategies proposed by coal plant builders by not making carbon sequestration part of the permit and labeling it an experimental technology.

“Without the TCEQ putting these limits in the permits, there will be no guarantee that the power plant builders will keep their promises”, Smith said.