The Feds are Messing with Texas

Opinion -

By Peggy Venable, Director

Texas is the No. 1 energy producer in the country, and a large section of the Texas job market relies on energy. So do Texas consumers. It is serious business when the federal government sets massive new energy policies. In doing so, the feds are messing with Texas.

Texas consumers: prepare for a body blow. Unless it can be blocked, the feds are set to drop kick Texas’ prosperity in a big way.

Cap and trade legislation may be dead or on life support in the Congress, but through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Obama Administration has picked up the ball and is running with it. The only question now is whether or not they will make it to the end zone.

Back in June, the U.S. House passed a cap-and-trade energy tax bill, which would have capped our prosperity and traded our jobs to China. Texans were paying close attention. The Waxman-Markey bill passed the House by a narrow 219 to 212 vote in June with 44 Democrats voting against the bill, among them Texas Representatives Chet Edwards (D-Dist. 17), Solomon Ortiz (D-Dist. 27) and Ciro Rodriquez (D-Dist. 23). They joined every Texas Republican in the House in opposing the bill.

The Lone Star Report blog had a good write-up following passage of the House plan which quoted Gov. Rick Perry who slammed the legislation, saying that if passed in its current form, it would amount to “the largest tax increase in American history,” and calling it a “pending meteor strike on the Texas economy.”

Texas Department of Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said the bill would cost Texas farmers up to $5 billion, and force the nation to outsource agriculture. Martin Hubert of the Texas Comptroller’s Office reported that 137,000 jobs in Texas would be lost by 2020 alone under the bill, and Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken cited a Spanish study showing that when Spain tried a government-directed “green jobs” program, they destroyed 2.2 jobs in the private sector for every one they propped up with government subsidies.

Kathleen Hartnett-White from the Texas Public Policy Foundation put it in perspective when she said Texans could pay seven times more in the carbon tax than most other states.

The Waxman-Markey bill is an energy tax, pure and simple. It will cost Texas jobs at a time the feds are claiming they want to create jobs, and it is punishing Texans disproportionately.

Fortunately, the Senate isn’t so hot about the global warming legislation. But by making an end run around Congress, the unelected and unaccountable Environmental Protection Agency is trying to issue back-door climate regulations under the Clean Air Act (CAA), something the Act was never designed or intended to do.

In December, Gov. Perry sent a letter to the EPA urging the ruling be withdrawn, especially in light of the recent “Climategate” scandal, which uncovered that data had been manipulated and destroyed in order to falsely show a preordained result. He claimed politics hijacked science.

He is right.

This issue deserves a full debate. But the EPA has sidestepped debate and gone directly to the regulations, declaring that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are pollutants that “threaten public health and welfare,” the magic words that will allow the runaway bureaucracy to regulate to their hearts’ content.

The scientific establishment has dropped the ball. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. On the contrary, it makes crops and forests grow faster. We all exhale carbon dioxide.

Americans for Prosperity and numerous other groups are fighting the regulations by citing the economic impact, and more than 17,000 AFP activists filed comments to the EPA opposing the new regulations.

Only Congress can stop the EPA now, and they must be held accountable if they do not.

There are currently several pieces of legislation that have been introduced in Congress that would preempt the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses under the CAA. Senator Murkowski (R-Alaska) has the most promising proposal, an expression of congressional disapproval, which has the power to block executive regulations if both chambers pass the bill and the president signs on. Due to parliamentary rules, the resolution only needs 51 votes in the Senate, something that is appearing more and more likely. The heavy lift for conservatives will be mustering the 218 votes to pass the resolution in the House.

However, if Members of Congress don’t support a move to block the EPA from strangling our economy, they must be held accountable. This is one of our last chances to stop the EPA, and our elected officials are the only ones we can duly influence.

Another approach being considered by Texas officials is suggested by an AFP ally, attorney and physician John Dale Dunn who proposes attacking the EPA as a purveyor of bad science under federal statutes that prohibit junk science by agencies. The Rules of Good Science are published by the U.S. Federal Judicial Center in a book titled The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. Dunn points out that the pubic health research and claims of the EPA on greenhouse gas human effects do not meet the basic guidelines for good scientific evidence in a federal courtroom.

The Administrative Procedure Act provides a mechanism to take legal action against any agency for misconduct in its policy and science conduct. It is Dunn’s contention that the EPA consistently, constantly and consciously engages in cheating on the public health science rules by pushing public policies alleging public health risk. He says the research results the EPA relies on are not adequate and fail the basic test for good scientific evidence. He also asserts claims that greenhouse gases are a threat to human welfare are not true.

Texas is unlikely to roll over, and it is clear the EPA will aggressively move to impose harmful regulations.

With the EPA encroaching on the economy and using unsportsmanlike conduct in circumventing debate, it’s about time someone throws a flag.

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Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth, and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org