Public Citizen Sues Texas Over Greenhouse Gases

Public Citizen opened up a new front today in a battle to toughen the way Texas regulators administer the Clean Air Act, this time trying to force them to regulate greenhouse gases. Texas was already under fire from the EPA, which last month threatened to yank approval for several key aspects of the state's clean-air permitting programs for failing to meet standards of the federal Clean Air Act. Now, the public advocacy group Public Citizen has filed a lawsuit arguing that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is required by state law to consider climate change when approving new coal-fired power plants – and that it is refusing to do so. The lawsuit asks the Travis County District Court to declare that interpretive rules the commission uses to avoid regulating CO2 emissions are unlawful. The group's members are worried about their land and livelihoods as the climate changes, and they need to be heard, the lawsuit says. For example, one member is a pecan farmer near Bay City who would be unable to use the Colorado River to irrigate crops if sea levels rose and saltwater intruded further up the river. Another is a rancher who has noticed species disappearing and ponds that used to freeze staying ice-free all winter. Gulf Coast residents also worry about more intense hurricanes...read more