This tension is common in Texas as well.
The Tribune catches us up with the current status of the tension, click here for the story:
Rarely a fan of Washington's oversight, Texas appears destined for another clash with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over greenhouse gas limits — this time, for existing power plants.
The rules, which President Obama has instructed the EPA to propose by June 2015, have only been suggested, but Texas regulators have already weighed in. Their opinion? The idea, though still scant on details, is no good.
That’s according to a letter written by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Public Utility Commission of Texas. The letter, sent to EPA administrators after the agency asked for feedback, outlines several concerns, including those about the federal rule-making process, but it also touches on a hot-button issue in Austin: electric reliability.
Texas regulators say they fear that new regulations would make coal production less economical, speeding up plant retirements and straining the grid.
“Generators should not be penalized for increased [greenhouse gas emissions] needed to maintain system reliability,” the letter said. “The PUC and TCEQ urge the EPA to consider all aspects of grid reliability in developing [a greenhouse gas] rule for existing power plants.”
So a good way to think of the dispute - to put it in context - is to look at it as a conflict between the Environmental Protection Agency and the forces that control it, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, along with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the forces that control those two.
The former is responsive to national pressures, while the latter two are responsive to those in Texas. These are hardly the same. The interests of the energy sector are far stronger state wide than they are on the national level. Conversely, the interests of environmentalists are far stronger on the national level than within Texas. This reflects differences in the political culture of each level of government.
These disputes tend to wind up in the courts. The Texas government (through the attorney general's office) - along with Texas industry - commonly sues the EPA by arguing that the rules it issues violate the U.S. Constitution.
The simple question is whether the Constitution - as well as the Clean Air Act - give the EPA the authority to regulate air pollution - specifically - the production of greenhouse gases that also occur naturally.
Here's a bit from a related Texas Tribune story from October 2013:
At issue is whether the EPA can use the Clean Air Act, which gives it the authority to regulate emissions of toxic air pollutants and to limit emissions of greenhouse gases as well. In 2007, the court had ruled in the landmark case Massachusetts v. EPA that the EPA could do so for motor vehicles, which has led to stringent fuel-efficiency requirements for cars.
But Texas, joined by states like Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina, and industry coalitions including the American Petroleum Institute, is arguing that the Clean Air Act was never meant to apply to anything other than air pollutants, because greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane "[do] not deteriorate the quality of the air that people breathe." Attorneys representing the groups added that "carbon dioxide is virtually everywhere and in everything," and called the EPA's proposed regulations of greenhouse gases "absurd."
Of the nine petitions the group of states and industry leaders had filed to the Supreme Court regarding its challenge of climate change rules, the justices agreed to hear six, but only want to consider one question: "Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases."
