In a major ruling yesterday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) turned down Valero Energy’s request, on bogus grounds, for a tax rebate that would have cost Texas school districts up to $93 million out of budgets already pushed to the brink by the disastrous results of the 2011 Texas Legislative session. State Senators Wendy Davis and Rodney Ellis were instrumental in applying the political pressure to TCEQ and released this statement celebrating the victory for Texas’ teachers, children, and hard pressed communities along the Gulf Coast:
Senators Wendy Davis and Rodney Ellis today commended the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) staff for protecting potentially hundreds of millions in public education funds from a flawed tax exemption request.
Following a call by Senators Davis and Ellis to protect Texas schools, TCEQ rejected a pollution control tax break request filed by a refinery company that failed to meet the statutory criteria of providing on-site environmental benefits. The tax exemption would have required a school district outside of Houston to refund tens of millions in tax dollars. It was a pivotal decision because dozens of similar requests remain pending.
“School districts across the state are certainly breathing a sigh of relief today that the TCEQ staff has not buckled under political pressure and that the agency is rejecting this request that would potentially bleed hundreds of millions from Texas classrooms,” Davis said. “We must fight for every dollar for our public schools, especially following the more than $5 billion in state funding cuts that are impacting our schoolchildren.”
Senators Davis and Ellis had called on TCEQ to reject the request because the company’s investment failed to meet the letter or spirit of a 1993 Texas constitutional amendment that allows for tax exemptions when companies install pollution control equipment that provide an on-site environmental benefit. Earlier this month, Senators Davis and Ellis submitted a formal request for an opinion from the Texas Attorney General to clarify the law. In their letter to the AG, they wrote that the request does not meet the statutory guidelines of the law because “... the equipment at issue provides no environmental benefit at or near the site.”
In communications with TCEQ and the Texas AG, Senators Davis and Ellis had said that San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp.’s request, if approved, would require a school district just outside of Houston to cough up tens of millions of dollars. And the refinery company’s request before TCEQ could have had a broad impact on Texas school funding as dozens of other requests similar to Valero's remain pending.
The request that was rejected today by TCEQ staff was filed by Valero in 2007. It was already rejected once by the TCEQ staff. But that earlier recommendation was disregarded by Governor Perry's politically-appointed TCEQ Chairman Bryan Shaw, who asked the agency staff to re-evaluate Valero’s request. Shaw has been criticized as an industry ally. Perry has received the second-most donations in Texas from Valero - more than $147,000 from the company, its PAC and employees since 2004, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Shaw has also stood with Perry in public denials of climate change being caused by humans and he was recently accused of censoring an environmental report on Galveston Bay by a Rice University oceanographer, removing any references to a causal connection between human activity and the rises in sea level or the changes in the climate.
Senators Davis and Ellis requested the AG opinion to clarify the intent and the application of the 1993 law in order to assure that Texas taxpayers and schoolchildren are not victimized by political maneuvering that would override the intentions of the constitutional amendment.
Up to 200 school teachers, parents and children protested outside today’s Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) hearing in North Austin today against a proposed property tax rebate for Valero Energy which would refund up to $93 million in property taxes to the energy giant. The protesters claim that the funds would overwhelmingly come directly from local school district budgets that are already cash strapped due to over $4 billion in cuts to school funding during the last legislative session.
Patricia Gonzalez, Vice President of the Pasadena branch of the Texas Organzing Project (TOP), stated that Pasadena I.S.D. alone would be forced to repay $11.3 million and would lose a huge source of future school revenues. She added that several other refinery companies were waiting to file similar claims if Valero’s is successful. She implored the commissioners to deny the request, as they had in 2009, stating “everyone should pay their fair share.”
Jennifer Sylas of Houston said that HISD would lose $13.3 million from a district budget that has already seen the loss of such critical programs as buses, books for each individual student, and one on one help for students with dyslexia.
Despite the impassioned pleas from gulf coast residents in attendance, and the clearly audible chants from protesters outside, the three commissioners were unable to comment on this issue as their mandate prevents them from commenting on issues not in the current agenda. As the TCEQ’s general counsel put it, the Valero “matter is not ripe for consideration at this time.”
While their was no pronouncement on the Valero tax rebate issue, their were several other interesting issues up before the commission during the 3+ hour long hearing. One was a hearing request for a “major ammendment” of a Rio Grande Mining Company Texas Land Application Permit which would allow the mining company to directly discharge wastewater into state waters at a “daily average rate not to exceed 360,000 gallons per day” at a facility near Shafter Township in Presidio County. Presidio County Judge, Paul Hunt, argued, via letter, that the permit should be denied due to concerns about arsenic contamination, though the commission will let the hearing go forward.
The other major topic at hand was how the commission should interpret House Bill 2694 in the commissions rules. The law can be interpreted to deny the ability of state agencies to become conflicting parties in litigation, as I understand it. It could then, for instance, limit the ability of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Deparment from suing the Railroad Commission for threatening wilderness areas.
I will keep checking in with TCEQ to see if there are any new developments with the Valero case, or any of these other cases in the future.
(After last night's debate, it's important to remember the human and health costs of Rick Perry's energy and environmental policies. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
Rick Perry just unveiled his energy plan for America. The plan, if implemented, will poison our air and water with toxic pollutants like soot, smog, arsenic, cadmium, dioxin, lead, and formaldehyde. It would also undercut safeguards from mercury, which is a neurotoxin and is known to harm developing fetuses.
"Rick Perry's energy plan reads like a roadmap for making America's kids sick," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. "Under this plan, we can expect to see much higher rates of asthma among children, and risk to pregnant women from mercury exposure. Republicans like Perry are putting polluters' profits first and our kids' health last. The Republican mantra should be 'wheeze, baby, wheeze."
Perry's plan calls for scaling back basic EPA safeguards that protect our clean air and water. It would simultaneously expand development of dirty energy like coal, oil, and natural gas amounting to a one-two punch to Americans' health.
"American families have enough to worry about," Brune said. "They don't need to spend more time taking their kids to the doctor or more money on hospital bills. The only people who stand to profit from this plan are overpaid oil, coal and natural gas CEOs."
"Dismantling the EPA and assuming that states are properly watching over natural gas drilling is dangerous and puts the health of our families and communities at risk."
Perry's plan would also undercut the expansion of jobs in industries like solar-the fastest-growing industry in the energy sector.
"There's a solution to the current epidemic of pollution-related illness that will also create good, lasting local jobs, and secure America's energy independence," said Brune. "It's clean energy. America's clean energy industry is strong and thriving, even in this down economy. Rick Perry's plan would stifle that growth and return our country to a dirty, antiquated energy system. Under his plan, we'll see asthma rates among American kids soar, while countries like China surpass us in reaping the benefits from clean energy like solar and wind."
In fact, America is predicted to become the world's leader in solar energy by 2014, and in 2010, the U.S. was a net exporter of solar by $2 billion. Solar energy creates seven times more jobs than coal, nuclear and natural gas.
Hundreds gathered at the University of Texas's LBJ Auditorium yesterday to voice their opinions for, and against, Transcanada's Keystone XL pipeline which would carry diluted bitumen, an unconventional form of oil, from the oil sands of northeastern Alberta to southeast Texas. I was there to check out the proceedings, and a few things struck me that I'd like to share.
The Pro-Pipeline Activists Are Very Well Organized Several dozen members of the Laborers' International Union of North America were in attendance wearing matching shirts to support the pipeline they believe will give them multiple construction contracts in the coming years. They arrived first to the Austin hearing, and outnumbered pipeline opponents at other hearings in Montana and Port Arthur, TX.
Pipeline Could Fail in Texas due to Eminent Domain Abuse Much like the Trans Texas Corridor before it, the Keystone XL pipeline would require unprecedented abuse of eminent domain laws, according to the executive director of We Texans, Debra Medina. She said that a "recent decision by the Texas Supreme Court in the Denbury Green Pipeline case, which was sent back to a lower court after the company failed to prove it was confiscating land for the public good, shows that a higher bar has been set for oil companies to cite eminent domain in condemning people's property."
Nebraska Contains the Strongest Opposition to the Pipeline Unlike other states, Nebraska's anti-pipeline coalition includes high level figures from across the political spectrum. The state's Republican governor, Dave Heineman, and both its US senators, Ben Nelson (D) and Mike Johans (R), lined up with thousands of others recently to express their outrage at the proposed route of the pipeline across the state's sensitive Ogallala Aquifer.
There Is Still Time To Fight This Outrageous Pipeline! The State Department is accepting public comment until October 9th, here. Let them know that this pipeline is a grave threat to Texans' land, air, and water. This pipeline might be a boon to one Canadian company, but it will be a disaster for our state and country.
Again, please contact the State Department and tell them Texans want nothing to do with the toxic tar sands pipeline. A few thousand temporary jobs are not worth the grave economic and environmental threats posed by this terrible plan.
In December, the State Department will decide whether, or not, to allow construction of the 2,000 mile long Keystone XL pipeline that would transport a million barrels per day of the dirtiest form of petroleum, diluted bitumen or dilbit, from deposits in the Athabasca river basin in Alberta, Canada through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma en route to refineries in Port Arthur and Houston. This pipeline will endanger the water supply for tens of millions of Americans, and put one of the greatest agricultural regions on Earth at grave risk. The period for public comment on the tar sands pipeline officially ends on October 8.
Action must be taken now to prevent this looming ecological disaster from occurring.
Diluted Bitumen is exceedingly nasty stuffDilbit is not oil in the classic sense. In nature, it is sticky, asphalt coated sand, or tar sands, found beneath the vast, pristine Canadian boreal forest. The tar sands are extracted by strip mining huge tracts of forest (it requires 2 tons of sand to produce one barrel of oil). The sands are then processed using enormous amounts of water, natural gas and solvents in order to dilute it into a substance liquid enough to flow through a pipeline. This process emits plumes of toxins into the air, and leaves large ponds of heavily polluted water that are believed to leak over a billion gallons of heavily contaminated water a year into the Athabasca river. High concentrations of mercury, thallium, lead, benzene, arsenic, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have been found downstream of the extractions sites, leading to extremely elevated rates of rare cancers in nearby residents and fish found with major deformities (one was found with two mouths). The amount of energy required to convert this stuff into a transportable fluid will see this nearly uninhabited corner of northeastern Alberta produce more CO2 emissions than Denmark (5.5 million inhabitants) by 2015. This is what a tar sand mine looks like from space. The mine itself is on the left of the map, the "lakes" are the contaminated tailing ponds, and the Athabasca river runs south to north to the right of the ponds. It is also not safe once it leaves Alberta. The corrosive nature of dilbit makes pipelines 16 times more likely to leak than when they carry crude oil.
We've asked Governor Perry and his appointees to help clean up our air and water and he's failed.
Last Tuesday the EPA announced it will take over parts of the Texas air permitting program because it is illegal and doesn't adhere to the Clean Air Act. We applaud EPA's action -- but Governor Perry has the audacity to try to stop the EPA.
Take action and tell Governor Perry to get out of the way and let EPA do their job to protect our health in Texas!
Instead of acting in the interest of Big Polluters, Perry's appointed Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) should look out for Texas families. Soon, the TCEQ will undergo Sunset Review which only happens once every twelve years. At that time, we will have another opportunity to voice our concerns about the lack of enforcement on Big Polluters. With the recent BP Oil Disaster we've seen how important regulations are and we need the EPA to step in to protect our health and environment in Texas.
Austin is not alone in preparing for clean and affordable energy.
When good news like this comes across the internet like this, we have to share. From the cloudy northwest:
Portland General Electric Co. would shut down the state's only coal-fired power plant 20 years earlier than planned under a proposal it hopes to finalize with state and federal regulators in the coming months.
Essentially, the new plan to shut the Boardman plant down 20 years earlier than planned is to avoid extra costs for pollution controls (more than $500 million by 2017) and avoid carbon risks. PGE still owes $125 million on the plant, and replacing the 500 MW of power will have its costs too, but read on...
Based on its analysis of carbon and natural gas prices, however, PGE maintains that a 2020 shutdown would be the low-cost, least-risk plan for utility ratepayers and shareholders [emphasis mine]. Under the existing plan, both face the risk of making the huge investment to control haze causing pollution - which does nothing to control the plant's carbon emissions -- then seeing the plant close anyway if global warming legislation or a carbon tax makes its output prohibitively expensive.
Read the full article here. Coal represents about a quarter of PGE's generation mix. (Los Angeles also has a goal to get out of coal by 2020.)
Austin Energy has similar plans to get out of its only coal plant, the Fayette Power Project. No target date is set yet, but the utility's 2020 generation plan would reduce Austin's dependence on it by 20-30%. The next two years will be important as Austin works with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (the grid operator for most of Texas) and the Lower Colorado River Authority (co-owner of Fayette) to see what the most practical and fair way out. Learn more about the resource plan and some excellent additional recommendations at www.cleanenergyforaustin.org. You can also learn a lot from AE's website www.austinsmartenergy.com.
Last week, President Obama’s EPA made an announcement that will spring Texas forward to cleaner air!I love the idea of being able to run on Lady Bird Lake trail without wheezing on certain days.And, I love the idea that the number of ozone alert days could go down. The children I'd like to have someday might not have to stay inside the classroom like kids have to now on Ozone Action Alert days.
Here’s the big news.The EPA proposed an improvement to the federal clean air standard for ozone to a range of 60 to 70 parts per billion -- This step could signficantly lower ozone pollution across the state!The EPA will soon ask for public comments from you. The Sierra Club is already taking action to support the new, proposed rule!After the public comments process, the rule will become finalized by August 31 of this year.
The announcement came January 7 from the EPA in Washington.Texas is going to be one of the states impacted most because despite our beautiful dream of wide open space and big blue skies on the frontier, both urban and rural Texans are breathing some of the dirtiest smog in the nation.In anticipation of the EPA’s announcement, the American Lung Association in Texas, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Texas State Legislators including Senator Kirk Watson and Representatives Lon Burnam and Eddie Rodriguez environmental groups and local citizens impacted by air pollution in our state eagerly welcomed the decision at press conferences in Austin (News8 Austin video), Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
You Don't Have to be a Doctor to Know
Why is Obama’s EPA doing this?The proposed rule revises a much less protective proposal from the Bush Administration.The Bush EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) went with a less than adequate standard (and little enforcement of that!) despite the obvious damage it would cause to our health and air quality.The ozone limits announced today meet recommendations from the EPA’s scientific panel based on 1700 scientific studies, many indicating that ozone is a lot worse for our lungs than we previously knew.
At Wednesday’s press conference at the State Capitol, Dr. Don Williams pointed out that “You certainly don’t have to be a doctor to know that brown haze is not good for your lungs.” Dr. Don compared ozone to lead explaining that we didn’t know how dangerous lead was until we found out through research.Breathing Ozone can kill.When we breathe in smog, it burns and damages the respiratory system like a sun burn might burn the skin.It can lead to further respiratory illnesses like cardio-pulmonary obstructive disorder and heart disease.According to the American Lung Association, even short term increases in ozone have been found to increase deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory problems.That’s why this new ozone limit is so important.
After the comment period and finalization of the new standard, Texas’ multi-county, regional Councils of Government and the TCEQ will create and submit State Implementation Plans to the EPA that will identify the sources and ways we’ll reduce emissions. That’s really good news for all of us breathers.
We can look at where ozone comes from.Ozone comes from nitrogen oxides (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds emitted by large industrial facilities -- coal plants, cement kilns, refineries, and chemical plants, but also from smaller yet hugely numerous sources like our vehicles in traffic, heavy, off-road construction equipment, gasoline stations, paint shops, and natural gas drilling.
First Step, Halt Proposed New Coal Plants
One of the easiest ways to control NOx emissions is to go after the largest ‘single point sources’.Because coal plants create almost 35% of all industrial ozone, Texas must reverse the Texas coal rush.We have to stop building new coal plants and we have to phase out the dirty, existing coal plants.We have to and we can make a transition to clean power.
Texas doctors and nurses have been focusing more and more on the coal-fired power plants.Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is speaking out because they recognize burning coal for electricity is terrible for people’s health.Along with Dr. Don, PSR spokespersons Dr. Stuart Abamson, a pediatric children’s hospital, asthma & immunology specialist spoke at the Houston press event and pediatrician Dr. Karen Lewis spoke at the Dallas event last week.
In Corpus Christi, Dr. Bruce Taylor, pediatrician, anesthesiologist and a member of the local Clean Economy Coalition spoke about the problems presented by Chase Power Development’s plans to build an ironically named ‘Las Brisas’ -- Spanish for ‘the breezes’, coke-powered plant.(Coke emits NOx and is regulated like coal.) Las Brisas would put out more pollution than the 6 refineries currently operating in Corpus Christi combined including 3,776 TONS annually of ozone-forming, asthma-causing NOx.Just up the coast, citizens and elected officials are looking closely at the proposed White Stallion coal plant, planned in Matagorda County just south of the Houston-Galveston ‘non-attainment’ area.Las Brisas and White Stallion would add up with the 9 other proposed coal plant projects in Texas to equal 27,013 TONS per year of additional NOx in our air.That’s why Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, and local environmental groups and individuals around the state are fighting these new coal plants.Placing a moratorium on any new coal plant permits and reconsidering all recently permitted coal plants would be one easy way to help meet the new ozone standard.
DMN to Perry: Get Over It
This week, Governor Rick Perry and the TCEQ continued to fight the Obama Administration’s clean air and climate protection plans while editors at the Dallas Morning News want Perry to get over it.They want the state to now ‘get started on a serious ozone reduction strategy.’
A reporter at the Austin press conference asked a good question, ‘What will make Texas local and state government clean-up the air?’
Good question.If you ask me, the reason coal plants have been polluting Texas is because the Bush Administration EPA failed to act, and the TCEQ under Governor Perry’s appointees went right along.We have a new administration now and a new EPA that is willing to enforce the law to protect public health.What can happen?For one thing, the EPA has the ultimate say over the State Implementation Plan so EPA can require serious, health-based permitting plans.If regions around the State don’t reach ‘attainment’ of the clean air standards, they can lose federal highway funds for one thing.
Clean Energy Solutions
Texas is now at an energy crossroads.Businesses are looking for clean energy solutions.The Texas energy industry can seize this huge opportunity to turn away from coal and create green jobs and wealth by building their part of the new clean energy economy. We have the smarts in this energy savvy state.Texas received more money for energy efficiency programs like home weatherization than any other state in the country after New York.We have the renewable power resources. Texas generates more wind power than any other state in the nation, and we have incredible solar power resource.
Sierra Club, other environmental groups, and our partners in the medical community applaud the EPA for taking this step in the right direction.The only way we’ll get our cities back into attainment of the clean air standards is to stop any new coal plants from being built, and to phase out and shut down some of the oldest and dirtiest coal plants.We are calling on the EPA to halt the permitting of any new coal plants in the state of Texas and to help TCEQ prioritize which of the dirtiest old coal plants to phase out first.
State Legislators are ready to take action.As Senator Kirk Watson said at last week’s announcement, “Our goal…should be to make sure that we all get the air we need to breathe well, have fun, work productively, and keep our region competitive with areas that can offer companies and workers unmistakably clean air.Non-attainment isn’t something to be afraid of.”
Today’s the last day to formally ask the EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act in Texas.
Sierra Club our environmental partners, bicyclists, medical communities, and interfaith partners delivered comments last week from more than 2,000 Texans to officials at the Region 6 headquarters of
the EPA in Dallas and we want them to hear from even more of us today!Here’s the story on KERA public radio in Dallas.
What’s all the fuss about?More and more Texans are realizing that Texas is in the problematic position of having more proposed coal plants than any other state in the nation.With 12 in various stages of construction or permitting challenges, Michigan, second worst with 4 planned coal plants, leaves Texas in the really big dust.
Texans are learning that coal plants make people sick.Medical practitioners have become increasingly involved in opposing Texas coal plants – particularly in Corpus Christi, the site of the proposed Las Brisas pet coke plant; in Austin, which could become the first municipal utility in the state to reject coal; and in Dallas, which is downwind of the majority of Texas existing coal plants and has been in non-attainment of federal air quality standards.At the EPA last week, Dallas-based pediatrician, Dr. Karen Lewis with Physicians for Social Responsibility said, “Coal plants in Texas emit huge volumes of heavy duty respiratory toxins and we're seeing skyrocketing rates of asthma and respiratory illness in children.”Dr. Lewis addressed mercury pollutionwhichleads to developmental and neurological disorders in children, “Doctors recommend that pregnant women not eat large fish and limit their intake of smaller fish, but can we talk about where the mercury in such otherwise healthy food as fish comes from?The bottom line is that we shouldn’t be building more coal plants in Texas.”
There are other reasons to fight coal plants.Coal plants cost too much.And, costs are rising as new, more protective clean air standards become law.The new standards will place many additional regions of Texas in ‘non-attainment’ status jeopardizing federal funds and they will require coal plants to install costly new scrubbers. Texans don’t need to foot this bill when we live in a state with so much clean energy know-how and wind and solar resource.
Coal plants also cause global warming and use enormous amounts of water.This is a serious problem in Texas where we experience extreme drought.
Fortunately, more people are becoming actively involved.People are hearing about the second wave of the Texas coal rush in part thanks to Forrest Wilder’s Texas Observer article ‘Coal Star State’ and also thanks to hundreds of Sierrans, our environmental partners and bicycling community friends who came out to Roll Beyond Coal at rallies, bike rides, and hikes in five Texas cities on October 31.Sierra Club’s long time chemist, former state regulator, and clean air warrior, Neil Carman believes that the recently appointed new EPA Administrator at Region VI in Dallas can make a difference in the coal plant fight.
We got a hopeful sign last week when a company decided that it won’t import PCBs and burn them in Port Arthur.He thinks the new EPA can also intervene on TCEQ’s habit of permitting big coal polluters.
Sierra Club will continue challenging coal plants in Texas and we need your help!Let the EPA know today that you want them to block Texas coal plants and take a serious look at the 17 existing coal plants.
Hundreds of Texans from all walks of life rallied to Roll Beyond Coal on Halloween, Saturday, October 31.
There were 200 people in Dallas including speakers -- Representatives Carol Kent, Lon Burnam, Robert Mikloss, and Dallas Council Member Linda Koop.
There were 200 also in Austin including MC Ian Davis and speakers Representative Eddie Rodriguez, Austin Council Member and bike advocate Chris Riley (He stood up for the City's Climate Protection Agreement) and Dr. Kimberly Carter of Austin Physicians for Social Responsibility (She really nailed the seriously SCARY part of the Halloween message about Texas coal pollution).
100 oeople came out in the sparking city by the sea, Corpus Christi where their Clean Economy Coalition is in a contested case hearing this week along with Sierra Club over the proposed and quaintly named Las Brisas, 'the Breezes' coke plant. Corpus speakers included two physicians -- a family practioner from Aransas Pass, Dr. Lorraine Stehn, pediatrician Dr. Kevin Hopkings, Stacy Barrera, President of the TAMU-CC Young Democrats, former REpresentative Arnold Gonzales and Hal Suter of the Sierra Club.
There was also 50 people rolling beyond coal in Beaumont and 35 in Alpine, Texas. Calmly scared half to death about rising coal costs, health and environmental impacts of 12 new Texas coal plants http://www.texas.sierraclub.or... , they are taking action to stop the second wave of the Texas coal rush and promoting instead clean air, clean power, green jobs, and the availability of water in the future.
Coal Plant Pollution means Attainment of Federal Air Quality Standards Shot to Hell
"These 12 new coal plants are a significant jump to the 17 operating coal plants we already have in Texas," said Rita Beving with Dallas Sierra Club. "Whether it's the nearby plants being built east of Waco or the one proposed as far away as Abilene, the wind carries coal plant pollution north to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and will only exacerbate our ability to reach attainment."
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is currently in non-attainment of required federal clean air standards, as is Houston and the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. Austin, San Antonio and the north east Texas area have early action compacts and are near non-attainment. New federal air quality standards coming this Fall (70 ppb)will mean that several additional regions of Texas will go into non-attainment.
Many states around the nation have dropped plans for coal plants, letting Texas run far ahead in a horrible lonely lead in the opposition direction. With Michigan trailing at only 4 proposed new coal plants, Texas has the largest number still moving in various stages of permitting - contested case hearings, appeal, and construction. With the grotesque rate of acceptance of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), a whole army of new coal plants could go online next year emitting their enormous tonnage of pollution as they rev up to a full-throttled, smog-spewing, global warming, lung-clogging, nerve-shattering, mind-numbing, and heart-stopping blast of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, mercury, and carbon dioxide. See the fact sheet list of the proposed coal plants in Texas and the gory truth on their cumulative emissions numbers.
Human Health Impacts http://www.texas.sierraclub.org/press/newsreleases/HealthImpactsfromTexasCoalPlantPollution.pdf
Corpus Christi cardiologist, Dr. Greg Silverstein said, "In Corpus Christi, we already experience twice as much asthma as the state average. If the Las Brisas petcoke plant is allowed to go forward with the huge annual emissions of smog and smoke in their permit application, we
will see a significant increase of even more asthma in Corpus Christi and the surrounding towns. I am concerned about my patients and all the people of Corpus Christi."
Coke is regulated similarly to coal and it emits the same nasty pollutants. See just what effects coal and coke plants have on human physiology in the attached Fact Sheet.
Coastal Bend doctors of the Nueces County Medical Society and the Tri-County San Patricio-Aransas-Refugio Medical Society passed resolutions opposing the permitting of the hilariously-named Las Brisas (the Breezes) coke plant. Corpus Christi citizens from all walks of life united across class, Hispanic and Anglos, men, women, children, and the elderly crowded into a room that couldn't contain their opposition at last February's preliminary hearing in which a large number of individuals and organizations including the Clean Economy Coalition and the Sierra Club received 'standing' for a contested case hearing which began today, Monday, November 2.
Clean Energy Solutions and Green Jobs on the brighter side of the Dark Ages
"There are many reasons to oppose coal plants - they cost too much, make people sick, contribute to global warming, and use enormous amounts of water," said Eva Hernandez, Regional Organizer for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "Another reason is that they are a huge dangerous diversion from the clean power and green jobs economy that Texas is so perfectly suited for and already leading."
Roll Beyond Coal is a project of Sierra Club's Climate Recovery Partnership and the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. In Texas, Sierra Club is fighting to stop new coal plants and clean up and phase out old coal plants. Sierra Club's environmental partners include our 14 Regional Sierra Club groups, lawyers on the Texas contested case hearings the Environmental Integrity Project, running buddies Sierra Student Coalition, Public Citizen, and a cast of dozens of awesome Texas organizations.
Slide show with photos from all rallies coming soon! Stay tuned to Lone Star Chapter of Sierra Club on Burnt Orange Report!
Last week, President Obama’s EPA made an announcement that will spring Texas forward to cleaner air!
The announcement came January 7 from the EPA in Washington.
One of the easiest ways to control NOx emissions is to go after the largest ‘single point sources’.
Texas is now at an energy crossroads.
Texans are learning that 
