Texas Appeals EPA Findings on Greenhouse Gases

Governor Rick Perry, State Attorney General Greg Abbott, and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples have filed an appeal against the Environmental Protection Agency after the EPA issued an "endangerment" finding in December about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases.

Texas leads the country in the emission of greenhouse gases, and has more oil refineries, chemical plants and coal-fired power plants than any other state.  The appeal asks the federal government to review the endangerment finding, and holds that the finding is legally unsupported because it was conducted by the International Panel on Climate Change, which the state officials say has been discredited due to bias.

“With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy,” Attorney General Abbott said.

Texas environmental activists criticized the announcement, saying that the appeal is based on Governor Perry's ties to industries that support him.

"Not only is it legally unsound, it puts Texas on the side of the 1950s economy, against the clean energy economy of the future," Jim Marston, Texas regional director of the Environmental Defense Fund, told the Associated Press.

EPA officials in Washington have not issued a response to the appeal.