Gov. Rick Perry today sent a letter urging President Barack Obama to stop the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) efforts to take over Texas’ federally delegated, successful Title V permitting program and replace it with a less effective Washington-based, bureaucratic led, command and control mandate.  

To view the governor’s letter to President Obama, please click Here

Texas Environment/Energy Fact Sheet

Texas is a national leader in reducing emissions and known pollutants, and advancing renewable energy sources all while remaining a leader in the nation’s energy production.

We have successfully balanced the need for environmental improvements with fostering economic growth, new investment, and job creation. Texas continues to advance new, clean energy technology by using market incentives and stable regulation, not costly mandates and taxes.

The Obama administration has taken yet another step in its campaign to harm our economy and impose federal control over Texas. With their efforts to take control of a permitting process that the Clean Air Act allows to be delegated to the states, the EPA is on the verge of killing thousands of Texas jobs and derailing a program that has effectively cleaned Texas’ air. An increasingly activist EPA is ignoring the progress Texas has made to clean its air over the last decade, and should instead look to our state’s successful approach to issues concerning energy and the environment.

• Statewide, nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels decreased by 46% and ozone levels decreased by 22% between 2000 and 2008.

• All major Texas metropolitan areas currently meet the 1997 federal eight‐hour ozone standard, with the exception of the DFW area, which is within 1 part per billion of meeting the standard. Preliminary data indicates that Houston met the standard for the first time in 2009.

• In 2008 no benzene monitors in Harris County were above levels that are considered unsafe on a long‐term basis.

• Texas has established an Air Pollutant Watch List to identify which communities have elevated levels of dangerous pollutants and implement tougher air permit standards when appropriate. As a result, within the last two years alone, six areas/air contaminates have been able to be removed from the watch list as air quality has improved.

Texas’ Progress Compared Nationally

• In a comparison with 20 eastern and southern states that are most comparable to Texas because the location of industrial facilities and natural ozone levels, Texas is second only to Georgia (25%) in the largest decrease in ozone levels from 2000 to 2008.

• Despite being the nation’s energy capital, Texas has the eleventh lowest NOx emissions rate for power plants among all states according to EPA data.

• Between 2000 and 2008, while Texas NOx levels decreased by 46% and ozone levels by 22%, national NOx levels fell by only 27%, and national ozone levels declined by only 8%. In comparison, ozone levels in Illinois have only fallen by 12% since 1999.

• According to Department of Energy and EPA data, since 2000, Texas’ CO2 emissions from fossil fuel usage have actually fallen by more than almost any other state and every country except Germany as a result of our policies to foster renewable energy, make the electricity market more competitive and efficient, and improve our environment.

• According to the EPA’s Acid Rain Database, the average NOx emission rate for power plants in Texas is 38% less than the national average.

Texas Programs/Initiatives to Reduce Pollution

• The Texas Emissions Reduction plan (TERP) has provided more than $775 million in grants since 2001 to replace or retrofit older, dirtier diesel engines in the state, and has achieved NOx reductions of more than 160,000 tons. This is equivalent to removing 3 million cars off of Texas roads.

• The Texas Drive a Clean Machine program has provided $77 million in assistance to low‐income Texans to replace or repair more than 29,000 old, high emitting cars since 2007.

• Texas is also using state‐of‐the‐art technology to find pollution, including a revolutionary new video camera originally developed for the military that records pollution not visible to the naked eye.

• Texas has more air emission monitors than any other state, which allow considerable insight into where air quality improvements need to be focused.

Enforcing Regulations

• Texas aggressively enforces its environmental laws. In 2009 alone, TCEQ issued more than 1,700 enforcement orders and assessed more than $24 million in penalties and almost $7.4 million in funds for environmental improvement projects, the highest level of fines since 1985.

Leader in Renewable Energy

Texas is the example the nation should follow when looking to improve the environment and harness clean, renewable energy sources. We have diversified our energy portfolio by:

• Installing more wind power than any other state, and more than all but four other countries – and providing for new transmission that will enable more than 18,000MW.

• Attracting more development of the next generation of nuclear power than any other state – more than 9,000 MW.

• Adding new coal plants that will be among the cleanest in the nation, including some which will be prepared to capture and sequester carbon dioxide and others that can add those controls when that technology is mature.

Texas is also one of the nation’s leaders in solar and biofuel efforts.

A 2009 Pew Charitable Trust study on clean energy jobs ranked Texas as #2 in clean energy jobs and #3 in clean energy venture capital investments.

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