In a statement posted on its site this week, the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) announced that its commissioners voted to refer a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) greenhouse gas emissions rule to the Office of the Attorney General to file a lawsuit to challenge the rule in federal court.
“The EPA rule adds regulations to existing and future electricity power plants fueled by coal and natural gas to decrease carbon dioxide emissions,” the RRC noted in the statement.
“However, the rule imposes strict but untested standards in what will likely result in unreasonable infrastructure costs, which could force coal plants to shut down and reduce the ability of natural gas-fired power plant to operate at full capacity,” it added.
“That can have the detrimental effect of reducing electricity supply in Texas. The reliability of the electricity grid is of utmost importance in a state that continues to benefit from population and business growth, and a reliable grid is also needed to protect Texans during summer and winter weather fluctuations,” it continued.
In the statement, RRC Chairman Christi Craddick said, “in yet another baseless attack on the oil and gas industry, the Biden administration has proven their willingness to jeopardize the health and safety of Texans in the name of their ill-planned agenda”.
“I appreciate the hard work of agency staff and look forward to the Attorney General’s action against this rule to protect Texas,” Craddick added.
Commissioner Wayne Christian said in the statement, “President Biden is hellbent on making American’s energy more expensive and less reliable just to virtue signal to his radical environmentalist friends and his globalist allies”.
“These rules are an EPA ultimatum to fossil fuel-based power producers: eliminate CO2 or we’ll eliminate you. If Biden’s successful with his ‘Unreliable Power Plan’, it will only mean more taxpayer-subsidized wind and solar energy, less dispatchable power for U.S. energy grids, and potential blackouts across the country,” he added.
“I hope Attorney General Paxton is successful in overturning this horrible rule,” Christian went on to state.
RRC Commissioner Jim Wright said in the statement, “this rule is but another example of the Biden administration’s concerted effort to limit energy production at the expense of the American consumers”.
“This latest action by the EPA will not only make our electrical grid less reliable, but it will result in higher energy costs for American households. The only thing ‘green’ about this rule will be the money flying out of middle-class pockets to pay their electricity bill if it isn’t overturned,” he added.
The RRC highlighted in its statement that it and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had filed comments opposing the rule when it was first drafted. It also noted in the statement that this is the second EPA rule that RRC commissioners have referred to the Attorney General to challenge this year. Two months ago, Texas challenged the EPA’s Methane Rule, the statement pointed out.
Rigzone asked the White House and the EPA for comment on the RRC statement. While the White House has not yet responded to Rigzone at the time of writing, an EPA spokesperson responded to Rigzone with the following statement:
“Because this is pending litigation, EPA has no further information to provide”.
A Federal Register update published on May 9 stated that the EPA is finalizing multiple actions under section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric generating units (EGUs).
“First, the EPA is finalizing the repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule. Second, the EPA is finalizing emission guidelines for GHG emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired steam generating EGUs, which include both coal-fired and oil/gas-fired steam generating EGUs,” it said.
“Third, the EPA is finalizing revisions to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for GHG emissions from new and reconstructed fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbine EGUs. Fourth, the EPA is finalizing revisions to the NSPS for GHG emissions from fossil fuel-fired steam generating units that undertake a large modification, based upon the eight-year review required by the CAA,” it added.
“The EPA is not finalizing emission guidelines for GHG emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbines at this time; instead, the EPA intends to take further action on the proposed emission guidelines at a later date,” it continued.
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