Governing Principle

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.

Action Items

»  The air Texans breathe today is cleaner than it was in 2000, even though our population has grown by nearly 3.5 million people.
»  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.
»  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 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.
»  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.

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