Thaindian News

AUSTIN, TEXAS (BNO NEWS) – Texas is taking legal action in the U.S. Court of Appeals challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding for greenhouse gases, Governor Rick Perry announced on Tuesday.

“Texas is aggressively seeking its future in alternative energy through incentives and innovation, not mandates and overreaching regulation,” Governor Perry said. “The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ.”

The EPA’s endangerment finding stated that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare. The state’s legal action claims that EPA’s finding is legally unsupported because it relies heavily on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The state says that this agency has been discredited by evidence of scientists’ lack of objectivity and violation of freedom of information laws.

“This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas’ freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach.” Governor Perry added.

“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,” a Texas prosecutor said.

The Texas legal action caused several reactions from state environmentalists. “Their action invokes memories of a sad time in Texas history from the ’50s, when Texas politicians sought to nullify decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only is it legally unsound, it puts Texas on the side of the 1950s economy, against the clean energy economy of the future,” expressed the Environmental Defense Fund Texas in a statement.