Commentary
Toxic Chemical Lobby: Exclusive Leaked Footage
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Permitting and Jobs
As expected, this past Wednesday, June 30, the EPA officially disapproved Texas’ flexible air permitting program. And while disapproval is only the first step on a long journey in dealing with the legacy of over fifteen years of a permitting debacle plus the effort required to reform the program for possible use in the future, our state leaders continue to fight battles on fronts that have little to no value for the health and economic stability of Texans now and in the future.
The political message du jour, as was also expected, centered on the economy and jobs. If the federal government insists on reaching down into the heart of Texas’ affairs, it will surely kill off thousands of jobs and sap the economic might of our state. Texas has managed to both clean up the air and grow the economy, so what is Washington’s gripe?
We’ve seen this tactic trotted out by industry for decades at every instance when government has attempted to improve regulations. Its overuse matched with the fact that industry, its jobs and its economic might have not diminished through the years give the truth behind the message. The right regulations, applied evenly and consistently, provide the stable foundation from which we can both grow our economy and protect the environment and public health.
It is exactly this stable foundation which we have been missing in Texas for well over a decade. It is the desire for this regulatory clarity which drove industry to sue the EPA to deliver its long delayed decisions. And it is this lack of regulatory transparency which has made public access and participation in this crucial process next to impossible.
Will this permitting reform saga cost money? Undoubtedly. It will cost the state, the federal government and industry money in terms of staff time and energy (and lawyers’ fees) to wade through the mess that all three parties are complicit in creating. It will possibly cost industry money to retrofit or upgrade certain parts of their plant if they have to bring them up to modern pollution requirements. But this is a cost that the facility would have been escaping all of this time because of the inherent flaws in Texas’ permitting program. Costs that these exact same corporations have expended in the other 49 states without driving companies to mothball units and move them overseas.
Nobody is arguing that we are in an economically, environmentally or politically ideal position with regards to air permitting in our state. But it is economically, environmentally and politically imperative that we work to fix air permitting. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our state to clean up the air in order to meet federal ozone regulations. Yet we have an air permitting program that saps the resources of our overstretched regulators and obscures the real sources of our continuing pollution problems. Our state, and in particular the Houston region, will continue to be looked upon both at home and around the world as a dirty city until we fix that problem. It harms our economy today when producers such as Toyota and Boeing overlook our region because of its pollution problems, and it harms us in the future because the young and educated generation of Americans currently choosing where to set up their lives and careers place Houston very low on their list of desirable communities.
The future of our larger community rests at the very center of being clean and environmentally sound. Houston has so many other things going for it – wildlife, restaurants, beaches and lots of cheap places to live. But our pollution problem continues to hold our area back. The best way to continue to diminish that problem and change the world’s perception of our home for the better is to the meet it head on. Putting on the well-worn record of losing jobs and costing money is about as far away from that option as one can get.
Stop White Stallion Energy Center and All Coal Powered Plants
White Stallion Energy – Matagorda County’s Trojan Horse
- Cecilia Dykes, Outreach Director
Join the No Coal Coalition to stop the permitting of the proposed White Stallion Energy Center LLC
Just a few years ago, in 2007, lawsuits were filed against TXU for its proposed construction of 11 coal-fired power plants, which would have emitted 78 million tons of carbon dioxide every year – more than the emissions of 21 states. In the end TXU was bought out and the coal generation units were reduced from 11 to three.
Pollution from coal plants goes beyond carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming. Coal plants are also heavy polluters of sulfur dioxide, mercury, arsenic, lead and are the largest industrial sources of ozone precursors.
In Texas today there are 20 counties that do not meet federal ambient air quality standards. These counties are commonly referred to as being in nonattainment. In the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria region, which includes 8 counties, all are classified severe for 8-hour ground-level ozone. Breathing air containing ozone can reduce lung function and increase respiratory symptoms, thereby aggravating asthma or other respiratory conditions. Ozone exposure also has been associated with increased susceptibility to respiratory infections, medication use by asthmatics, doctor visits, and emergency department visits and hospital admissions for individuals with respiratory disease. High ozone levels can even harm sensitive vegetation and ecosystems.
Matagorda County, which is southwest of this region, meets the federal standards for ambient air quality. However, this may change as citizens are confronted now with the possibility of a 1320-megawatt pet coal plant coming to their county called White Stallion Energy Center.
The two principals of White Stallion, which is associated with Sky Energy LLC based in Houston, are Randy Bird and Frank Rotondi, formerly with the now defunct Enviropower LLC. Although Bird and Rotondi promise to build the first clean-coal plant in Texas, the truth is both men have been involved in a series of failed projects around the U.S. most notably in Illinois and Kentucky. While in the process of securing permits, and swaying officials and local business owners who provide the cash flow, they have never delivered a single megawatt of power.
Working with a mailbox at a Houston UPS Store as a business address, Bird has been courting Owen Bludau, executive director of the Matagorda County Economic Development Corporation, Judge Nate McDonald, the Chamber of Commerce and other citizens promising economic gains.
In late 2008 Bird invited a group of residents, led by County Judge Nate McDonald, to tour the Spurlock Power Station in Maysville, Kentucky. All were impressed with what they believed to be a clean operation. None seemed aware that on July 2, 2007 the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that East Kentucky Power Cooperative, owner of the Spurlock Power Station, would be required to spend about $650 million in pollution upgrades and pay a $750,000 penalty stemming from a civil suit for violations of the Clean Air Act at three of its plants - including the Spurlock Power Station. The settlement required the utility to install pollution control equipment to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) by more than 60,000 tons per year.
With so much at stake, write your letters urging TCEQ to reject the White Stallion Project's air permit. Protect your interests – public health, the environment, and Matagorda's right to protect its agricultural and recreational economies.
For more on how this involves Harris County read Matthew Tresaugue's article:
By MATTHEW TRESAUGUEHOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 18, 2010, 11:12PM
City's smog concerns may choke power plant
Pollution near Matagorda could drift to Houston
