CoServ has a responsibility to keep you, our member-owners, informed about industry issues that affect your membership benefits (with low-cost energy being at the top of that list). As decisions hang in the balance on Capitol Hill and in the Texas legislature, affordable energy can be threatened by costs and unreasonable regulatory demands. As citizens of the largest energy-producing state in the nation, Texans must be on our toes. Please contact your federal/state legislators through Our Energy, Our Future – A Dialogue with America at www.ourenergy.coop.
If you are interested in being a part of CoServ’s Legislative Awareness initiative, please contact us at communications@coserv.com with your name, e-mail address, and service address. You will receive a monthly e-mail that provides legislative updates and information about how to participate locally. We may be contacting you personally to touch base with your state legislators in a variety of ways (i.e., attending forums, making phone calls, writing letters, commenting on political blogs, etc.). Please keep an eye out for your issue of Texas Co-op Power magazine each month for more information, and thank you for your participation and support.
August Update
On The Hill:
Widely publicized by the media for the past few months, Congress has dissolved into partisan fighting—the degree of which the nation has seldom experienced. The result is gridlock. The Financial Reform package was the last big challenge the Congress successfully completed. However, even legislation Congress would normally pass with huge majorities, such as health care for the 9/11 first responders, has failed.
With the Senate at home for the summer and their focus being switched from forming new policies to the looming November elections, this is a good time to take stock of our status with energy legislation. The climate change debate has ground to a halt as far as legislation is concerned, but the Administration has given strong signals that it intends to use the Clean Air Act to deal with this issue. Democratic leaders seem to have abandoned all hope of reaching a bipartisan compromise on climate legislation, and may focus their efforts on legislation aimed at cleaning up the off-shore drilling disaster the spilled millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
The New York Times reported that the legislation will also encourage further production of natural gas and the manufacturing of natural gas vehicles, especially big trucks—a takeaway from the T. Boone Pickens' plan. Pickens, a former oil magnate, advocates building wind farms across the United States to replace natural gas power plants, and using the natural gas to power long-haul trucks. The legislation would also constrict household energy efficiency requirements and increase financing of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In Austin:
Earlier this month, Texas officials sent a strong letter to environmental officials that opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gases and federal disapproval of the state’s air permitting program, according to the Austin American Statesman.
Excerpt from the Statesman:
"In order to deter challenges to your plan for centralized control of industrial development through the issuance of permits for greenhouse gases, you have called upon each state to declare its allegiance to the Environmental Protection Agency's recently enacted greenhouse gas regulations—regulations that are plainly contrary to United States law," reads the Aug. 2 letter from state Attorney General Greg Abbott and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Chairman Bryan Shaw to EPA head Lisa Jackson and EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz."
"To encourage acquiescence with your unsupported findings you threaten to usurp state enforcement authority and to federalize the permitting program of any state that fails to pledge their fealty to the EPA, the letter says."
Texas’ Republican leadership views the EPA’s actions as a violation of state rights. However, the six-page letter marks the first time that state officials have tied the EPA’s attempt to regulate greenhouse gases with its disapproval of permits for large refineries and power plants.
For 16 years, the EPA allowed Texas to run its own permitting program to meet federal air-quality standards. But in May, the agency announced that the state is not in compliance with federal regulations. Even though Texas had met its clean-air obligations, the EPA announced it was taking over permitting.
According to The Washington Times, Texas is the nation's energy-production capital, but the air we breathe is cleaner today than it was in 2000, even though the state's population has grown by nearly 3.5 million people. Between 2000 and 2008, Texas' nitrogen oxide levels decreased by 46 percent and ozone levels dropped by 22 percent, compared with national reductions of 27 percent and 8 percent, respectively. All major Texas metropolitan areas meet the 1997 federal eight-hour ozone standard, with the exception of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which is within 1 part per billion of meeting the standard.
We've started an archive, click on a the links below to review.
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
For more information about CoServ and industry news, visit our other Newsroom features:
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Multimedia Gallery – Access company and industry videos, as well as high-resolution photos of our board directors and executive team.