A Federal circuit court in Washington, D.C. has heard appeals of Texas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a lawsuit filed by the State challenging the EPA’s mandated regional haze plan. It’s a plan that would force Texas to clean up its coal-fired power plants that send haze drifting into Oklahoma affecting the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Park.
Texas filed suit in February after the EPA rejected the state’s 7-year old proposed revision to its SIP or State Implementation Plan to reduce regional haze. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the filing of the suit.
“Texas already has a plan that meets the standards of the Clean Air Act, however, once again, the Obama administration is misinterpreting and misusing federal agencies to force through a radical agenda based more on the beliefs of his environmentalist base than on common sense.”
He called it an extraordinarily expensive plan that would make the electric grid less reliable. The lawsuit was joined by several Chambers of Commerce in Texas.
The regional haze plan was released by the EPA in December 2015 as officials said the plan for the Texas coal plants would clear the air at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge as well as the Caney Creek Wilderness in western Arkansas. The plan targeted 14 generating units at seven coal plants in Texas.
