Excerpts from WSJ Article:
“Texas Governor Rick Perry may not have been able to recall if he wanted to shut down the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but all Americans should remember the public service that he and his fellow Texans have done by challenging EPA’s overreaching regulation. This week the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals obliterated a 2010 EPA ruling that disapproved Texas’s program to meet national air-quality standards.”
” EPA has the authority to reject such plans, but only with cause. Such cooperative federalism is rooted in the constitutional balance of state and federal power that was so much on display this week in the Supreme Court’s consideration of ObamaCare.”
“This week the appellate court found that the EPA “failed to identify a single provision of the Act that Texas’s program violated, let alone explain its reasons for reaching its conclusion….The feds wanted to use their approval power to dictate the details of clean-air plans, a job that has always fallen to the states.”
“The Fifth Circuit reports that “authorities” cited by the EPA in this case included “several internal memoranda and guidance documents.” Are emails among agency staff now authorization for the exercise of power in the Obama era? Instead the EPA resorted to claiming that the plan somehow violated Texas law. The Fifth Circuit drop-kicked this argument and called it “arbitrary and capricious” because even the EPA itself has recognized that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA zero authority to judge whether such plans comply with state laws.”
“The appeals court examined other EPA justifications and concluded in one instance that the agency’s argument had “no legal basis” and in another that the EPA was applying criteria “created out of whole cloth.” This is not a compliment.”
“Team Obama erred in messing with Texas. Americans still struggling with a weak economy should be grateful for the Lone Star State’s feisty defense of its authority.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303404704577311782025040926.html
