Potential Impact to Texas of the Environmental Protection Agency's Proposed Framework for Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Using any existing Environmental Protection Agency regulatory authority under the Federal Clean Air Act (FCAA) to regulate greenhouse gases (GHG) would create extreme economic hardships, regulatory uncertainty, and immeasurable standards. The primary GHG in most climate change proposals is CO2, which is not a regulated air pollutant under current EPA standards. Given that CO2 exists uniformly around the world, any local or regional reduction in CO2 emissions will have no measurable impact on local levels in the atmosphere or on local weather conditions. Depending on the FCAA regulatory method used, attempts to reduce CO2 emissions in Texas and around the nation would have tremendous impacts.

Regulatory costs associated with GHG regulation under the FCAA will have devastating impacts at both the state and national level. Accurate estimates are not possible given the lack of specificity in the ANPR. However, costs to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) could run from $40 to $80 million dollars annually, depending on which part of the FCAA is used to regulate GHG and how the programs are eventually implemented.