Lightseeker at Texas Kaos spotlights Houston's failure to come up with a plan to meet federal air quality standards. It seems Governor Perry once again has requested a little more time to meet requirements for ozone emissions. He thinks, oh, another decade might do it.
Texas officially asked the federal government Friday for an extra nine years to meet health standards for ground-level ozone, to comply with the law by 2010, saying that it would be "practicably impossible" for the eight-county Houston-Galveston region to comply with the law by 2010.
The request marks the latest postponement in the decades-long saga to clean up Houston's smog and seeks more time than both the county and city wanted. If granted, the city would be the last place in the state and one of the last areas in the country to meet health guidelines for the lung-irritating pollutant.
Houston's first federal deadline to meet ozone standards was in 1975. The new deadline would be June 2019 [emphasis added.]
That would be the same governor who showed his commitment to air quality standards by trying to fast track eleven coal burning power plants. Like our former governor turned president, Perry believes in kicking our problems further down the road.
And lest we feel too smug about Houston's status, don't forget who's number eight on the list of worst polluted cities. How many more years do you think Perry is gonna suggest to solve our problems?
1 comment:
Without seeing a presentation on what are the viable alternatives to coal plants in Houston, it's hard to evaluate the situation, however the fact that Houston's air quality is ranked so low on the national list probably does indicate that the policies are not what they should be.
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