Texas

  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has unveiled details of the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP), a voluntary measure central to the judicially stalled Clean Power Plan that seeks to provide guidance to states and tribes that want to meet goals under the plan when it becomes effective. The final Clean Power Plan, finalized in […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must halt its drive to help states supportive of the Clean Power Plan to comply with the rule because it defies the Supreme Court stay, the attorneys general for West Virginia and Texas have urged the agency. An April 28 request to the agency by 14 states seeking technical assistance […]

Texas is the latest state to file suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its recently finalized standards for ozone. The state joins Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin, which have legally challenged the final version of the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone since its […]

Attorneys general from three states—Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia—stepped forward on May 5 to present their objections to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed Clean Power Plan. During testimony before the Senate Environmental and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey presented three specific problems he sees […]

Progress has been slow on finding a permanent disposal solution for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., but an interim solution seems more palatable to developers in a couple of southwestern states. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of Energy Dr. Ernest Moniz on April 11, informing him of […]

Bills to eliminate incentives that have accelerated the expansion of wind power found momentum in Texas and Oklahoma last week.  Texas Moves to Nix RPS, CREZ The Texas Senate on April 14 approved, by a 21–10 vote, legislation that would end the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and its Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) program. […]

 While fuel switching may be the easiest option for hitting the 2020 and 2030 goals set by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed Clean Power Plan, it may impede reaching longer-term climate targets said experts at an April 8 symposium hosted by the Central Texas Association for Energy Economics and the Energy Institute at the […]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released state electric power sector CO2 emissions data on Mar. 4 exposing Texas facilities as the largest emitters of CO2 gases in the country—more than twice the total of Pennsylvania, which ranked second. The most recent data was from 2012 and showed that electric power plants in Texas released […]

The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan could result in the retirement of between 3.3 GW and 8.7 GW of coal-fired capacity in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid and jeopardize electric reliability for the state that is already power strapped, the independent system operator (ISO) says in a new analysis.  The Environmental Protection Agency’s […]

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) completed an evaluation of a plan to export power to Mexico from the Frontera Generation Station, located in Mission, Texas. Although the results indicated that the power system could operate effectively during normal conditions without Frontera’s capacity, ERCOT says it has concerns with power supply sufficiency and transmission […]