HOUSTON (AP) _ Texas officials say they are considering an appeal after a federal appeals court upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s rules on greenhouse gases.
State Attorney General Greg Abbott has often opposed the EPA, and led a legal charge from Texas against the first-ever rules designed to regulate gases considered to be prime contributors to climate change.
After a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Tuesday backed the EPA, Abbott slammed the decision. He says “it failed to rein in the unelected bureaucrats at the agency who are holding our country’s energy independence and fragile economy hostage to a radical environmental agenda.”
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Chairman Bryan Shaw says the rules will be a “burden on jobs and the economy.”