New EPA Rule ‘All Out Attack’ on Texas Energy, Education Funding, Says Land Commissioner

Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham sounded the alarm about proposed rule changes from the EPA in regard to electricity production capacity in the state. Buckingham called the rule changes “an all-out attack on the energy industry, the robust Texas economy, everyday taxpayers, and public education funding in the state of Texas.”

In a letter (attached below) to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan regarding a proposed EPA rule change, Commissioner Buckingham wrote, “I am appalled and extremely concerned at the draft rule proposed on May 8, 2023, by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding carbon pollution standards for coal and natural gas-fired power plants (the Rule). Simply put, the implementation of this Rule would be an all-out attack on the energy industry, the robust Texas economy, everyday taxpayers, and public education funding in the State of Texas.”

Officials with the Texas General Land Office (GLO) explained that the proposed rule change mandates that most coal and natural gas-fired power plants capture 90 percent of their emissions by 2035. Alternatively, the plants can convert to hydrogen by 2038 or simply shut down operations. The rule is proposed arbitrarily by the EPA without any legislative call for action by Congress.

While unveiling the proposed rule change, EPA officials said power-plant owners would be given “ample lead time” to comply with the rule, Breitbart News reported.

Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Jason Isaac told Townhall.com, “The EPA’s proposed rule needlessly requiring carbon capture on existing coal and gas-fired power plants is more far-reaching than even the [Obama-era] Clean Power Plan was. Carbon capture technologies are so expensive that the result will be the sudden retirement of reliable generation, and there will be nothing to replace it.”

GLO officials told Breitbart, “Rather than encourage the continued use of clean and abundant natural gas for energy generation, the Rule seeks to burden our natural gas-fired plants with untenable restrictions to compel their closure or conversion to a fuel source like green hydrogen.”

“The Rule is nothing more than a blatant attack on the domestic oil and gas industry,” Commissioner Buckingham said in her letter to the EPA. “Rather than encourage the continued use of clean and abundant natural gas for energy generation, the Rule seeks to burden our natural gas-fired plants with untenable restrictions to compel their closure or conversion to a fuel source like green hydrogen.”

“At the GLO, we are no strangers to the challenges posed to the budding carbon capture and sequestration industry,” she explained. “For one, capturing carbon from natural gas plants – as opposed to coal-fired plants – is exceedingly difficult since carbon is not nearly as concentrated. If it proves to be either impossible or economically unviable to utilize this as-yet-unproven capture technology, plants will be faced with no option but to shut down.”

Oil and Natural gas production in the state of Texas is a major funding source for the state’s public education system. Last year funds captured by the GLO provided approximately $2.1 billion during the previous fiscal year. In addition, Commissioner Buckingham chairs the Board For Lease of University Lands which oversees oil and gas production on 2.1 million acres that provides funding to the University of Texas and Texas A&M University Systems.”

“Due to the likelihood that the Rule will result in closure or curtailment of natural gas-fired power plants, and thus diminish natural gas revenues received by the School Fund and the PUF, the Rule will have a lasting negative impact on funding for public education in Texas,” Buckingham concluded. ” The Rule is undoubtedly intended to buttress the Federal Government’s push to end domestic oil and natural gas production in favor of ‘green’ renewable sources.”

Buckingham added that the energy production from “green” resources such as solar and wind are both “variable and intermittent.” She said the impact of the proposed rule would place an “undue burden on the State’s critical energy supply and Texas industry as a whole at a time when U.S. power consumption requirements are expected to increase by 12 to 22 percent between now and 2030.”

During a major winter storm in Texas in February 2021, nearly half of the state’s wind turbines froze and stopped producing electricity, Breitbart reported. Similarly, in September 2020, California resorted to rolling blackouts as wind generators failed because of calm winds.