Emission Revision

Texas is now one of many states that have increased in carbon emission amounts in the country. According to Climate Central, Texas, California and Pennsylvania are at the top of the charts with Texas in the lead. Everything is bigger in Texas and unfortunately, so is the pollution.

Almost double of California's carbon emission count, about 653 million metric tons, Texas comes back with an estimate of 641 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and a spike of 4.5 percent of carbon emissions from 2012 to 2013. The source of all this? Burning energy. Mainly coal, petroleum and natural gas are the one's affecting major climate changes.

The Obama administration has recently presented some new climate policies such as the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from currently running power plants that burn fossil fuels. Many states are declaring the policy unconstitutional and are filing lawsuits. In my perspective, Texas really needs some sort of emission regulation because the numbers are astonishingly high.

The plan works in a simple way; The Clean Power Plan gives each state a goal of greatly reduced carbon emission numbers based on what they already produce and both the residents' use of electricity and the power plants' efficiency. The plan will leave it up to each state to figure out how to regulate carbon emissions and they are to submit their plans to EPA no later than 2018.

At least Texas is taking an interest in really regulating and caring about emissions in the state. On Thursday, October 8, Texas filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen and Audi vehicle manufacturers for violating consumer protection laws and the Clean Air Act of 1970 by inserting devices into their diesel cars that enabled them to "cheat" any emission tests. Texans purchased around 32,000 of their diesel models since they were first introduced to the market and Texas code for violation each day the car is used rests between $50 and $25,000 in penalties per violation. The attorneys persist on using the "maximum power of the law to penalize [the car companies]." Hopefully the state of Texas continues to regulate these emissions for the people's sake and the states "health" in terms of pollution.