Texas battles EPA over greenhouse gas

The EPA has been skulking around trying to find a backdoor way to regulate carbon dioxide, the alleged greenhouse gas. But Texas isn’t going to wait for the regulation to hit the fan. The Lone Star State has filed suit in federal court challenging the government’s authority to regulate a gas that is a byproduct of industrial civilization.

Lest you think the EPA is only targeting big industrial sources of CO2, this article from the Reason website shows how businesses that emit as little as 250 tons of the gas a year may be subject to regulation. By that definition even a 40,000 square foot building (about the size of your average maintenance facility) would be subject to odious levels of paperwork and regulation and potential fines, sanctions and remediation plans. More than a million commercial buildings would be included in this bureaucratic dragnet including many big hospitals and restaurants.

A little fun math on this subject. A human being exhales about two pounds (0.9 kg) of carbon dioxide a day. If you multiply that time 365 days a year that means just 2.74 people will exhale a ton of CO2 in a year. That means any organization with more than 92 people will exceed the EPA’s 250 ton limit just by breathing! And technically that means the U.S. Senate could be considered in violation of the proposed CO2 rules.