ustxtxb_obs_2000_11_17_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

!Luta Maim Ruta Maya Coffee is grown by a cooperative of Mayan farmers in the highlands of Chiapas. Ruta Maya Coffee is 100% shade grown, organic coffee, certified by the OCIA. 218 West Fourth Street Austin TX 78701 512 172 9637/ 800 510 CUBA cubitacom / rutarnayanet A Oil refinery near Bay City, Texas industry representatives “to call them in as a resource.” Kennedy also complained that the original proposal had no “meat” with respect to actual reductions. “One of the leaders actually stated that emissions reductions was not a primary driver for the program. I know for a fact that in the mind of at least one TNRCC commissioner, emissions reductions is the primary driver for the program.” The argument has been made by the Bush campaign and some at the TNRCC that cleaning up the grand fathered plants was the Governor’s idea, and that since 1971 other governors had the opportunity to reduce grandfathered emissions. As recently as last week, for example, TNRCC commissioner Ralph Marquez told The Philadelphia Inquirer that cleaning up the grandfathered plants was “the governor’s idea.” Yet the June 11, 1997, letter written by the Marathon and Exxon executives concludes with the warning that “that our state law makers are ready to end grandfathering.” With four of the state’s major urban areas already out of compliance with the Federal Clean Air Act, and therefore facing penalties that include loss of federal funds and restrictions on growth, there was increasing momentum in the Legislature to get tough with the grandfathered industries. Bush, instead, allowed oil company executives to devise his voluntary program. And when pressure to pass a law grew, he supported a bill written by W.C. Holland an industry lobbyist, backed by the industry lobby, and opposed by every environmental organization in the state. Among the factual findings in the Texas Air Crisis Campaign report is that the Marathon-Ashland Plant \(permitted in are scheduled to reduce emissions by 1,024 and 2,439 tons respectively. But Marathon’s permit allows it until 2006 to complete its reductions; Exxon has until 2007. There is no smoking gun that connects Marathon’s Beghini and Exxon’s Condray to the lax emissions reduction policy. Only smoking refineries. These guys wrote the guidelines that were incorporated into Senate Bill 766, then lobbied to make the bill a law. No one would expect that law to be too hard on them. Former Observer editor Louis Dubose is politics editor at The Austin Chronicle, where a version of this article appeared. 14 THE TEXAS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 17, 2000