EPA Bars Texas from Issuing Refinery Permit

"HOUSTON — The Environmental Protection Agency moved Tuesday to end a long-running dispute with Texas over how the state regulates emissions, including cancer-causing toxins such as benzene and butadiene, from dozens of refineries that produce a third of the nation's gasoline and billions of dollars of petrochemicals.

In a step it called unprecedented, the agency barred Texas from issuing an operating permit to a refinery in Corpus Christi — a power it has traditionally delegated to state regulators. The EPA said it would do the same in dozens of other cases in which it believes the state's permits violate the Clean Air Act, and could potentially do so statewide by June 30.

'For me, July 1 is a very important day,' Al Armendariz, an EPA regional director, told The Associated Press. 'The state of Texas has to let me know if they can issue permits that are consistent with federal requirements, and if they can't, then we will.'"

Ramit Plushnick-Masti reports for the Associated Press May 25, 2010.