Is Texas Ready for the Clean Energy Rule?

Tom Benning provides feature length coverage of the complicated role of Texas "in the ongoing debate over President Barack Obama’s signature proposal to cut power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions."

After the Supreme Court tabled the Clean Power Rule in February, the world "awaits the legal fate of the Clean Power Plan." On one side of the debate in Texas: the state's traditional strength in the oil industry. And on the other: the state's potential to become a leader in the burgeoning wind energy market.

"With both sides digging in," writes Benning, "Texas could help answer a key question raised recently in oral arguments before a federal appeals court: Just how transformational is the Clean Power Plan?"

Already, Texas has transitioned away from coal in its energy portfolio. Wind energy has gone from zero percent of the state's energy portfolio in 1994 to nine percent in 2014. Some also project the state s more than ready for the regulatory changes the Clean Power Plan. The Environmental Defense Fund "recently updated its analysis to show that Texas would actually exceed the plan’s goals under 'business-as-usual conditions.'"

But as Benning notes in detail, there are many in Texas who think the Obama Administration's designs for a clean energy future will have a negative impact on the Texas economy.