HOUSTON (AP) - Texas has filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to not approve the state's permitting process for refineries.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed the state's petition on Monday. It asks the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to review the EPA rejection of the state's so-called flexible permits plan, which sets a general limit on how much pollutants an entire facility can release.
The EPA says the state's permitting process allows industry to emit too many pollutants. Abbott's office says that decision threatens a state regulatory program that successfully reduced harmful emissions, as well as thousands of jobs in the petrochemical industry.
An EPA spokesman did not return a telephone call seeking comment Monday.
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