As fog and rain on Canada's west coast disrupt skiing at the Winter Olympic Games, legal antics over climate change have kicked off in Texas.
Yesterday, the lone star state, which is the biggest US emitter of carbon dioxide due to its oil refineries, said it had lodged a
to the federal government's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
It has also petitioned the US federal appeals court for a review of a ruling last December by the
US Environmental Protection Agenc
y (EPA) that carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global warming endanger human health. The landmark "endangerment" finding cleared the way for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce such emissions.
The Texas governor Rick Perry "should win an Olympic medal for taking the environment downhill," suggested
, a spokesman for the environmental group
. "Global warming is the greatest environmental threat facing Texas and the planet."
Mr Perry, however, appeared to attach greater importance to economic recovery.
"The EPA's misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ," he said. "This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas' freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach."
Gathered in Austin, Texas, to announce the lawsuit, Mr Perry, the Texas attorney general Greg Abbott and the state's agriculture commissioner Todd Staples said Texas had a strong record of improving air quality by cutting emissions without federal intervention.
The
and a number of US iron and steel makers have also signaled they will file lawsuits.
Conservative Republican politicians such as Mr Perry have lobbied against a federal cap and trade bill that would put a cost on carbon emissions by requiring large emitters to buy permits. That caused the proposed law, which was narrowly passed last year by the US House of Representatives, to stall in the Senate. The EPA in December threatened to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if Congress would not.
Some prominent Democratic senators have predicted that comprehensive US climate control legislation will not pass this year.
