SALON

Friday, Jun 29, 2012 7:15 PM UTC

Texas’ battle against feds leads to more oversight

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Texas' battle against feds leads to more oversightFILE - In this April 16, 2012 file photo, Texas Gov. Rick Perry talks about the Texas Budget Compact during an event to announce key budget principles for the upcoming and future budgets, in Houston. Perry has spent much of the past three years publicly, loudly and defiantly fighting against what he views as Washington meddling in state affairs, often refusing to cooperate with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and becoming a leader in the battle against President Barack’s Obama’s health care plan. His hard-fought battle, however, has led to more of what he most staunchly opposes: federal oversight. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)(Credit: AP)

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas Gov. Rick Perry has spent much of the past three years loudly and defiantly fighting against what he views as Washington meddling in state affairs, often refusing to cooperate with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and becoming a leader in the battle against President Barack Obama’s health care plan.

Other Republican governors pursuing a similar tactic may want to take note of what’s happened in Texas amid Perry’s hard-fought battle: An obstinate refusal to cooperate has resulted in more, not less, federal oversight.

“We’re very conservative and we’re very stubborn,” said Bill Miller, a lobbyist in Austin for HillCo who has represented both Republicans and Democrats. He described the Texas mindset this way: “We’re not going to be smart. We’re going to be pure. It’s a point of pride and if there’s something else we’re proud of, it’s our pride.”

One area where Texas has fought ferociously with the feds has been on environmental regulations. Yet as the state challenged EPA rules in court over the past three years, the federal agency simply side-stepped the state to work directly with industry.

A similar scenario is playing out with Obama’s health care overhaul in Texas, where nearly a quarter of the population, or 6.2 million people, are uninsured. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given the law the green light, it’s highly likely that Texas won’t have time to build a key program, forcing the federal government to design and manage it until the Lone Star State steps up.

“When Texas maintains programs … they’re able to allow Texas values to predominate,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist with Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

And when the federal government steps in, it actually strengthens the anti-Washington sentiment in Texas.

“Typically, federal involvement in Texas drives the argument that it’s no damn good for Texas,” Miller said.

Richard Hyde, deputy executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has been dealing with such issues for several years. First, the EPA overturned a long-standing air-permitting program, forcing more than 120 plants to get new operating papers. As Texas pursued court challenges, the EPA worked with the companies, ensuring that some of the nation’s largest refineries could operate.

Then, when Texas refused to participate in a new requirement that companies that emit greenhouse gases get special permits, saying it does not have the authority to issue such paperwork, the EPA began directly administering the program, Hyde said. The agencies do communicate “about process” because the EPA is not usually in the business of issuing permits, he said, but the situation is not ideal.

“With greenhouse gas permitting and flexible permits, certainly they felt like we should fit in a box just like all the other 50 states. And if you want to … think out of the box and it doesn’t fit in the mold, it doesn’t work for them,” Hyde said. “We want to show that the Texas way works for Texas.”

When it comes to Obama’s health care plan, Texas has focused on challenging the law in court. That means it’s unlikely to have a health insurance marketplace up and running by 2014. The insurance exchange is designed to allow individuals and small businesses to shop for coverage from a range of competing insurers.

As a result, Texas and other GOP-led states that counted on the law being overturned could see Washington running their exchanges instead.

Mark Jones, the head of the political science department at Rice University in Houston, points out that when the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality oversees a permitting program, it considers industry needs and the economy first, while the EPA emphasizes the environment — two conflicting philosophies. With the health care exchange, Jones believes that because the government acts as a clearinghouse, federal involvement will not have as much impact.

Still, he said, if Washington puts together Texas’ exchange it will almost certainly be “more progressive and liberal.”

Faced with that possibility, some Republican governors hedged their bets. In Michigan, for example, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder indicated before Thursday’s ruling that he would consider moving forward with his state’s exchange so it could control its design. He said he was “just trying to be a pragmatist.”

Perry declined Thursday to say whether he would ask lawmakers to create an exchange or move forward with implementation.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is already running a federally mandated insurance plan that has about 5,700 Texans with pre-existing conditions participating, a transitional program that will be available until the exchange is in place. Other states have asked to run this program themselves.

Arlene Wohlgemuth, executive director of Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin that includes health care as a focus, said there doesn’t appear to be much of an advantage to Texas running its own exchange program because the law doesn’t give states much room to tailor the programs.

“There was so precious little flexibility allowed that it really doesn’t matter,” she said. “We never saw any advantage in having a state do their own health care exchange.”

__

Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle and Nomaan Merchant contributed to this report from Dallas.

__

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP

More Ramit Plushnick-masti.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations