After Praying for Rain, Texas Governor Rick Perry Prays for the EPA to Stop Environmental Regulations
"After Praying for Rain, Texas Governor Rick Perry Prays for the EPA to Stop Environmental Regulations"
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Texas Governor Rick Perry may be announcing his bid for president this Saturday, according to Politico.
And last week, in an interview with CBN News, Perry gave a preview of his approach to federal environmental policy by explaining that he prays for the EPA to roll back emissions and air quality standards:
“Frankly I pray for the president every day. I pray for his wisdom, I pray that God will open his eyes. I wish this president would turn back the health care law that’s been passed, ask that his EPA back down these regulations that are causing businesses to hesitate to spend money.”
Unless Perry is talking about reductions in hospital expenditures because of improved public health, his belief that EPA regulations of mercury, air toxics and carbon emissions will cause businesses to stop spending money is exactly the opposite of what analysts say would happen.
As power providers prepare for potential standards by installing environmental controls equipment and building cleaner generation, manufacturing and construction jobs are created – possibly representing up to $200 billion in economic activity, according to a 2010 report from Charles River Associates:
[B]etween 2010 and 2015 the power sector will invest almost $200 billion on capital improvements, including almost $94 billion on pollution controls and over $100 billion on about 68,000 megawatts of new generation capacity. Constructing such new capacity and installing pollution controls will create a wide array of skilled, high-paying jobs, including engineers, project managers, electricians, boilermakers, pipefitters, millwrights and iron workers.
Despite the strong economic case for environmental health, Perry has done more than just pray for an end to EPA regulations: Last year, he challenged a court decision allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gasses, saying the authority puts “countless businesses, farms, even large churches in their cross hairs.”
Meanwhile, Perry continues to pray for the end of an ongoing drought in Texas that has crippled countless business and farms throughout the state. Texas-based climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says “it may well be worst drought on record for agriculture.”
In a major public event in the lead-up to his candidacy, Perry convened a gathering of 30,000 evangelicals in Houston last Saturday where attendees prayed for political leaders, the economy and, of course, more rain. Saturday’s gathering was another chance for churches in the state to come together and ask for the drought to break:
“We’ve prayed for rain for the past several weeks,” Jones said. “I don’t know if God is trying to get our attention … It seems like things have to get desperate. I’m all for what Gov. Perry is doing and think it took a lot of courage for him to call for this prayer meeting.”
With areas of Texas facing the worst drought since the dust bowl of the 1930’s, Perry called for a three-day prayer for rain in April. However, the problem has only gotten worse since then.
Prayer is a powerful thing. But as greenhouse gas emissions spew uncontrolled into the atmosphere and heat waves get more intense, causing dangerous smog to form in urban areas, praying for an end to EPA regulations is not exactly sound environmental policy for a presidential candidate to be advocating.
Below are old comments from the earlier Facebook commenting system:
- Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
Just makes me feel sick.
World is gone crazy…. I guess there’s another dimension to a hotter world.
7 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 12:53pm
- Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)
Indeed, what follows is the Apocalypse, people pray for it.
That’s the same analogy as in the Planet of the Apes when they holy the mighty Bomb!
Alpha-Omega Bomb
…See More
2 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 1:03pm
- shaheercassim (signed in using Yahoo)
I dunno..when Venus and Mars oceans boiled away, was it considered the Apocalype? Now its Earths turn.
Like · Reply · August 9 at 7:13pm
Peter S. Mizla · Top Commenter · Vernon, Connecticut
Between Perry and Bachmann we have two idiots. Both would send this planet into the Venus Greenhouse that James Hansen speaks of in his book.
The pathway between today and runaway global warming is not much. Electing either one of these two makes our future all the more hellish, and the likelihood of the ‘Venus Syndrome’ a real possibility.
6 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 1:35pm
Juan Cruz · Bronx Community College
I think this is not symple sum, 1+1 =2… I think you put these two together the stupidity grows exponentially. It is more like e^2= 7.39 stupidity units!!!
8 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 4:29pm
I wish they were idiots. However, they are actually very smart politicians that know how easy it is to fool our scientifically illiterate citizenry to the benefit of their big supporters. The fooling works with kids they hook on cigarettes, and it works with folks that don’t want to curb their GHG emissions.
3 · Like · Reply · August 10 at 11:02pm
Donald Hoese · South Bend, Indiana
ther is no global warming this is a big lie and it all stems from earth worshippers actually its roots are in witchcraft. god jehovah has everthing under control. his son is coming back to rule and reign in jerusalem. i dont believe jesus is sweating the climate issue. such fools to believe this lie.
Like · Reply · August 14 at 7:29pm
hapamoku (signed in using Yahoo)
texas politicians: america’s fountain of fake solutions to real problems since 1845.
6 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 1:34pm
How?
Like · Reply · August 10 at 10:36am
- hapamoku (signed in using Yahoo)
mind i’m not saying they’ve all been bad. lyndon johnson for instance was very practical. but considering where we’re at now, phil gramm’s financial rule changes arguably not only canceled out LBJ’s poverty reductions but may have set events in motion to kill medicare itself.
Like · Reply · August 11 at 4:42am
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
At last we can say….
Scientists used to say, cautiously, that extreme weather events were “consistent” with the predictions of climate change. No more. “Now we can make the statement that particular events would not have happened the same way without global warming,” says Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.
5 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 2:32pm
taylorbarke (signed in using Yahoo)
He fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.
5 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 2:32pm
LOL…. Can not stop laughing. That is a good one.
Like · Reply · August 13 at 3:41pm
Donald Hoese · South Bend, Indiana
they didnt like jesus either.jesus said be careful if everyone likes you you are on the wrong side. obama has the same characteristics of pharoah.
Like · Reply · August 14 at 7:10pm
mtmariner101 (signed in using Yahoo)
This is the candidate President Obama will have to run against and he is the wackiest and most dangerous of the ultra-right wing nuts. He beats Bachmann to the top of the crazy pile and he will beat Romney with the conservative Christian vote. But he is all show and no substance so Obama will shine when it comes time to debate.
3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 1:06pm
Jim Balter · Top Commenter · Santa Barbara, California
Ron Paul is more dangerous.
Like · Reply · August 10 at 3:31pm
Glenda Barton · Top Commenter · S.F. City College
I don’t think Perry will win the national vote. He had Rev. Hagee up on his stage. The good reverend has aid in the past that God sent Hitler to the planet; he has said incendiary things about Catholicism…and Catholics are like 2/3 of the national vote – he’s not going to make it.
Like · Reply · August 10 at 6:01pm
Judson Parker · Chairman at Save Our Shores! Florida
So, he is praying that we can more easily destroy God’s creation and toss the poor into the streets for not having enough money to pay for healthcare? I don’t think Jesus is listening, Rick.
3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 4:46pm
disgusting man
1 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 4:51pm
Chad W. Hanson · Wakulla Beach, Florida
polluted air and water can be directly linked back to health care costs.
1 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 4:56pm
Laura Sullivan · Western Kentucky University
What a phony windbag.
1 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 9:28pm
Aminah Famili · Washington, District of Columbia
I am not sure whether this guy scares me more than W.
3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 1:22pm
Glenda Barton · Top Commenter · S.F. City College
I hate to say it, I think he’s worse.
Like · Reply · August 10 at 6:02pm
He is Worse than W. Ask the people in Texas.
Like · Reply · August 13 at 3:44pm
Donald Hoese · South Bend, Indiana
maybe you should lose the title minister. looks like you cant descern a man that loves the god of the bible not labeling our country non christian as obama did.
Like · Reply · August 14 at 7:17pm
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/aug/09/michael-moore-matt-damon-us-president
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 2:15pm
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
Storm Warnings: Extreme Weather Is a Product of Climate Change – scientific american.
www.accuweather.com
More violent and frequent storms, once merely a prediction of climate models, are now a matter of observation. Part 1 of a three-part series.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=178130178923890&id=139434822741700
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 2:18pm
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
Extreme Weather and Climate Change
The evidence is in: global warming has caused severe floods, droughts and storms. We present a three-part series by John Carey, who was funded by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and other selections from the editors »
5 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 2:22pm
Donald Hoese · South Bend, Indiana
funny i dont think they had global warming when the fllood came in noahs day it was called living in sin.the bible declares in genesis chapter 8 that as long as the earth remains there will be cold and hot weather. think i will believe the creator.
Like · Reply · August 14 at 7:21pm
Paul Magnus · Top Commenter
Hi donald, I believe the creator also. But I dont see how the above is mutually exclusive.
There is no reason why the gas we have produced, out GHGs, can not be baking the planet at this very moment. Which it is.
Why, it happened with CFCs. There will always be biblical weather, but now we have both…
Like · Reply · August 14 at 8:39pm
Timothy Hanes · Top Commenter
Representative democracy and reason? Bah! Oh the endless erros we have fallen into since we abandoned piety! There is no problem so big we can’t beg our leaders to pray away. Worked for the Aztecs, the Inca, the Maya, will for us too! Of course, it works slot better if you have slot of war captives to torture to death to appease the gods’ blood-thirst.
Hey, wait a minute, now I think of it these right wingers are JUST THE GUYS!
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 1:18pm
Michael Vitulli · Fordham University
Prayer is a powerful thing. But as greenhouse gas emissions spew uncontrolled into the atmosphere and heat waves get more intense, causing dangerous smog to form in urban areas, praying for an end to EPA regulations is not exactly sound environmental policy for a presidential candidate to be advocating.
Like · Reply · August 15 at 1:24pm
Timothy Hanes · Top Commenter
I concur.
Like · Reply · August 15 at 1:37pm
Joan Savage · Top Commenter · SUNY-ESF
It’s too bad Gov. Perry didn’t identify businesses when he said, “regulations that are causing businesses to hesitate to spend money.” Surely he wasn’t being abstract. What businesses did he have in mind? Maybe some journalist can ask him to say names.
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 12:46pm
Joan Savage · Top Commenter · SUNY-ESF
And I don’t mean his sweeping category of “countless businesses, farms, even large churches.”
3 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 12:49pm
Tom Royce · Pequot Lakes, Minnesota
I predict a Perry/Bachmann ticket for the GOP. He’s South, she’s North; good geography. He’s male, she’s female; good balance of gender. She’s a little wacky, he’s a lot wacky; good balance… Yeah, okay; I see an issue here. :O
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 6:52pm
Perry once stated Texas should secede: Something about it being a part of the “agreement” of when it became a state from a sovereign country. Is there any way the rest of us can force them out?
1 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 7:14pm
Tom Royce · Pequot Lakes, Minnesota
The fact is, Texas cannot secede without violating its agreement to become a state. That argument is pure BS. But on your other point, if two thirds of the state legislatures… Nah, that’ll never work. Keep thinking though.
Like · Reply · August 9 at 7:49pm
For a GOP ticket, I’m thinking more Romney / Perry. I think Bachy’s going to implode in the primaries.
Like · Reply · August 10 at 7:52am
shaheercassim (signed in using Yahoo)
If God doesn’t answer his prayers will he: A) Discover global warming is real. B) Wonder if he picked the wrong religion. C) Discover God doesn’t mess with planetary physics for anyone.
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 7:11pm
Catherine Jeanine Piske · Haltom City, Texas
Prayer is not a powerful thing. Prayer is ‘wishing it were so, and doing nothing in the process’.
2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 10 at 10:27am
Jenifer Baez · Texas State University-San Marcos
Yes, God does need to help us……gain wisdom against the hypocracy of the politicians! P.S. God has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS! idiots.
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 11 at 12:40pm
Michael Pettengill · Earlham College
If tolerance of gays caused god to flood New Orleans, what does continued drought after a Perry prayer meeting tell us about god’s view of both Texas, and Perry’s prayer meeting?
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 11 at 3:13am
Erik Peterson · Web Developer at Legend Films/RiffTrax
You had me until the last paragraph. “Prayer is a powerful thing”? Really? Because all of the evidence and reports I’ve ever read on the subject have shown exactly the opposite: prayer does nothing.
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 9:03pm
Jacquie Cohen · El Camino College
LOL LOL LOL LOL! Very funny story. I’m all for prayer but maybe he was praying when he should have been studying?
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 7:33pm
Lets hope Gov Perry never becomes president – would he actually get any support?
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 5:03pm
Berne Nightingale · Cape Town, Western Cape
this man is hiding short term money greed behind a facade of prayer for rain. Start respecting the earth and stop raping it, money now, does not make up for a sick world.
2 · Like · Reply · August 9 at 10:58pm
Prokaryotes – · Top Commenter (signed in using Hotmail)
That’s what I call a fundamentalist!
1 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 12:57pm
Tobias Schunck · CEO at Globaltechbroker.com
Rick Perry is an idiot. Unfortunately, most Americans have just soaked up the industry sponsored propaganda and are too busy / stupid to figure out that things are about to get really nasty. As America is heating up, I still here the idiotic refrain from too many people: “but the science behind climate change is still out there…..”. No its not. Open your eyes. Climate change is happening right in front of you. Or the one that tops it all: “I have A/C in my car, I am not worried about global warming”.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 6:56am
Gene Cass · Rutgers University
I wonder if Mr. Perry or Ms. Bachmann believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 5:01pm
Joe Goodman · Works at The National Academies
Bet Perrywinkle tries to pray the gay out of him too.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 15 at 9:21am
Kurt Heinze · Environment Programme Intern at ICTSD – International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
Ask yes shall receive. Yet, another case of a politician not understanding what he is asking only trying to draw support. this is the sad state of American Politics these days.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 11 at 7:42am
Where are these people coming from – I think their parents should be filing claims with the “bad drug” lawyers?
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 12:18pm
John Poteet · Top Commenter · Chico, California
Yeah, that prayer meeting generated about 100 watts of heat energy output per person attending. Almost exactly the energy they would have generated if they had been anywhere else.
But 30,000 of them all in one place; that’s power.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 4:22pm
Don’t you just want to shake these people? Prayer may have meditative value to the individual, but in the real world you can’t continue cause a problem, while wishing it will just go away.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 5:56pm
Shaheer Cassim · Victoria, British Columbia
He who prays last, prays loudest.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 12:29am
Penni Livingston · Works at Ridgetop Growers
Raving lunatic.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 9 at 7:20pm
Woody McBreairty · Top Commenter · Allagash High School
I guess God didn’t want Texas to have any rain – what a blundering fool he is – Perry I mean, not God.
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 16 at 7:23pm
Arlene Rainville Hess · Real Estate Agent at BrokersRealty.Com 888-770-6993 Real Estate Simplified.
Oh he must be going for the looney tune votes!
2 · Like · Reply · August 16 at 7:32pm
Linda Knapp · Ball State University
Somehow I believe the problem lies in the area of jobs that the new standards would create. If people have jobs they can spend money. If they spend money the economy improves. If the economy improves, they might not be able to overturn the Presidency. ~~ Where are the flaws in my reasoning?
Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 11 at 2:48pm
Jim Balter · Top Commenter · Santa Barbara, California
“Prayer is a powerful thing.” — Uh, no. What an incredibly stupid statement.
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