Must Be All That Hot Air In Crawford

Texas tops list of greenhouse-gas emissions by U.S. states

Know what would make the climate debate even contentiouser? Some sort of ranking of which U.S. states produce the most emissions. Oh look! The Associated Press has analyzed a set of U.S. Department of Energy carbon dioxide data from 2003! Let the finger-pointing begin. It seems that states with a lot of coal plants are among the worst offenders, with Texas topping the list. Coal-fired power plants in Wyoming produce more carbon dioxide in eight hours than power generators in Vermont (which has a bigger population) do in an entire year. Slightly pink-cheeked officials from some of the spewy states point out that they export much of the energy they produce. Others say the ranking is ridiculous: "If the atmosphere could talk it wouldn't say, 'Kudos to California, not so good to Wyoming,'" says Assistant Energy Secretary Alexander Karsner. "It would say, 'Stop sending me emissions.'" We're thinking it would say a lot more than that -- none of which is publishable on a family website such as this.