Texas 2011 - 82nd Regular

Texas House Bill HCR81 Compare Versions

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Old	New	Differences
1	1	82R8909 BPG-F
2	2	By: Isaac, et al. H.C.R. No. 81
3	3
4	4
5	5	HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
6	6	WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the United States
7	7	Constitution places clear limits on the power of the federal
8	8	government, but officials in Washington, D.C., have grown ever
9	9	bolder in usurping powers rightly belonging to the states,
10	10	particularly regarding the regulation of hazardous waste, water,
11	11	and clean air and the regulation of the production, exploration,
12	12	drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
13	13	of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products; and
14	14	WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:
15	15	"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
16	16	nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
17	17	respectively, or to the people"; the powers reserved to the State of
18	18	Texas and its citizens are those powers as they were understood in
19	19	1845, when Texas was admitted to statehood, excluding amendments;
20	20	and
21	21	WHEREAS, Similarly, the Ninth Amendment to the constitution
22	22	prohibits the federal government from violating or infringing on
23	23	rights not specifically enumerated in the constitution and reserves
24	24	to the people of Texas certain rights as they were understood at the
25	25	time that Texas was admitted to statehood, excluding amendments;
26	26	the guarantee of those rights is a matter of contract between the
27	27	people and the State of Texas and the United States as of the time
28	28	that the compact with the United States was agreed on and adopted by
29	29	Texas and the United States; and
30	30	WHEREAS, In the U.S. Constitution, the power to regulate
31	31	interstate commerce is delegated to the federal government; at the
32	32	time of our nation's founding, this power related to the buying and
33	33	selling of products made by others, and sometimes land, as well as
34	34	associated finance and financial instruments, and navigation and
35	35	other carriage, across state jurisdictional lines; this interstate
36	36	regulation of "commerce" did not include regulation of agriculture,
37	37	manufacturing, mining, malum in se crimes, or land use; neither did
38	38	it include activities that merely "substantially affected"
39	39	commerce; and
40	40	WHEREAS, The nation's founders had no intention of giving the
41	41	federal government authority to regulate intrastate commerce, and
42	42	no such power is delegated to the federal government in the
43	43	constitution; therefore, under the Tenth Amendment, the regulation
44	44	of the environment in the State of Texas is delegated to the State
45	45	of Texas, as is the regulation of production, exploration,
46	46	drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
47	47	of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products that
48	48	originate and remain inside the State of Texas, and which have not
49	49	been proven and adjudicated by the Texas or federal courts to
50	50	specifically be causing, or to have caused, quantifiable harm to
51	51	any persons or places beyond the borders of Texas; now, therefore,
52	52	be it
53	53	RESOLVED, That the 82nd Legislature of the State of Texas
54	54	hereby express its opposition to federal regulation of hazardous
55	55	waste, water, and clean air and of the production, exploration,
56	56	drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
57	57	of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products in the State
58	58	of Texas; and, be it further
59	59	RESOLVED, That the 82nd Texas Legislature finds that each
60	60	state environmental agency and each state agency with limited
61	61	environmental responsibilities, within its areas of environmental
62	62	jurisdiction, should to the extent deemed necessary cooperate with
63	63	federal environmental agencies in the regulation of hazardous
64	64	waste, clean air, and water and of the production, exploration,
65	65	drilling, development, operation, transportation, and processing
66	66	of oil, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum products, but should
67	67	not be required to enforce federal laws or regulations relating to
68	68	such environmental regulation; and, be it further
69	69	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
70	70	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
71	71	the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
72	72	Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
73	73	members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
74	74	this resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a
75	75	memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.