Email (excerpted), response to PolitiFact Texas, Neil Carman, clean air program director, Sierra Club Lone Star chapter, Austin, Feb. 7, 2013
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Yes, Texas leads all states in CO2 emissions and leads by a long ways in the number of industrial plants at nearly 2,000 with nearly 1,500 that are reporting GHG emissions including CO2.
The US EPA has recently released CO2 emissions data from industrial plants, and due to the large nature of Texas industrial base in sheer numbers of plants and their large size, Texas has ranked #1 for many years in carbon dioxide emissions from industry. However, most of the earlier CO2 emissions data was not official from the US EPA or TCEQ since they were not doing CO2 inventories until recently and only more recently the EPA began to make the CO2 data public. Earlier CO2 emissions data was based on estimates of fossil fuel use and Texas ranked #1 by a mile in the US.
Realize that Texas has more large oil refineries, major chemical and petrochemical plants, hundreds of natural gas processing plants, Portland cement kilns, carbon black plants, etc. than any other state because of the strength of the oil & gas industry and the large geographical size and population base as well.
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