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It’s hard to think of a more Orwellian name for a state entity than the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which has apparently been insisting that breathable air is not an issue of “environmental quality” down here in the land of the free. (I don’t keep up with this stuff like I should, because fed-bashing pollution deniers make my head want to explode, which would create a big environmental mess). But just this week a judge in Houston stepped outside of her chambers, noticed her fellow Houstonians hacking and sputtering on the street, drew in two big lungfuls of ozone-packed air, and ruled that, yep, air quality is an issue that public agencies should be concerned about. In Texas, that’s called “progress.”

My theory on Rick Perry’s resistance to regulation of state industry polluters is: Because air isn’t visible the way, say, water is visible, businesses shouldn’t be harassed about what they pump into it. It’s similar to Perry’s view (or lack thereof) on Texas’ massive problem of citizens without health insurance. Because he hasn’t seen the inside of a public hospital in God knows how long, there isn’t a problem with people seeking basic health care procedures in emergency room settings. Perry’s approaches to pollution and the uninsured fall under my “grand unified theory” of the man’s governorship in general: He’s an idiot.

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