Although it has already passed a bill that would strip U.S. EPA of its ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources, a subpanel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold another hearing on the economic implications of the agency's regulations Thursday in Houston.

The Energy and Power Subcommittee will meet at the South Texas College of Law for a field hearing titled "EPA's Greenhouse Gas and Clean Air Act Regulations: A Focus on Texas' Economy, Energy Prices and Jobs."

The panel did not release a witnesses list by publication time.

The hearing was prompted by Energy and Commerce Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-Texas), who is also a member of a new task force of Texas lawmakers and regulators that will be launched today in Austin and is aimed at "protecting Texas from the job-destroying over-regulation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

"The group plans on discussing what has been going on legally and legislatively in Washington and Austin," said a press release on the task force distributed by Barton's office.

Texas state officials have clashed with EPA on more than just the state's rejection of greenhouse gas regulations for stationary sources, like power plants.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and EPA have also been scrapping for months over "flexible permitting," a 16-year-old system used by Texas to craft permits for some of the state's largest industrial facilities. Rather than placing an emissions limit on each source of pollution -- at larger plants, there can be thousands of them -- the permits set an overall cap and let companies decide how to get there.

EPA argues that the permits stifle public comment, make it hard for EPA officials to verify emissions reductions and allow more pollution than standard federal New Source Review permits allow. Texas has challenged the agency's rejection of the program in court, claiming that it yields the same emissions reductions and helps businesses meet federal requirements at a lower cost.

Texas is also the only state to refuse to participate in EPA's greenhouse gas emissions rules, which were phased in Jan. 2. The state has criticized the Obama administration for imposing its own rules in Texas, a step that EPA has said is necessary to make sure that the state's businesses are able to get valid permits. The full Energy and Commerce Committee and its Energy and Power subpanel have both approved a bill that would bar EPA from implementing these rules, and it is expected to win quick passage in the House. The Senate appears less likely to approve a similar bill.