Texas is taking the federal government to court over a ruling that states greenhouse gases present a danger to human health.

Gov. Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples announced Tuesday that Texas has filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals and plans to formally ask the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its decision.

"This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas' freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach," Perry said.

The Texas Agricultural industry accounts for $106 billion and almost 10 percent of the state's gross state product. State officials say 80 percent of Texas' land is used in some form to produce agriculture. Texas leads the nation in greenhouse gas emissions, and Perry said the state's industry and agriculture would be harmed by the EPA's actions.

The EPA in December issued an "endangerment" finding about carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, saying the pollutants can harm people. The ruling set the stage for future rules restricting emissions.

According to state officials, the EPA's finding is legally unsupported because it outsourced its scientific assessment to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Officials said the IPCC has been discredited by evidence of lack of objectivity and other claims.

State officials argue the IPCC manipulated data to draw at least one highly influential conclusion about the world's climate.

"With billions of dollars at stake, EPA outsourced the scientific basis for its greenhouse gas regulation to a scandal-plagued international organization that cannot be considered objective or trustworthy," Abbott said.

For more than seven months, Gov. Perry has coordinated the effort between state agencies, the attorney general and the agriculture secretary to build a case to negate the EPA's endangerment finding for greenhouse gases.

"The data is clear now that the globe has not warmed at all since 1995," Perry said.

While many in the scientific community still support the climate change theory, state officials continue to attack the motivations of the IPCC to discredit the agency and prevent increased restrictions to the EPA's emission standards.

The state's only burden is to show the EPA's source of data was faulty, not to provide reliable scientific data to prove the finding wrong.

"[The IPCC] reveal a concealed effort to advance a specific scientific theory, rather than reach the objective truth," Attorney General Greg Abbott said. "The EPA should not now blindly accept what the world is beginning to second guess."

While many organizations applaud the lawsuit, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups spoke out against it, characterizing the variations in the data as minute.

"Overwhelming body of science continues to affirm the fundamental issue, that climate is heating and that the impacts are being seen today," Tom Smith, with the Sierra Club, said.

State leaders suggest the EPA start again from scratch, a process now planted in the middle of a legal battle Abbott says will take years to play out.

EPA officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report