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http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2010/05/epa_tightens_industrial_air_pollution_rules.html?t=recent

May 18, 2010
EPA Tightens Industrial Air Pollution Rules
By Ilya Leybovich
The EPA has announced new measures to more strictly regulate greenhouse gas emissions from major emission sources, such as power plants, while reducing restrictions on smaller industrial businesses. Some groups oppose the ruling, but others claim it will benefit small businesses in the long-term.

On Thursday, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the final version of a new regulatory measure designed to create a phased approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The ruling establishes standards that exempt smaller companies from many of the enforcement requirements, while setting stronger controls over larger emitters.

"After extensive study, debate and hundreds of thousands of public comments, [the] EPA has set common-sense thresholds for greenhouse gases that will spark clean technology innovation and protect small businesses and farms," EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson said. "It's long past time we unleashed our American ingenuity and started building the efficient, prosperous clean-energy economy of the future."

Known as the "tailoring rule," the EPA's measure will adjust policies based on an emitter's size and scale of impact, focusing on facilities such as power plants and oil refineries, which account for roughly 70 percent of the country's greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources. At the same time, the measure will loosen restrictions for smaller manufacturing firms and industrial businesses.

The tailoring rule will take effect in January 2011, when industrial firms obtaining Clean Air Act permits for other pollutants will be required to also gain permits for greenhouse gas emissions if they increase those emissions by at least 75,000 tons per year.

Beginning in July 2011, the permit rule will extend to new facilities that emit at least 100,000 tons per year and to existing facilities that make modifications that would increase emissions by at least 75,000 tons per year. According to the EPA, the permits "must demonstrate the use of best available control technologies to minimize GHG emission increases."

The final rule applies to six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).

By increasing the enforcement threshold to emissions of 75,000 tons per year, the measure is intended to exempt small businesses and other minor emission sources from most of the permitting requirements. The EPA estimates that 900 additional permits will come under review each year and 550 new permits will be issued for the first time due to greenhouse gas emissions.

Without the tailored rule, the EPA says, earlier requirements targeting emitters at a much lower range would take effect in January, "greatly increasing the number of required permits, imposing undue costs on small sources, overwhelming the resources of permitting authorities and severely impairing the functioning of the programs."

"Last fall the E.P.A. had indicated that the bar would be set at 25,000 tons a year, which would have imposed the permit requirement on smaller entities like family farms and large apartment buildings," the New York Times reports. In its current form, the regulation is expected to affect 15,550 sources, including coal-fired plants, cement manufacturers, refineries and solid waste landfills.

The EPA's announcement came shortly after an energy and climate bill dealing with many of the same issues was introduced to the Senate, leading to speculation that the new enforcement rules are part of an effort to achieve broader legislative goals.

"The Obama administration has long said it would prefer that Congress pass a bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions but has used the threat of EPA regulation to push lawmakers in states heavily dependent on fossil fuels to support the climate bill," the Associated Press reports. "Many large utilities and other energy companies have said they want Congress to act, believing they would be in a better bargaining position with Congress than in regulations issued by the EPA."

The new EPA rule has been criticized by various industry groups, with some citing concerns that the present threshold may eventually be lowered to include smaller and smaller businesses or to impose unrealistic requirements on existing industries.

"Fundamentally, this 'tailoring rule' takes the country in the wrong direction by using the Clean Air Act to expand the power of the EPA and allow the Agency to choose which energy sources American consumers will use," the National Association of Manufacturers said in a statement issued last week. "This new rule also creates uncertainty and adds confusing and costly new permitting requirements. The EPA has set a short timetable for implementation, which will undoubtedly cost jobs and prevent manufacturers from growing their businesses."

Although the EPA's latest round of changes to the greenhouse gas guidelines might "soften the regulation's impact on small businesses," the Washington Post reports that it is "sure to face a court challenge."