Industry officials applauded a new proposal by the US Environmental Protection Agency to dramatically revise regulations under the New Source Review program. Current rules require industrial facilities to upgrade their pollution-control equipment when they make major modifications to their operations.
An avalanche of public comment is expected, with industry praising and environmental groups opposing the new policy; meanwhile, some Northeast US regulators say they will go to court to ensure the rules don't give industry the kind of leeway they have been seeking to expand or modify existing plants.
"The administration's action ends a period of uncertainty by finalizing some and proposing other much-needed regulatory changes that should allow industry to maintain and expand facilities in a manner that benefits the environment and consumers," American Petroleum Institute said. "The goal should be to assure that significant changes at facilities are reviewed for their air quality impact while not impeding normal operations. Current interpretations of the regulations are overly stringent and can delay needed improvements for safe and efficient plant operation."
American Gas Association said the current NSR program impedes routine repairs not just at refineries and other manufacturing plants but also for natural gas pipelines and local gas utility systems across the country.
AGA and API both said the NSR regulation became particularly onerous when EPA a few years ago changed the way it interprets what qualifies as "routine repair and maintenance." Under the spirit of the original 1977 law, routine repairs were supposed to be allowed without having to inform regulators, industry officials maintained. But recent enforcement actions have made that nearly impossible.
"It can take enormous amounts of paperwork and at least 2 years to obtain permission to proceed with a project under the current program," AGA said.
EPA proposal
EPA said the NSR reforms it is proposing have been under discussion for 6 years and have been subject to extensive technical review and public comment.
Of special interest to refiners is a plan to formally give operators greater flexibility by using plant-specific emission caps, called plantwide applicability limits (PAL), to meet air pollution guidelines.
Even as EPA was negotiating settlements for past infractions, regulators still had been granting plants new permits so that refiners could make clean-fuel upgrades required under other clean air programs.
This was done on a case-by-case basis, but the agency also wants to allow refiners and power plants to use any consecutive 24-month period in the previous decade as a baseline, as long as all current control requirements are taken into account.
New reforms
EPA is also proposing three new reforms that will go through new rulemaking and public comment processes before they are finalized. These include:
- Routine maintenance, repair, and replacement. EPA wants to clarify the definition of "routine" repairs. NSR excludes repairs and maintenance activities that are "routine," but EPA argues that more guidelines are needed so industry is not discouraged from making upgrades that could lower pollution and improve plant conditions.
- Debottlenecking. EPA wants to clarify how NSR applies when a company modifies one part of a facility in such a way that throughput in other parts of the facility increases. Under the current rules, determining whether NSR applies to such complex projects is difficult and can be time-consuming, the agency said.
- Aggregation. Currently, when multiple projects are implemented in a short period of time, a difficult and complex analysis must be performed to determine if the projects should be treated separately or aggregated under NSR. EPA's proposal will establish two criteria to guide this determination.
