State NSR actions

Oct. 27, 2003
State air-quality regulators are mad, and they aren't going to take it anymore.

State air-quality regulators are mad, and they aren't going to take it anymore. What they are angry about are recent federal changes to clean air rules overseeing refiners, power plants, and other big industrial facilities built before 1970.

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently made revisions to its New Source Review program, a part of the Clean Air Act since 1977.

The new rules make it easier for refiners and power generators to replace equipment without installing modern pollution controls. NSR requires refiners and other industrial operators to upgrade pollution-control equipment when a facility is expanded or remodeled in a way that increases emissions. EPA last month broadened an existing exemption for routine maintenance and repair. And in an earlier action, the agency gave industry more options for calculating emission levels (OGJ, Sept. 8, 2003, p. 27).

Changes made

Industry and state regulators have complained for years that EPA's permitting program is too complex and needs fixing. EPA finally changed some of the rules, and industry is happy.

Refiners said the revisions make it easier to update facilities and reduce pollution sooner. But several state regulators say the changes gut air-quality protections. New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and California took EPA to court over the issue, and those cases are pending. Meanwhile, the group representing state and local air officials this month offered members regulatory alternatives to EPA's NSR program.

"Our members' primary concern is that EPA's revisions allow many sources of pollution previously subject to NSR to simply escape emission-control requirements," said Bill Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials. "We are worried that these exemptions could seriously undermine the ability of states and localities to achieve and sustain our nation's clean-air and public health goals."

Becker predicted many states and localities may pursue NSR rules stricter than EPA's. Accordingly, STAPPA over the past 10 months developed a menu of regulatory alternatives local regulators can use instead of the federal rules.

States can establish tougher rules provided they prove to EPA their own regulations are as least as stringent as EPA's.

Feedback requested

STAPPA said it wants EPA, industry, and other stakeholders over the next few months to comment on their menu before the group finalizes the document.

Refiners will be paying attention. A key part of the new federal NSR rule contains a provision meant to encourage refiners to use new pollution controls. Under EPA's plan, refiners can modernize units without triggering a new permit review, provided they operate within site-wide emissions caps, or Plantwide Applicability Limits (PALs).

EPA's revisions allow a PAL to be based on the highest level of emissions allowable over the past 10 years. Under the STAPPA menu, state regulators instead could opt to adjust a PAL based on the last 2 years or another 2-year period within the last 5 years.