EPA proposes rules to facilitate GHG controls under CAA

Aug. 16, 2010
The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed two new regulations aimed at ensuring businesses planning to build large facilities or make major expansions can get Clean Air Act permits that address greenhouse gas emissions regardless of their location.

Nick Snow
OGJ Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Aug. 16 -- The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed two new regulations aimed at ensuring businesses planning to build large facilities or make major expansions can get Clean Air Act permits that address greenhouse gas emissions regardless of their location.

EPA said on Aug. 12 that the proposed regulations are a critical component of implementing its GHG tailoring rule, which became final in spring. The rule applies to refineries, petrochemical plants, and other large industrial facilities that are responsible for 70% of the total GHG emissions from stationary sources in the US. It specifies that projects expected to increase GHGs substantially must obtain a CAA permit starting in 2011.

The proposals were immediately criticized by the American Petroleum Institute, which warned that they could slow business expansion down and eliminate jobs while not fixing global climate-change problems. API, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, and other trade associations have argued that the CAA is ill-suited to address GHG emissions. EPA has said it is developing such regulations in response to a US Supreme Court decision.

The CAA requires that states develop EPA-approved implementation plans that include requirements for issuing air permits, EPA noted. States may need to modify these plans when federal permitting requirements change, as they did when EPA finalized the GHG tailoring rule, it said.

Planned requirements
Under the first proposed regulation, EPA said permitting programs in 13 states would be required to change their implementation plans to ensure that GHG emissions are covered. All other states implementing an EPA-approved air permitting program would have to review their existing permitting authority and inform EPA if their programs do not address GHG emissions.

Because some states may not be able to develop and submit revisions to their plans before the Tailoring Rule becomes effective in 2011, EPA said that its second proposed regulation outlines a federal implementation plan which would let it issue permits for large GHG emitters in these states. This would be a temporary measure until the states could revise their own plan and resume responsibility for issuing GHG permits, it emphasized.

“States are best-suited to issue permits to sources of GHG emissions and have long-standing experience working together with industrial facilities,” it said in its announcement. “EPA will work closely and promptly with states to help them develop, submit, and approve necessary revisions to enable the affected states to issue air permits to GHG-emitting sources. Additionally, EPA will continue to provide guidance and act as a resource for the states as they make the various required permitting decisions for GHG emissions.”

“The proposed rules shine a spotlight on how unworkable the Clean Air Act is to regulate greenhouse gases,” Howard Feldman, API’s regulatory and scientific affairs director, said on Aug. 13. “These proposals, like EPA’s tailoring rule, are an effort to rewrite the Clean Air Act through new regulation.”

Lack of certainty
Feldman noted that while the proposed regulations have to do with new-source review prevention of significant deterioration permits for GHGs, EPA has yet to say what emission control requirements might be imposed.

EPA’s tailoring rule only delays the time when big box stores, churches, athletic complexes, malls, office buildings, and a number of other facilities fall under “the intrusive, costly scope of any potential federal greenhouse gas regulations under the [CAA],” Feldman said.

It is not clear whether these proposals would be able to protect businesses from stringent state rules applying the existing 250 ton/year threshold in the vast majority of states in time for the regulation of GHG emissions which is slated to begin on Jan. 1, Feldman said.

“Together, state and federal regulations of [GHG] emissions will increase permitting delays and could add costs, which could slow business expansion and eliminate jobs,” Feldman said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].