EPA to revisit background ozone question

Aug. 3, 2018
The US Environmental Protection Agency has decided to complete new background ozone formation limits on schedule in 2020 while revisiting questions about naturally occurring emissions threatening areas’ attainments and triggering penalties under the 2015 requirements. The National Association of Manufacturers was the strongest critic among US business organizations of the agency’s Aug. 2 decision.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has decided to complete new background ozone formation limits on schedule in 2020 while revisiting questions about naturally occurring emissions threatening areas’ attainments and triggering penalties under the 2015 requirements. The National Association of Manufacturers was the strongest critic among US business organizations of the agency’s Aug. 2 decision.

“EPA made a series of procedural and technical errors when it generated the 2015 rule, including, for instance, evaluating the impacts of background ozone on attainment,” said NAM Vice-Pres. for Energy and Resources Policy Ross Eisenberg.

“Reconsideration of the 2015 standard was probably the most direct way to correct the record. These issues have not gone away, and now manufacturers must now grapple with them during implementation of the 2015 ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard,” Eisenberg said.

In its filing with the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia, EPA said the Trump administration “has been intensively considering and developing a new approach for its NAAQS program since Apr. 11, 2017, in response to two high-level directives.

The first was President Donald Trump’s Apr. 12 memorandum, directing then-EPA Administrator E. Scott Pruitt to determine if the agency was fully complying with applicable procedural, scientific, and technical review requirements pertaining to its periodic 5-year NAAQS reviews.

It specifically directed Pruitt to evaluate compliance with provisions related to advise it received from its statutorily created NAAQS advisory panel, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). This included requirements that the committee advise the administrator “regarding background concentrations and adverse public health or other effects that may result from implementation of revised air quality standards,” EPA’s filing said.

‘Back to basics’ approach

The second was Pruitt’s follow-up memo on May 9 outlining a “back to basics” approach emphasizing EPA’s commitment to completing the 5-year NAAQS reviews on time, and outlining specific steps it would take make the next ozone NAAQS review more efficient (OGJ Online, May 10, 2018). One issue that the fling said required special attention was “the relative contribution of natural and anthropogenic activity,” including additional information on background concentrations of ozone and other pollutants.

This memo specified that EPA would solicit advice from CASAC during each NAAQS review on this question, and ask that the committee discuss relative proximity to background ozone concentrations in its advice on any recommended NAAQS levels.

EPA initiated the 2020 ozone limits review on June 26 with a call for scientific and policy-relevant. It also issued a second call for information related to possible adverse effects from various NAAQS attainment and maintenance strategies.

“As part of this review of the ozone NAAQS, consistent with the back-to-basics memo, EPA intends to carefully consider, and solicit comment from CASAC and the public, on topics related to background ozone, including assessments of the relative contribution of natural and anthropogenic ozone to design values, which are used to determine whether areas are attaining the NAAQS,” its court filing said.

“Moreover, EPA notes that it may reevaluate the extent to which the administrator can or should consider levels of background ozone when choosing a standard,” it said. “Because the rationale of the 2015 rule focused on the factual question of whether background ozone would interfere with attainment of the 2015 NAAQS, EPA did not resolve the question of whether raising the NAAQS to accommodate background ozone could be a permissible reading of the Clean Air Act….

“Thus, EPA anticipates revisiting both the question of when background concentrations interfere with attainment of the NAAQS and the question of how to consider potential interference with attainment in deciding whether or how to revise the NAAQS,” the agency’s filing said.

NAM’s 2017 request

Eisenberg said when EPA sought input last year on how to best reform its regulatory process, NAM asked it to take “whatever measures are available” to ease implementation of the 2015 ozone rule. The agency moved forward with several of the association’s recommendations, and NAM’s members welcome that progress, he noted.

“There is considerably more to be done, however. We appreciate the agency’s decision to focus on background ozone and other NAM concerns during an accelerated review of the 2020 standard, and we will continue to work with EPA and other stakeholders to ensure that these issues are appropriately considered in the 2020 ozone review,” Eisenberg said.

Dan Byers, vice-president for policy at the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, said EPA’s approach was consistent with most of the administration’s signals during the past few months.

“It was in a tough bind. It could have reopened the rule, which could have been a headache. But when Administrator Pruitt said it would try to meet the 2020 deadlines, it decided to let the 2015 rule stand and signal there would be a new process for 2020, including a possible higher level than as a permissible reading of the act,” he told OGJ on Aug. 3. “Essentially, EPA has been careful not to box itself in.”

At the American Petroleum Institute, Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Senior Director Howard J. Feldman said the nation’s largest oil and gas trade association “would continue to work with EPA and other stakeholders to see that air quality standards better reflect the body of science and other considerations to protect the public health with an adequate margin of safety.”

US ozone concentrations have fallen more than 22% since 1970 partly due to more than $108 billion of oil and gas investments from 2000 to 2016 in technology and other advancement which have improved the environmental performance of the industry’s products, facilities, and operations, Feldman said.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].