Facts About EPA’s Industrial Boiler Regulations

Business Roundup Today

Can a ‘framework’ be comprehensive?

In today's Business Roundtable statement today on the President's Framework for Business Tax Reform, BRT President John Engler noted that the framework's failure to add a competitive territorial system actually went against recommendations made to President Obama by his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform ("Simpson-Bowles") and the President's Export Council.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized its rules under section 112 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) establishing national emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants (NESHAPS) from industrial, commercial and institutional boilers. EPA, on its own motion, has initiated reconsideration of certain of these rules and has signaled a willingness to consider petitions to reconsider others. EPA intends to conclude its reconsideration later this year. According to EPA, approximately 200,000 boilers and process heaters are affected by this regulation.

With respect to gas boilers, EPA’s regulations appear to be stringent but workable. In general, EPA is requiring work practices, continuous monitoring and annual tune-ups to meet the standards. However, EPA’s requirement to conduct a facility-wide energy audit could be quite expensive and burdensome. Moreover, it is not clear what relevance this requirement has to facility emissions because the audit includes facilities and units that are not directly regulated by the maximum achievable control technology (MACT).

With respect to solid and liquid fuel boilers (including coal, biomass, oil and certain waste), however, EPA’s regulations may not be achievable in practice. In particular, EPA’s limits on carbon monoxide (CO) and dioxin appear to be the most problematic. EPA’s new pollutant-by-pollutant policy for setting the minimum level of control forces EPA to adopt limits without any consideration of cost-effectiveness or even feasibility. The CAA requires that the minimum level of control be set at what the average of the best 12 percent of existing units in the subcategory are achieving in practice, but not a single unit in some subcategories, such as island liquid units, can meet all five of EPA’s final emissions limits. This presents an untenable regulatory situation that may result in facility closure.

For many of the pollutants regulated under section 112, boilers emit trace amounts, which makes monitoring, measuring and controlling particularly difficult. This is especially true when input fuels vary in their composition. EPA should adopt flexible, reasonable and cost effective work practices instead of emission limits for pollutants (such as dioxin) emitted in very low levels and that are difficult and expensive to measure. Alternatively, EPA should reconsider whether establishment of health-based standards, rather than numerical standards, is more appropriate.

The difficulty of measuring and controlling trace amounts of these HAPs and the need for an alternative regulatory framework are reinforced by EPA’s own inability to quantify the direct health benefits of the induced HAP emissions reductions and its finding that the only quantifiable health benefits of this rule are co-benefits achieved from reduction in PM and ozone, two criteria pollutants that are not considered hazardous pollutants under section 112 of the CAA.

In addition, EPA’s definition of solid waste, contained in a companion rulemaking, would perversely appear to discourage use of certain forest products and other waste residue in boilers, which would result in greater use of landfills in lieu of what has been viewed as a beneficial use of these materials. Moreover, the deletion of the definition of “contained gas” in the commercial and industrial solid waste incinerator (CISWI) rule, a companion rule, when coupled with the legitimacy criteria in the industrial boiler MACT rule, threatens to subject a large number of process gas burners to CISWI limits without EPA having considered the affected technologies, achievability of the limits or the extreme cost and disruption the change will cause.

The malfunction provisions in the final rule also are problematic. The regulated entity must first provide a notice within two days of a malfunction (regardless of the level of excess emissions) in order to be eligible to assert an affirmative defense. EPA’s criteria for asserting an affirmative defense are very stringent and the burden of proof is on the regulated entity to demonstrate that all criteria are met. EPA should delete the two-day notification requirement and revise the affirmative defense criteria for malfunctions in order to make this provision workable.

EPA has the ability to make the changes necessary to make this rule workable, achievable and affordable, while still reducing significantly emissions of hazardous air pollutants from industrial boilers. As a model, EPA should look no further than its proposed EGU boiler MACT rule, where the agency decided that only a few surrogate pollutants need be regulated. There, EPA proposed tune-ups, rather than emissions limits for CO and dioxin. Unfortunately, EPA chose not to exercise the same discretion with respect to industrial boilers using solid and liquid fuels. It should do so on reconsideration.

Date	Title	Description
01/30/2012	Leading Examples of Change: Deploying IT for Social Development	Leading Examples of Change: Deploying IT for Social Development focuses on five key areas of life in 21st century America: education, healthcare, personal finance, public administration, and entrepreneurship. Each of these areas is confronting new issues and fundamental challenges given the abundance of information and data in today’s world, the rapid pace of technological change, and an increasingly more integrated and global economy.
01/20/2012	Model Legislation: Government Reorganization and Realignment Act	The following is model legislation – The Government Reorganization and Realignment Act – prepared by Business Roundtable to authorize a broader, more comprehensive reorganization of the federal government. Meaningful reorganization and realignment of federal agencies cannot be accomplished unless the Congress grants the President authority to consolidate and reorganize Executive Branch agencies.
01/13/2012	Keystone XL One-Pager	The Keystone XL project is KEY to U.S. job creation, economic growth and energy security. After an exhaustive three-year review, numerous public meetings and multiple comment periods, the Department of State’s final Federal Environmental Impact Statement found that there are no substantial environmental concerns that should prohibit approval of the permit to allow this project to move forward.
01/12/2012	Amicus Brief Regarding SEC v. Citigroup	The Business Roundtable (BRT) requests leave, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 29(b) and this Court’s Rule 29.1, to file the attached short brief as amicus curiae in support of appellants the Securities and Exchange Com-mission and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
12/14/2011	CEO Economic Outlook Survey Comparison of Results: 2010Q4 - 2011Q4	Business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Survey, conducted quarterly since the fourth quarter of 2002, provides a forward-looking view of the economic outlook of Business Roundtable member CEOs.
1 2 3 > Last »

Date

Title

Description

01/30/2012

Leading Examples of Change: Deploying IT for Social Development

Leading Examples of Change: Deploying IT for Social Development focuses on five key areas of life in 21st century America: education, healthcare, personal finance, public administration, and entrepreneurship. Each of these areas is confronting new issues and fundamental challenges given the abundance of information and data in today’s world, the rapid pace of technological change, and an increasingly more integrated and global economy.

01/20/2012

Model Legislation: Government Reorganization and Realignment Act

The following is model legislation – The Government Reorganization and Realignment Act – prepared by Business Roundtable to authorize a broader, more comprehensive reorganization of the federal government. Meaningful reorganization and realignment of federal agencies cannot be accomplished unless the Congress grants the President authority to consolidate and reorganize Executive Branch agencies.

01/13/2012

Keystone XL One-Pager

The Keystone XL project is KEY to U.S. job creation, economic growth and energy security. After an exhaustive three-year review, numerous public meetings and multiple comment periods, the Department of State’s final Federal Environmental Impact Statement found that there are no substantial environmental concerns that should prohibit approval of the permit to allow this project to move forward.

01/12/2012

Amicus Brief Regarding SEC v. Citigroup

The Business Roundtable (BRT) requests leave, pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 29(b) and this Court’s Rule 29.1, to file the attached short brief as amicus curiae in support of appellants the Securities and Exchange Com-mission and Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

12/14/2011

CEO Economic Outlook Survey Comparison of Results: 2010Q4 - 2011Q4

Business Roundtable's CEO Economic Outlook Survey, conducted quarterly since the fourth quarter of 2002, provides a forward-looking view of the economic outlook of Business Roundtable member CEOs.

1 2 3 > Last »

Business Roundtable

Business Roundup Today

Can a ‘framework’ be comprehensive?

Social Network Stream