On June 25, 2019, EPA released a pre-publication draft of a proposed rule allowing sources subject to Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) standards under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act to voluntarily limit their emissions and avoid MACT.  The proposed rule, which formalizes and expands on a January 2018 guidance document issued by former EPA Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum, would allow “major sources” of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) otherwise subject to MACT standards to take an enforceable limit on HAPs and thus reclassify as “area sources.”  The rulemaking, branded by the Agency as “Major MACT to Area” (MM2A), would eliminate the Agency’s longstanding “once-in-always-in” policy, under which a facility that qualified as a major source of HAPs as of the “first substantive compliance date” of the applicable MACT standard was permanently subject to that standard, even if the source was later able to reduce its emissions below major source applicability thresholds. 

EPA fulfilled one of President Trump’s campaign promises this week with the publication of the final Affordable Clean Energy rule—ACE—to replace the Clean Power Plan.  Like the Clean Power Plan, ACE is an “emission guideline” issued under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the electric utility sector.  However, while the Clean Power Plan could only be achieved by shifting electricity generation away from energy resources that emit CO2, ACE only regulates sources of CO2 emissions directly by requiring efficiency improvements at coal-fired power plants.

The notice published on Monday actually contains three separate actions: (1) the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, (2) the adoption of ACE, and (3) revisions to the general regulations governing all “emission guidelines” adopted under Section 111(d).  EPA asserts that each of these components constitutes a separate rulemaking action, but at least the first two are grounded in the same fundamental idea—that Section 111(d) only authorizes EPA to select as a “best system of emission reduction” something that can be “applied” to an individual regulated “stationary source” of emissions. 

On the heels of similar proposal last month by EPA Region 6 for Texas , EPA Region 4 has now proposed to withdraw the startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) “SIP Call” for North Carolina.  Both of these two actions represent EPA’s latest answer to a vexing question:  what should an industrial source of air emissions do when unavoidable and abnormal circumstances cause emissions to exceed a limit designed only for normal operations?  EPA’s SIP Call in 2015 reinforced policies intended to make those circumstances into a violation of the Clean Air Act and force states to adopt rules implementing those policies.  The recently proposed withdrawals of the SIP Call confirm that EPA, at least in Regions 4 and 6, is planning to allow states more latitude in deciding how to handle SSM events.

EPA Region 6 has proposed to withdraw a 2015 finding that Texas’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) is substantially inadequate to comply with the Clean Air Act (CAA) because of state rules that provide an affirmative defense for excess air emissions that occur during upsets and unplanned maintenance, startup, and shutdown activities. 82 Fed. Reg. 17,986 (Apr. 29. 2019). Region 6 is now proposing to find that Texas’s affirmative defense provisions for so-called “startup, shutdown, and malfunction” or “SSM” events are “narrowly tailored and limited to ensure protection of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS),” as required by EPA guidance. Accordingly, Region 6 is proposing to withdraw EPA’s 2015 “SSM” SIP call issued to Texas based on the finding of substantial inadequacy.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to expand the applicability of the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for stationary combustion turbines. EPA originally established the combustion turbine (CT) NESHAP in 2004. On April 12, EPA officially proposed the long overdue residual risk and technology review (RTR), which is required within eight years of the final standards.

While, based on its RTR analysis, EPA proposes to leave the current CT standards in place, the proposal would expand the reach of those standards to two additional subcategories of units by lifting a stay that has been in effect since the standards were originally finalized. Lifting that 15-year-old stay would impact lean pre-mix and diffusion flame natural-gas-fired CTs. The proposal would also eliminate the startup, shutdown, and malfunction exemption for all units subject to the rule. Although all existing lean pre-mix and diffusion-flame gas-fired units would become subject to the NESHAP, only units constructed or reconstructed after January 14, 2003 must comply with substantive emission and operating limitations.

On February 7, 2019, EPA published its proposed revised Supplemental Cost Finding for the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) and risk and technology review. The proposal re-evaluates the cost of complying with the MATS rule for coal- and oil-fired power plants, and the associated benefits of regulating hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from these sources. Based on its revised analysis, EPA has determined that it is not “appropriate and necessary” to regulate HAP emissions from power plants under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.

On January 23, 2019 and February 6, 2019, OSHA and EPA, respectively, published their annual civil monetary penalty adjustments in the Federal Register. The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 2015 requires federal agencies to make annual inflation adjustments to federal statutory civil penalty amounts. The annual inflation adjustments are based on a cost-of-living multiplier determined by changes to the Consumer Price Index.

EPA has reset the public hearing date on its proposed revisions to the New Source Performance Standards governing CO2 emissions from new, modified and reconstructed Electric Generating Units (EGUs).  The hearing, originally scheduled for January 8th and then postponed until January 30th, is now scheduled for February 14th in Washington,

In the last month of 2018, EPA released two proposals that it claims will have no immediate effect—revised CO2 standards for new coal-fired power plants that EPA does not expect anyone to build, and a determination that it is not “appropriate and necessary” to have a mercury rule that it nevertheless plans to keep on the books.  The question many may be asking is why EPA would issue two highly controversial rules if they won’t have any practical effect?  The answer may lie in the precedent they will set.

On December 28, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) released a pre-publication version of a proposal revisiting the cost analysis underlying the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (“MATS Rule”) for coal- and oil-fired electric generating units (EGUs) and conducting the residual risk and technology review required by the Clean Air Act (“Proposal”).  The Proposal would reverse a previous finding, issued by EPA under the Obama Administration, that regulation of hazardous air pollutant (“HAP”) emissions from EGUs under the MATS Rule was “appropriate and necessary” but would nonetheless leave the rule in effect.  The Proposal also concludes that more stringent HAP emission limits are not warranted by the required risk and technology reviews.