Shawn O'Brien

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On April 17, 2010 EPA issued a guidance document on the implementation of significant impact levels (“SIL”) for ozone and fine particles.  Under EPA’s air pollution permitting regime known as “New Source Review,” SIL values are one way to demonstrate that a new facility or modification of an existing facility will not cause a violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) or Prevention of Significant Deterioration (“PSD”) increments for a regulated pollutant.  In short, if a source’s “projected impact on air quality” is below the “SIL,” the source is deemed to have no significant impact on air quality.  If a source’s impacts are above the SIL, far more extensive modeling analyses are needed to demonstrate compliance, so the SIL helps streamline the permitting process for projects that can meet it.
Continue Reading EPA Streamlines NSR Permitting for Projects with Insignificant Air Quality Impacts

On March 31, 2018, the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered  the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to complete a residual risk and technology review (“RTR”) by October 1, 2021 for nine source categories of hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”).  The specific source categories at the center of this challenge were:

•          Primary Copper Smelting…

On March 16, 2018, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals partially upheld and partially rejected an EPA rule known as the “Boiler MACT.”  Officially named the “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Major Sources: Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional Boilers and Process Heaters,” it regulates the emissions of certain types of air pollutants known as “hazardous air pollutants” from boilers located at “major sources” of those pollutants.  EPA issued the rule in several different rulemakings, due to the fact that the agency decided to reconsider a few provisions several times along the way.  As a result, the litigation over the rule became very complicated.  Sierra Club challenged numerous provisions of the rule, claiming that they failed to comply with the Clean Air Act.  Most of those challenges were resolved in a 2016 decision, but the court had reserved two issues that were finally decided this week—namely Sierra Club’s challenges to EPA’s carbon monoxide (CO) limits for certain boilers and the startup and shutdown work practices.  Specifically, Sierra Club alleged that (1) EPA failed to adequately justify its decision to make CO limit less stringent (130 ppm), and (2) EPA’s qualitative “work practice” standards during startup and shutdown are unlawful.
Continue Reading D.C. Circuit Issues Latest Decision on Long-Running Boiler MACT Saga

NSR—the program imposing onerous permitting requirements on the construction of new sources and “major modification” projects at existing sources—requires industrial sources of air emissions to determine whether the projects they propose will increase those emissions.  EPA adopted regulations in 2002 to provide a new structure for those critical emission calculations, which specifies that sources must calculate the “sum of the differences” between a baseline and a future projection for each existing emission unit.  That language is particularly important for individual projects that may cause emissions to go down at one unit but up at another.
Continue Reading EPA Decides Both “Increases” and “Decreases” Count in Determining NSR Applicability

On March 1, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) Administrator, E. Scott Pruitt, signed a notice seeking public comment on the proposed withdrawal of the control techniques guidelines (“CTG”) for the oil and natural gas industry.  The oil and natural gas CTGs make recommendations for reducing volatile organic compound emissions from oil and natural gas equipment and processes in ozone nonattainment areas classified as Moderate or higher and states in the Ozone Transport Region by addressing reasonably available control technology review requirements in their state implementation plans.
Continue Reading EPA Seeks Comments on its Proposed Withdrawal of the Oil and Natural Gas Control Technical Guidelines

On February 14, 2018, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) New Source Review (“NSR”) permitting program as an initial step towards NSR reform.  See https://energycommerce.house.gov/hearings/new-source-review-permitting-challenges-manufacturing-infrastructure/.  Six witnesses presented testimony at the hearing, with four in favor of and two against reform.  There is wide…

On January 25, 2018, EPA’s Assistant Administrator, William Wehrum, issued a memorandum addressing when a “major source” subject to a section 112 maximum achievable control technology (“MACT”) standard of the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) can be reclassified as an “area source,” and thus avoid any more stringent requirements that only apply to “major sources.”  The memorandum departs from and supersedes EPA’s longstanding “Once in Always in” (“OIAI”) policy articulated in the May 1995 Seitz Memorandum.  Under the OIAI policy, a major source of hazardous air pollutants (“HAPs”) was permanently subject to the MACT standard at the “first compliance date” of the standard even if the source was able to later limit its potential to emit (“PTE”) HAPs below the major source thresholds.  EPA’s new policy explains that a major source will become an area source once it takes enforceable limits on its PTE to ensure emissions cannot exceed the applicable major source thresholds for HAPS.
Continue Reading EPA Withdraws “Once in Always in” Policy, Removing Disincentive to Reducing Emissions

On January 9, 2018, the EPA published the third round of final area designations under the 2010 SO2 NAAQS.  In this round, the EPA identified six (6) nonattainment areas located in Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and Guam.  EPA designated 23 areas as unclassifiable and all other areas as attainment/unclassifiable.  The primary focus in this round was on those areas electing to rely on ambient air quality modeling to assess attainment with the standard.
Continue Reading EPA Publishes Third Round of Final Area Designations Under the SO2 NAAQS

On December 7, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a memorandum explaining EPA’s future approach concerning enforcement of the New Source review program, considering the uncertainty created by the Sixth Circuit’s decisions in the DTE NSR cases (U.S. v. DTE Energy Co., 711 F.3d 643 (6th Cir. 2013) and U.S. v. DTE, 845 F.3d 735 (6th Cir. 2017)). NSR requires new major sources and major modifications at existing sources to obtain a permit before construction commences. In determining whether a permit is needed for a major modification, owners or operators are required to conduct a pre-construction applicability analysis to determine whether the proposed project would cause a significant emission increase, calculated using the actual-to-projected-actual applicability test that compares past actual emissions to future projected emissions. The memorandum’s main focus is on circumstances where sources have used that test in determining NSR applicability and the pre- and post-project source obligations.
Continue Reading New Source Review Memorandum Alters EPA’s Enforcement Approach Concerning Actual-to-Projected-Actual Applicability Test