When must two different activities be grouped together to determine whether they trigger New Source Review permitting? That is the question EPA answered last month after many years of debate and uncertainty. Although the clarification remains only a policy statement (not a rule) and leaves significant discretions for states to apply in individual cases, the “final action” published on November 15th should finally provide some clarity to existing industrial facilities trying to decide whether to get an NSR permit for multiple activities that may, or may not, count as one “project.”

EPA’s efforts to clarify this issue began in 2006, when the Bush Administration attempted to craft regulatory language to codify what is typically referred to as EPA’s “project aggregation” policy. That proposal was tweaked and then finalized in 2009, just before the Obama Administration took office, albeit without adopting any of the proposed changes to the regulatory text. However, the Obama Administration granted a reconsideration of that action and issued an indefinite “stay”—procedural moves that are similar to those recently taken by the Trump Administration to reconsider a variety of environmental regulations. But whereas environmentalists have challenged the Trump Administration’s stays (often successfully), no one challenged the Obama Administrations stay of the “project aggregation” policy, so the issue has been under a stay for nearly a decade.

EPA posted its final implementation rule for the 2015 ozone standard on its website November 8, 2018, the day after it was signed by Andrew Wheeler. The final rule, like the proposed rule published in November 2016, retains many of the provisions from the implementation rule for the 2008 ozone…

The unprecedented legal battles over the Clean Power Plan have been on ice for quite some time. However, recent events suggest the rule may start making headline news once again very soon.

EPA published final nonattainment designations for the 2015 ozone standard in the Federal Register on June 4, 2018.  The designations become effective on August 4, 2018.  The Federal Register notice can be accessed here.   See May 10 article for details about the rulemaking.

The U.S. EPA has adopted final nonattainment designations for 51 areas across the country for the agency’s 2015 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ozone.  In a previous action, EPA had issued its attainment and unclassifiable designations, finding that 85% of the nation’s counties qualify for one of those designations (a designation of unclassifiable means that the agency does not have enough information to determine whether the areas is in attainment or. nonattainment).  Still to come, likely by July 17, 2018, is action by EPA on eight counties around San Antonio, Texas.

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.