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New Source Review Victory |
Clean Air New Source Review Update—Victory!
In a major victory for clean air, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
in March in favor of a broad coalition of states, cities and
environmental organizations, and vacated an EPA rule that would have
allowed nearly unfettered ability for industry to upgrade major
facilities without modernizing pollution controls. The Center
represented the Delaware Nature Society, one of the groups in the
coalition opposing the EPA New Source Review regulation. The Court’s
ruling dealt a significant setback to the Bush EPA’s push to eliminate
a powerful Clean Air Act tool for reducing air pollution. The New
Source Review (NSR) provisions of 1977 were designed to ensure that old
polluting facilities eventually caught up with the pollution reductions
achieved by more modern industrial facilities. NSR set up standards
for technological improvements of pollution control systems. The
investments in new controls are only required when facilities make
physical changes to the plant that result in significant new
pollution. The EPA’s rule would have severely limited the occasions
when controls would be required by creating a massive exemption for
“equipment replacement.” The Court rejected this as inconsistent with
the act’s “plain meaning.” EPA’s appeal for reconsideration of the
decision has been denied.
New Source Review Reform Implementation at the State Level
MAELC
serves on the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control’s NSR Reform Committee, tasked with revising the
Department’s Regulation No. 25 to implement the mandates of the EPA’s
first NSR rule. MAELC has attended the numerous Committee meetings for
more than six months and has consistently voiced perspectives urging
maintenance of a New Source Review program in Delaware that will
provide the greatest likelihood of holding industrial emissions in
check. Recently, DNREC has shifted toward replacing its current NSR
program entirely with a mandatory “plantwide applicability limit” for
all major emission sources in the state. Delaware’s “facility emission
limit” concept has garnered widespread industry support, but MAELC has
thus far been discouraging this track.
In addition,
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is also facing an
EPA deadline to submit an NSR regulatory program that will be
substantially equivalent to EPA changes. DEP’s approach and proposals
have been a major topic of discussion at the DEP Air Quality Technical
Advisory Committee. As a member of this Committee, MAELC Executive
Director Michael D. Fiorentino has been engaged in ensuring DEP moves
forward with an environmentally acceptable program, recently by
securing a presentation to the Committee and DEP representatives from
Bruce Buckheit, a former top EPA enforcement official. Mr Buckheit
resigned in 2003, largely over EPA’s manipulation of the NSR
enforcement initiative.
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