FACT SHEET
Notice Announcing Completion of the Requirement to Promulgate Emission Standards for
     Sources of Certain Bioaccumulative Pollutants and for Hazardous Air Pollutants of
                                Particular Interest in Urban Areas
ACTION
• On February 21, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued final rules to
    establish emissions standards for boilers and incinerators including:
    1. Final standards to limit toxic air emissions from industrial, commercial, and institutional
        boilers and process heaters at large facilities (major sources)
    2. Final standards to limit toxic air emissions from industrial, commercial, and institutional
        boilers and process heaters at smaller facilities (area sources)
    3. Final standards to limit toxic and other air emissions from sewage sludge incinerators
    4. Final standards to limit toxic and other air emissions from commercial and industrial
        solid waste incinerators
•   These actions satisfy the Clean Air Act (CAA) requirements to establish emissions standards
    for major and area sources that emit at least 90 percent of the aggregate stationary source
    emissions of seven bioaccumulative pollutants including: (1) alkylated lead compounds, (2)
    polycyclic organic matter (POM), (3) hexachlorobenzene (HCB), (4) mercury, (5)
    polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), (6) 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzofurans (furan), and (7)
    2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (dioxin). Bioaccumulative pollutants build up in living
    organisms that consume them. These compounds build up in the body and concentrate at
    each step of the food chain.
•   These actions also satisfy the requirements under the sections of the CAA that require the
    development of emissions standards for area sources which account for 90% of the area
    source emissions of specific toxic air pollutants in urban areas. These compounds are listed
    in EPA’s Integrated Urban Air Toxics Strategy and include:
acetaldehyde                 1,2-dichloropropane              dichloromethane (methylene chloride)
                             (propylene dichloride)
acrolein                     1,3-dichloropropene              nickel compounds
acrylonitrile                ethylene dichloride (1,2-        polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs)
                             dichloroethane)
arsenic compounds            ethylene oxide                   polycyclic organic matter(POM)
benzene                      formaldehyde                     quinoline
beryllium compounds          hexachlorobenzene                2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin
1,3-butadiene                hydrazine                        1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane
cadmium compounds            lead compounds                   tetrachloroethylene(perchloroethylene)
chloroform                   manganese compounds              trichloroethylene
chromium compounds           mercury compounds                vinyl chloride
•   A major source facility has the potential to emit 10 tons per year (tpy) or more of any single
                                                   1
  air toxic or 25 tpy or more of any combination of air toxics. Area source facilities emit less
  than 10 tpy of any single air toxic or less than 25 tpy of any combination of air toxics. Toxic
  air pollutants, also known as hazardous air pollutants or air toxics, are those pollutants known
  or suspected of causing cancer and other serious health effects.
BACKGROUND
• When Congress enacted the CAA Amendments of 1990, they mandated specific
  consideration for certain bioaccumulating pollutants in section 112(c)(6), and certain
  hazardous air pollutants that impact urban areas in section 112(c)(3) and 112(k)(3)(B).
• EPA developed inventories of sources responsible for emissions of these pollutants and
  established emissions standards for each of the two sections mentioned above. Based on
  those inventories, we have met our statutory requirements for the above mentioned sections
  of the Clean Air Act.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
• Interested parties can download the notice from EPA's web site at the following address:
  http://epa.gov/airquality/combustion/
• Today’s public notice and other background information are also available either
  electronically at http://www.regulations.gov, EPA’s electronic public docket and comment
  system, or in hardcopy at the EPA Docket Center’s Public Reading Room.
  o The Public Reading Room is located in the EPA Headquarters Library, Room Number
       3334 in the EPA West Building, located at 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington,
       DC. Hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. eastern standard time, Monday
       through Friday, excluding Federal holidays.
                   Visitors are required to show photographic identification, pass through a metal
  o
       detector, and sign the EPA visitor log. All visitor materials will be processed through an
       X-ray machine as well. Visitors will be provided a badge that must be visible at all
       times.
                   Materials for this public notice can be accessed using Docket ID Number
  o
       EPA-HQ-OAR-2004-0505 for section 112(c)(6) and Docket ID Number EPA-HQ-OAR-
              2002-0036 for section 112(c)(3) and 112(k)(3)(B).
• For further information, contact Nathan Topham of EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning
  and Standards (OAQPS) at (919) 541-0483 or topham [dot] nathan [at] epa [dot] gov.
 

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The Plain Dealer doesn't provide real news coverage of climate and the environment, so we must look elsewhere for analysis of these EPA news events - here from the New York Times:

E.P.A. Issues Scaled-Back Rules for Industry
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: February 23, 2011

Responding to a changed political climate and a court-ordered deadline, the Obama administration issued significantly revised new air pollution rules on Wednesday that will make it easier for operators of thousands of industrial boilers and incinerators to meet federal air quality standards.

The new regulations represent a major step back from more demanding and costly rules proposed last spring that provoked an outcry from members of Congress from both parties and from thousands of affected businesses. One industry-financed study said the proposed standard would cost businesses $20 billion to comply and cause the loss of more than 300,000 jobs.

E.P.A. officials said on Wednesday that the altered rule would cost half as much as the previous proposal while achieving virtually the same health benefits. The agency pegged compliance costs for the new version of the rule at $2.1 billion a year and said it would generate more than 2,000 new jobs.

Gina McCarthy, director of the E.P.A.’s air and radiation office, said that the pollution reductions would save from 2,600 to 6,600 lives per year by 2014 and avert 4,100 heart attacks and 42,000 asthma attacks annually.

“These health protections will save between $23 billion and $56 billion in health-related costs,” Ms. McCarthy said in a conference call for reporters. “They are realistic, they are achievable, and they are reasonable, and they come at roughly half the cost to comply compared to that in the proposed rule in May 2010.”

The E.P.A. withdrew the earlier rule in December, saying it needed another 15 months to refashion the rule to respond to complaints and new data. A federal judge rejected the extension, saying the agency had already spent three years developing the regulation, and ordered it to produce a new rule by this week.

The agency grudgingly met the deadline but said it would remain open to comments and proposals for changes from lawmakers, businesses and citizens.

Agency officials said the new rule was consistent with an executive order issued by President Obama in January calling for a broad review of environmental, health, safety and financial regulations to ensure that they were not imposing too heavy a cost on the economy. Changes to the boiler rule could foreshadow a less muscular approach to air pollution rules due for power plants next month and a series of regulations of greenhouse gases to be rolled out over the next several years.

The power plant rules are currently being scrubbed by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The rule issued on Wednesday affects roughly 200,000 boilers, small power plants and incinerators operated by factories, chemical plants, municipalities, universities, churches and commercial buildings.

About 187,000 of these are relatively small sources of the target pollutants — lead, mercury, soot and toxic gases — and will have to do little more than perform routine “tune-ups” every year or two to meet the new standard. They will be allowed to achieve the cuts using readily available control technology at what the E.P.A. said was a reasonable cost. The agency said the earlier version, which would have required boiler operators to apply “maximum achievable control technology,” set too high a bar.

“The original standards for these have been dramatically refined and updated to ensure maximum flexibility for these sources,” the agency said in a press release.

The 13,800 larger facilities, including refineries, chemical plants and large factories, will have to meet numerical targets for pollution reduction, although the agency said it had narrowed the standards to lower compliance costs. The government will provide technical assistance in meeting the new standards and grant incentives for switching to cleaner-burning fuels such as natural gas and biomass.

Bob Bessette, president of the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners, said it appeared that the E.P.A. had provided some relief for operators of smaller units but nonetheless called it a “terrible disappointment” because it was not clear that its standards could be met at a reasonable cost.

He noted that because the new rule was so different from the previous version, E.P.A. would immediately reopen it to comment.

“This is a good plan given our nation’s current economic challenges,” Mr. Bessette said. “It makes much more sense for E.P.A. and all stakeholders to revisit key challenges, take additional time and get the rule right.”

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This EPA rule is the first of many pending legislative actions devised by this administration that will impact our economic existance as we know it. 

First: the article referenced above sites an industry study that is very likely biased, but even half of the projected job losses would be unacceptable.  These will be middle class union jobs that will vanish.  Industries closing because of the billions of dollars in capital required to modify facilities will become common.  I hate to sound like a scare-monger, but this is reality. 

Second: the rule's 200,000 impacted boilers and the EPA's estimated cost to control these boilers are grossly underestimated.   This is always the case, the EPA never includes plant closures, lost tax revenue, and lost jobs/wages in their OMB analysis.  This is one of the sleeping giants.  The economic impact to the school districs that rely on local industries tax revenue will add additional pressure on districs to cut jobs educational programs. 

Finally, None of the boilers mentioned in this rulemaking are "OUT OF COMPLIANCE."  That's a very misleading statement we typically read in the print media.  Industry has 60 days (additional comment period), plus 3-yrs, plus an additional 180 days before the limits go into effect.  So mid 2014 is when the Industrial boiler rule limits must be met.

I know I sound biased, hell I work in the industries that will be impacted by these rules.  This will impact my families livelyhood.  This kind of crap puked from the USEPA has a direct impact on my wallet, and yours, but not until the rest of ther USEPA's train wreck collides in 2015. 

Somewhat scared, but willing to educate the uninformed.

DH

The proximity of my home to a point source is insignificant.

I can say that I've worked in every kind of industry, next to the pollution source, 8-16 hours a day for the past 17 years.  My personnal exposure level to unknown amounts of "Deadly toxins" would've likely killed all four of the CM Zoo's african elephants according to the USEPA's health impact studies.   In reality, I'm still healthy as a horse.

I've worked in all industries around the country: Steel mills, Power Plants, Refineries, Glass recycling facilities, Fiberglass plants, pulp and paper mills, Trona plants (in Wyoming, loved your pictures across country), Brewery's, dog food factories (worse smell to ever enter my nasal cavity), printing plants, Phosphorous plants, Smelting plants, and last but not least fertalizer plants.  I other words, you can pretty much consider me your site expert in a lot of the discussions surrounding industrial point sources.  I've had actual dicussions w/ industrial plant management and the words out of their mouths is that the EPA will cripple their industry.  Plant employees WILL lose their jobs, Plants WILL close down, and Local economies WILL suffer from the reduced tax base.

I agree w/ a lot of what Real NEO stands for (economic development, promoting a better education for city schools, and improving the environment), but I do have to make a counterpoint when a one-sided discussion focuses on the "Black-hearted baby raping" industries of our region.

My concern, as a decenting voice, is that I get blackballed from Real Neo discussions.

Regards,

DH

As for Cleveland Thermal - I'd go nuke. We can demonstrate some experimental modular nuclear facilities... Chu is big on them and I'm cool with nuke... far better than burning coal.  The A-bomb was practically built in Cleveland and we don't mind radiation... may help slow our cancer growths... reduce healthcare costs.

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The modular nukes are a great idea, but there has to be a place to dispose of the waste.  Current NRC requirements mandate the material be stored on site until the repository can be established.  Chu needs to fix that problem before he'll truly support nuclear power.

Mittel can't aford the capital investment required to Permit, site, and construct a facility to replace the one in your back yard.  It would be cheaper to move all the folks living around the mill to Kirkland, Chagrin Falls, and Gates Mills.  I think AEP did that in Cheshire, OH...for real.  I'm sure the folks living inthe area would appreciate the new tax base.

Best regards,

DH

EPA’s new standards for boiler pollution reflect business concerns but still protect public health

Posted: 27 Feb 2011 06:10 AM PST

On February 21st the EPA released the final Clean Air Act toxic pollution limits for industrial boilers and incinerators. The protections represent a change from the EPA’s original April 2010 proposal, which was modified after regulated businesses raised cost concerns during the public comment period.

The newly streamlined standards will still significantly reduce toxic air pollution while halving the compliance price tag.  CAP’s Lee Hamill has the details.

Starting in 2014, the new standards will annually prevent an estimated 2,600-6,600 premature deaths, 4,100 heart attacks and42,000 asthma attacks, all while saving the nation a projected $23-56 billion in health-related costs. Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, or NACAA, said,

NACAA is pleased that EPA has issued its long-awaited rules that will reduce mercury, benzene, acid gases and other hazardous air pollutants from thousands of industrial facilities across the country. The benefits are huge and far outweigh the costs.

The measures will also generate 2,200 new jobs.

Industry convinced EPA to modify the rules to reduce their total compliance cost by $1.8 billion. Despite these changes, however, big oil and dirty coal allies continue to attack EPA safeguards in Congress. On February 18th, the House voted in favor of an amendment proposed by Texas Republicans Ted Poe, Joe Barton, and John Carter to prevent the EPA from limiting carbon dioxide pollution from power plants, oil refineries, and other stationary sources for the next seven months. This amendment does not affect the final rules announced on February 21st since the compliance is 2014 for boilers and 2016 for incinerators.

Americans overwhelmingly support rules to reduce air pollution. An American Lung Association poll from mid-February found overwhelming support for such policies. The Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, reaffirmed this view with its 20 new surveys (one national and 19 congressional district-specific) that demonstrate overwhelming public backing for the EPA’s standards.  The polls were taken in districts of anti-clean air representatives.  For instance, 64 percent of Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s (R-MN) and 56 percent of Rep. John Boehner’s (R-OH) constituents choose air pollution reductions even if they “increase manufacturers’ energy costs and make it more difficult to compete.” And a full 70 percent of Rep. Lou Barletta’s (R-PA) support the EPA in setting pollution limits. The Michigan Messenger determined that “Michigan Reps buck constituents on EPA carbon vote,” highlighting that these representatives were disconnected from their voters’ views.

Despite this show of public approval, each of the representatives (except for Speaker of the House Boehner, since the speaker traditionally rarely votes) voted in favor of major anti-EPA bills such as the Texas Republicans’ amendment. They also voted for Rep. Mark Pompeo’s (R-KS) amendment that reduces EPA Programs and Management funding by $8.5 million, and Rep. John Carter’s (R-TX) amendment, which prevents the EPA from using funding to implement cement kiln air pollution rules.

It is unclear whether the House Republican leadership will attempt to undo the new toxic air pollution rules for boilers.  Although cutting the cleanup cost in half is very valuable, it may not be enough to stop key congressional players from attacking essential health safeguards.

The EPA reaffirmed its commitment to health-saving, cost-effective pollution safeguards with their new Clean Air Act standards for boilers and incinerators. Anti-public health legislators should note that such measures remain very popular with their constituents.

– By Lee Hamill, CAP Energy Policy Intern.

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