Journey to MACT: The Long and Complicated Road to Clean Air Act Regulation Via the Office of Solid Waste

摘要

Since 1994, EPAs Office of Solid Waste (OSW) has been developing the Clean Air Act National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (CAA NESHAP) Rule for cement kilns that recover energy from hazardous wastes. Hazardous waste incinerators and light-weight aggregate kilns that recover energy from hazardous wastes are also covered by the rule. On September 30, 1999, EPA published the long-awaited Final Hazardous Waste Combustor (HWC) NESHAP rule. The final rule was challenged by various entities and eventually vacated by the D.C. Circuit. In an unprecedented effort, industry, environmental groups and EPA worked together on a settlement agreement that put in place a set of interim standards that facilities agreed to comply with while EPA went back to the drawing board. EPA is currently developing a new proposed rule to be published for comment in March 2004 and, in accordance with the court ordered deadline, made final in June 2005. This paper will provide a brief history of the complicated regulatory process, unique development aspects, and unprecedented settlement negotiations that arose in the development of the only NESHAP rule written outside EPAs Office of Air Quality, Planning and Standards. The paper will address the interim standards currently in place and describe some of the implementation challenges facing facilities currently trying to comply with the interim rule. Finally, this paper will explore the challenges currently facing the cement industry in the development of the revised HWC NESHAP standards and attempt to describe the HWC cement kiln industry's position on these issues and/or solutions to anticipated problems.