EPA's proposal to ease the emissions test for triggering new source review (NSR) requirements to install modern pollution controls as part of its power sector climate rule, is reviving a decades-old fight and putting EPA on the opposite side of the issue when it was last litigated early in the Bush administration. In the Aug. 21 "Affordable Clean Energy" (ACE) proposal to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, EPA proposes to change the test to measure an emissions increase that triggers NSR. The plan seeks to change the test from an annual to hourly measure for power plants that choose from seven EPA-supplied "candidate technologies" to improve efficiencies and lower greenhouse gas emissions, even if the projects allow overall emissions to increase. The Clean Air Act's NSR program requires existing facilities undergoing a major modification that increases actual emissions to install state-of-the-art pollution controls. For example, many older coal plants still lack scrubbers to limit sulfur dioxide and selective catalytic reduction to limit nitrogen oxides.
展开▼
