EPA Accused Of Forcing High-Tech Air 'Opacity' Monitoring By Stealth

摘要

Industry groups are accusing EPA of trying to force a wide swath of industry sectors to adopt new digital emissions "opacity" monitoring technology via a requirement in an obscure air toxics rule for the ferroalloy production sector -while the agency's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) has rejected a petition by the technology's creator seeking to force a Western power plant to use digital monitoring. EPA July 12 proposed to reconsider a 2015 "risk and technology review" (RTR) rule governing production of ferroalloys, after the two companies producing the metals in the United States, Felman Production, LLC and Eramet Marietta, Inc., petitioned EPA to change various aspects of the rule. EPA is required to conduct RTRs eight years after a sector is first regulated for air toxics, and if it finds residual risks to health or new technology cost-effectively available to control emissions, to tighten the standards. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 194398) The companies in their petitions said that EPA in its 2015 rule introduced provisions without providing proper opportunity for public comment. EPA in the proposal therefore invited comment on three issues, including the requirement to demonstrate compliance with the shop building opacity standards using the digital camera opacity technique (DCOT) in accordance with American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard D7520-13. Opacity is a proxy for particulate matter emissions. EPA did not propose to tighten the actual emissions limits in the rule.