EPA Promulgates Final Step 3 of GHG Tailoring Rule
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week promulgated a final rule that does not revise the greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting thresholds that were established in Step 1 and Step 2 of the GHG Tailoring Rule. The final rule, which comes just days after a federal appeals court ruled the EPA was “unambiguously correct” in its interpretation of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, is the third step of the agency’s phased-in approach to GHG permitting under the Clean Air Act.
The emissions thresholds in the Tailoring Rule determine when Clean Air Act permits under the New Source Review Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and Title V Operating Permit programs are required for new and existing industrial facilities. Under the current applicability thresholds (which were established under Step 2 and went into effect on July 1, 2011), new facilities with GHG emissions of at least 100,000 tons per year (tpy) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) and existing facilities with at least 100,000 tpy CO2e making changes that would increase GHG emissions by at least 75,000 tpy CO2e are required to obtain PSD permits.
Facilities that must obtain a PSD permit anyway, to cover other regulated pollutants, must also address GHG emissions increases of 75,000 tpy CO2e or more. New and existing sources with GHG emissions above 100,000 tpy CO2e must also obtain operating permits.
The final Step 3 rule promulgated on July 3 does not apply to additional small sources of GHG emissions, the EPA said. “After evaluating comments on the proposed rule, and assessing the progress of GHG permitting to date, EPA has determined that state permitting authorities have not had sufficient time to develop necessary permitting infrastructure and to increase their GHG permitting expertise and capacity,” it said. “By the same token, EPA and the state permitting authorities have not had the opportunity to develop and implement streamlining approaches. Therefore, at this time, it is not appropriate to apply PSD and title V permitting requirements to additional, smaller sources of GHG emissions.”
The GHG Tailoring Rule issued on May 13, 2010, addresses six GHGs: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. That final rule set the thresholds for Steps 1 and 2 of a phased-in approach to regulating GHG emissions under the PSD and title V Operating Permit programs.
Under Step 1 of the Tailoring Rule, PSD requirements applied to sources’ GHG emissions if the sources were subject to PSD anyway due to their non-GHG regulated air and emit or have the potential to emit at least 75,000 tpy CO2e. Under Step 2, PSD applies to the largest GHG-emitting sources that are not “anyway” sources and that are either new sources that emit or have the potential to emit at least 100,000 tpy CO2e or existing sources that emit at that level and that undertake modifications that increase emissions by at least 75,000 tpy CO2e, and also emit at least 100/250 tpy of GHGs on a mass basis.
Sources: POWERnews, EPA
—Sonal Patel, Senior Writer (@POWERmagazine)