EPA News

Subscribe to EPA News via RSS

Last week, the EPA finally took action to clarify the application of the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology (“MACT”) Hammer” to vacated MACT standards.  The MACT Hammer is the provision that requires existing sources to develop case-by-case MACT limits for hazardous air pollutants if EPA misses its deadline for promulgating a generally applicable MACT standard. 

Last week, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) began the final review stage for new automobile standards that would increase the nation’s fleetwide fuel economy and create the first-ever greenhouse gas (“GHG”) regulations for cars and trucks.  The proposed automobile standards are on track to be finalized by the end of March.

On February 22, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) announced that it will begin to phase in permit requirements and regulation of greenhouse gases (“GHG”) for large stationary facilities at the start of 2011.  Currently the EPA is scheduled to take action on its first round of GHG regulations under the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) around April 1, 2010. 

Sixteen petitioners, representing three states and multiple industry associations and businesses, think tanks, and lawmakers, filed lawsuits by last Tuesday’s deadline against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) challenging the agency’s finding that greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) endanger health and welfare and thus can be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

On December 17, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) Administrator Lisa Jackson issued a decision requiring the Kentucky Department of Air Quality (“KDAQ”) to consider whether the proposed Cash Creek Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (“IGCC”) plant should consider generating electricity with natural gas rather than the syngas produced in the gasification process.  The decision was issued in the context of determining the Best Available Control Technology (“BACT”) requirements in Cash Creek’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (“PSD”) permit. EPA said that natural gas might be a lower polluting fuel than syngas.

On December 7, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) promulgated its long-awaited endangerment finding.  Evidently timed to coincide with the beginning of the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, the Agency’s finding states that elevated atmospheric concentrations of six greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) emitted by man – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride – are contributing to dangerous climate change. 

On Monday, November 16, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) proposed more stringent air quality standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2) in an effort to provide additional protection to public health.  The proposal focuses on short-term exposures to peak SO2 levels, and would establish a new national one-hour standard at between 50 and 100 ppb.