EPA wants more time to rework boiler emissions rule

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is requesting more time to issue a final rule meant to reduce potentially harmful air emissions from industrial boilers.
 
The request comes amid an industry effort to pressure the EPA to make changes to the draft boiler rule because the proposed regulations, industry groups say, would result in significant job losses. 

EPA is under a court order to issue final boiler air rules by July 16. But in a motion filed in federal district court Tuesday, EPA asked to extend the deadline to April 2012.

In a statement, American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley praised the decision.

“We’re encouraged that EPA is taking the time needed to develop an effective, achievable final rule. Industry has provided additional data, which EPA can use to develop a realistic methodology based on real-world facilities, emissions and impacts,” Dooley said.

Republicans, including Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the frontrunner for the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, have targeted the rule as an example of EPA overreaching and further harming the economy.
 
The agency said it is making changes after receiving new information from industry.

“While EPA requested and received some information from industry before the proposal, the comments EPA received following the proposal shed new light on a number of key areas, including the scope and coverage of the rules and the way to categorize the various boiler-types,” the EPA said in a statement on the motion.
 
The draft boiler rule has been criticized by a handful of lawmakers because of its potential cost; they have called on the Department of Commerce to release its economic analysis. The commerce analysis, say the lawmakers, paints a less rosy picture of the potential job losses from the draft rule than an EPA analysis. But the Commerce Department has no plans to release the analysis.
 
A department spokeswoman said the analysis is “deliberative and part of an interagency process” and therefore will only be made public through a Freedom of Information Act request.
 
Four senators, in a Dec. 3 letter to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on the so-called boiler maximum available control technology rule, formally requested that Commerce release the analysis. The letter was signed by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), David Vitter (R-La.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska).
 
Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) sent a similar letter Nov. 30 requesting release of the analysis.

This post was updated at 11:46 a.m.

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