WP: EPA Faces Internal Outcry On Airborne Emissions Plan

[DeepModem Mom]

EPA Faces Internal Outcry On Airborne Emissions Plan
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 4, 2006; Page A04

A proposal to revise how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates airborne toxic emissions from industrial plants has sparked an outcry from the agency's regional offices, with a majority suggesting that the change would be "detrimental to the environment."

The proposed rule, whose wording was disclosed yesterday by the advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), would change the emissions standards for oil refineries, hazardous waste incinerators, chemical plants, steel mills and other plants that discharge thousands of pounds of airborne toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead.

Under current law, plants that emit 10 tons or more of a single toxin in a year, or 25 tons or more of a combination of toxins, must install "maximum achievable control technology" to cut those emissions by 95 percent or more. The draft proposal would lift that requirement from polluters that have reduced their emissions to below 25 tons a year, potentially allowing emissions to increase so long as they stay under the 25-ton limit.

An internal EPA memo summarizing the position of eight of the agency's 10 regional offices, dated Dec. 13, contended the change could conceivably result in an increase in toxic emissions. Seven of the offices agreed that the proposal would allow polluters to "virtually avoid regulation and greatly complicate any enforcement."

Individual regional offices occasionally object to proposed policy shifts by EPA headquarters, but it is rare for such a large number of regional offices to join forces in such a forceful rebuke....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301588.html

[rodeodance]

1. good, now the decenters need to go public.