Washington, 8 December (Argus) — State and local regulators are denying claims that new boiler regulations would cripple the industry in a report issued today by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA).
A recent analysis commissioned by the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners (CIBO) found the industrial boiler industry could face severe economic losses if the maximum achievable control technology standards (MACT) rule is implemented.
NACAA's report today is a point-by-point critique of that analysis, which estimated costs and job losses resulting from the forthcoming emissions standards for commercial and industrial boilers and waste incinerators. Those standards are collectively known as the boiler MACT.
CIBO and other industry members have widely distributed their analysis around Capitol Hill, and its conclusions have disturbed law makers enough that several have written letters to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expressing dismay over the proposed rule. The CIBO analysis estimates the boiler MACT will cost $20.7bn in direct expenditures by industry and put 337,000 jobs at risk.
NACAA issued a critique of CIBO's findings because it believes the report is an attempt to prompt a congressional rescission of the finalized boiler MACT, according to executive director Bill Becker. NACAA's report echoes EPA's boiler MACT cost estimate of $9.5bn and says the net employment effect of the rule would range from 4,000 job losses to 9,000 job gains.
“After reading the CIBO analysis and seeing how exaggerated it is, we could not let this pass by without pushback,” Becker said.
NACAA's report points out five “serious inaccuracies” in CIBO's analysis: it grossly overestimates the number of sources that will need emissions controls; it does not take into account positive economic benefits from new capital investment; it treats one-time pollution control costs as recurring expenses; it assumes every dollar invested in emissions controls will reduce boiler output by an equal amount; and it does not include increases in life expectancy, reductions in health care costs and reductions in lost work days society-wide as a result of the rule.
EPA submitted a request yesterday to the US District Court of the District of Columbia to extend the deadline for releasing the final boiler MACT by up to 18 months beyond the current deadline of January 2011. The agency is under court orders to meet the January deadline. Sierra Club and Earth Justice, which instigated the lawsuit to set the boiler MACT deadline, will also have to agree to the extension.
NACAA has no problem with EPA taking an extension, Becker said.
“We want EPA to get it right,” Becker said. The agency should promulgate a solid, well-considered rule without legal weaknesses that is protective of the public health.
Industry representatives were generally supportive of EPA's request for more time but did not comment on NACAA's critique of the CIBO analysis.
"There is no question that EPA's boiler rule as originally written would have resulted in significant costs for manufacturers and small business and ultimately would have cost jobs,” said Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council.
“These concerns, raised by a broad range of industries, lawmakers and even the administration's own US Small Business Administration, have been acknowledged by EPA through its request for more time to revisit its proposed rule,” he said.
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