On March 20, 2009, the U.S. EPA submitted a proposed finding to the White House that man-made greenhouse gases (GHGs) pose a threat to human health and welfare. Although the proposed “endangerment finding” does not itself impose any new requirements or regulatory burdens on GHG sources, it represents one of several steps that lay the groundwork for regulation of CO2 and other GHGs under the Clean Air Act, such as U.S. EPA’s mandatory GHG reporting regulations that were announced on March 10. National debate on the proposed finding is expected to be contentious and lengthy with environmental advocates and business and industry staking greatly different positions. The proposed finding will undergo White House review followed by public comment and hearings before a final finding is published.
For more information, contact EQ’s Tom Robertson at (800) 229-5299 or Stephanie Werner at (800) 229-7495.
On March 25, 2009, U.S. EPA published a proposed rule to revise two test methods for measuring particulate matter (PM) from stationary sources. One method, Method 201A, is to measure filterable PM2.5 (i.e., material that is solid or liquid at stack temperature) emissions. The second revised method, Method 202, is for condensable PM (i.e., material that is a gas at stack temperature but condenses to a solid or liquid once it is emitted to the atmosphere). The improvement in PM2.5 measurement methods is part of a transition period, after which U.S. EPA expects states to include PM2.5 (including condensables) in their New Source Review (NSR) applicability determinations and their major source NSR emission limits. In an earlier Federal Register notice, U.S. EPA had indicated that this transition period could extend to January 2011.
The March 25 notice proposed ending the NSR transition period 60 to 90 days after promulgation of the revised test methods.
For more information, see the Federal Register notice or contact EQ’s Kent Berry at (800) 229-5299.
On March 11, 2009, President Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act. One obscure provision of the massive spending bill changes the reporting requirements for the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), effectively reversing the relaxation of the requirements in 2006 by President Bush. The recent change requires all reports for persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals to be submitted using the more detailed Form R. For non-PBT chemicals, the shorter Form A may be used only if the “annual reporting amount” is 500 pounds or less and the chemical was manufactured, processed, or otherwise used in an amount not exceeding 1 million pounds during the reporting year. These changes affect the TRI reports due July 1, 2009. The TRI-ME software is being revised and will be available soon.
For more information, contact EQ’s Sheri Bussard at 800-229-7495.
On March 10, 2009, the U.S. EPA released a proposed rule that would impose mandatory reporting requirements on industrial facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases (GHGs) per year, suppliers of fossil fuels and industrial GHGs, and manufacturers of vehicles and engines.
The requirements would apply to about 13,000 sources in a wide range of industrial sectors, including power plants, auto makers, iron and steel producers, petroleum refineries, and landfills, according to the U.S. EPA. These sources account for between 85-90% of all GHGs emitted in the U.S. each year.
The facilities would be required to submit reports to U.S. EPA beginning in 2011 for the 2010 calendar year. Vehicle and engine manufacturers would begin reporting for the 2011 model year.
Greenhouse gases covered by the proposal are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorochemicals and other fluorinated gases such as nitrogen trifluoride and hydrofluorinated ethers.
The proposal would require direct measurement of GHG emissions for sources that are already required to collect and to report data using continuous emissions monitoring systems (CEMS) under existing federal programs.
Facilities without CEMS would have the option of using either direct measurement or “facility-specific” emissions monitoring. According to the proposal, facility-specific monitoring could include “mass balance; measurement of the facility's use of fuels, raw materials, or additives combined with site-specific measured carbon content of these materials; or other procedures that rely on facility-specific data.”
For more information, visit the U.S. EPA website or contact EQ’s Tom Robertson at (800) 229-5299 or Stephanie Werner at (800) 229-7495.
On March 5, 2009, U.S. EPA published a proposed National Emission Standard for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for stationary reciprocating internal combustion engines (RICE) that are not already covered by earlier U.S. EPA regulations. The proposed rule is expected to reduce hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions by 13,000 tons per year from stationary engines used to generate electricity and power equipment at factories and other facilities.
The regulations apply to existing RICE at area, as well as major HAP sources, and would require larger engines to meet specified emission limits by installing “aftertreatment” controls such as oxidation catalysts. Smaller engines would only be subject to operating requirements such as changing the oil, filter, and spark plugs [for spark ignition (SI) engines] at specified intervals.
U.S. EPA estimates that 290,000 stationary SI engines and nearly 1 million compression ignition (diesel) engines would be subject to the rule.
U.S. EPA issued a NESHAP for new stationary engines located at area sources in 2008, as well as for new engines rated at less than 500 horsepower at major sources. The agency issued a NESHAP for new engines greater than 500 horsepower at major sources in 2004.
For more information, see the Federal Register notice or contact EQ’s Jeff Slayback at (800) 229-7495 or Kent Berry at (800) 229-5299.
The U.S. EPA has extended the effective date of amendments to Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) requirements that were finalized in December 2008.
The effective date, formerly February 3, 2009, has been extended to January 14, 2010. The U.S. EPA is also seeking public comment to determine whether a further extension may be warranted.
Published in the Federal Register on December 5, 2008, this final rule specifically exempts from the SPCC rule hot-mix asphalt (HMA), pesticide application equipment and related mix containers, heating oil containers at single-family residences, and underground oil storage tanks at nuclear power facilities. Among other changes, it amends the facility diagram requirement, the general secondary containment requirement, security requirements, and integrity testing requirements for containers that store animal fats or vegetable oils and meet certain criteria.
Neither this extension nor the December 2008 final rule removes any regulatory requirement for owners or operators of facilities in operation before August 16, 2002, to maintain an SPCC Plan in accordance with the SPCC regulations.
For more information, visit the U.S. EPA website or contact EQ’s Mike Arozarena or Ken Hardesty at (800) 229-7495.
The U.S. EPA expects to develop a proposed rule by the end of 2009 that will more closely regulate coal ash and is also asking electric utilities for information about the impoundments where they store and dispose of coal-combustion byproducts.
In letters sent March 9, 2009 to more than 50 companies and 150 facilities, U.S. EPA requested information within 10 days about the age, composition, and structural integrity of their surface impoundments or similar structures, as well as information about inspections and unpermitted spills.
Interest in regulating coal-combustion byproducts has increased since the December 2008 spill from a coal-ash impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tenn. The incident, in which more than 300 acres of land were covered in coal ash and several nearby waterways inundated, sparked calls from legislators and environmental advocates for greater regulation of the waste.
Coal-combustion byproducts have been regulated by the states as nonhazardous waste under subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act since 2000, when U.S. EPA determined that the waste did not meet the criteria to be considered a hazardous waste. U.S. EPA has not said whether the new regulations would re-classify coal ash as a hazardous waste.
For more information, visit U.S. EPA website or contact EQ’s Mike Arozarena at (800) 229-7495.
On March 31, 2009, the U.S. EPA announced plans to monitor the air outside 62 schools in 22 states. Texas and Ohio have the most schools on the list, with seven each; Pennsylvania has six.
The plan, which will cost about $2.25 million, comes in response to a USA Today investigation into air quality around the nation’s schools.
Monitoring will begin as early as mid-April and will be “phased in over the next three months,” according to the U.S. EPA. Regulators will sample for gases such as benzene and particulates such as hexavalent chromium, both of which are carcinogens. Monitoring will last at least 60 days. Based on what is found, the U.S. EPA will evaluate the health risks students at each site might face.
For more information about the monitoring initiative, including the list of schools for initial monitoring, visit the U.S. EPA website.
The U.S. EPA has unveiled a new online database called the Aggregated Computational Toxicology Resource (ACToR). Accessible at http://actor.epa.gov/actor, the database provides information from numerous public sources on more than 500,000 man-made chemicals.
According to a March 12 press release from the U.S. EPA, the database provides “a new level of transparency and easy access for environmental researchers, scientific journalists, and the public.”
Sources of information include the U.S. EPA, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and other federal agencies; state databases; Health and Environment Canada; the European Union; the World Health Organization and other international groups; and non-governmental organizations, private companies, and universities.
ACToR was developed to support the ToxCast program of the U.S. EPA’s National Center for Computational Toxicology.
The U.S. EPA’s new eight-hour ozone standard is expected to cause the number of U.S. counties that fall into nonattainment to increase. In addition, in response to petitions by health and environmental groups, the U.S. EPA is currently reconsidering whether the new standard should be maintained, modified, or otherwise reconsidered.
States had until March 12 to submit their recommendations for nonattainment designation to the agency. The U.S. EPA reportedly has until November 12 to notify states of the agency's intended designations, with final nonattainment designations to be made no later than March 12, 2010.
In March 2008, U.S. EPA set both the primary and secondary air quality standards for ozone at 0.075 part per million, averaged over eight hours. The primary standard is intended to protect public health, while the secondary standard protects the environment and public welfare.
The previous standards were set at 0.08 part per million (ppm) in 1997, but due to rounding, that level allowed ozone concentrations as high as 0.084 ppm.
The new designations will update the list of counties in nonattainment that was last compiled by U.S. EPA based on the 1997 standards.
The new nonattainment list is likely to include more rural counties.
California plans to designate six new areas - Northeast San Bernardino County, Southern Inyo County, Pinnacles National Monument, San Luis Obispo County, Tuscan Buttes, and Eastern Kern County--as not in attainment as emissions from more urban areas spill into the rural portions of the state. Fifteen other areas are already designated as not in attainment of the 1997 eight-hour ozone standard.
Michigan also proposed adding one new county, rural Manistee county in the northwest part of the state, to its list of nonattainment areas. That state is recommending designating a total of 16 counties on its western and eastern borders as not in attainment.
Texas also submitted six new counties to U.S. EPA as nonattainment areas, bringing its recommended total to 27 counties, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Ohio nominated 29 counties as ozone nonattainment areas. However, it also proposed that U.S. EPA redesignate two counties near Toledo as being in attainment of the 0.075 ppm standards, according to the Ohio EPA.
On March 10, the U.S. Department of Justice, on U.S. EPA’s behalf, filed a motion asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to hold in abeyance several legal challenges to the ozone standards from states and environmental groups for 180 days while the new administration considers whether the standard “should be maintained, modified or otherwise reconsidered.”
The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, a panel of experts that advises the agency, had recommended setting the standards at a level between 0.060 ppm and 0.070 ppm.
For more information, visit the U.S. EPA’s website or contact EQ’s Jeff Slayback at (800) 229-7495 or Kent Berry at (800) 229-5299.
OSHA is developing a new enforcement program for recordkeeping to help ensure accurate reporting of workplace injuries.
Richard Fairfax, director of OSHA's enforcement division, said the program would be a national emphasis program that would involve examining OSHA logs or records for accurate reporting.
This new program is stemming from widespread reports from stakeholders that companies are underreporting worker injuries.
OSHA is proceeding with the new recordkeeping initiative although a new agency administrator has yet to be nominated. Assuming the new administrator agrees to the recordkeeping emphasis program, it could be put in place within six months, Fairfax said.
OSHA currently has seven national emphasis programs covering amputations, lead, silica, trenching, combustible dust, shipbuilding, and petroleum refineries, according to agency spokeswoman Diana Petterson. OSHA also is developing a national emphasis program for chemical companies, she said.
On March 13, 2009, U.S. EPA unveiled new software called “RMP*eSubmit” for facilities to use for online Risk Management Program (RMP) reporting. The U.S. EPA is asking all RMP facilities to use this new software to submit RMPs because it is easy to use, will improve data quality, and will enable you to access your RMP data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The older RMP*Submit 2004 software will still be accepted in 2009, but will eventually be phased out. Facilities submitting Confidential Business Information (CBI) and Trade Secrets cannot use the new RMP*eSubmit software at this time and should continue to use RMP*Submit 2004 instead.
For more information on RMP*eSubmit, visit the U.S. EPA website or contact EQ’s Dawn Miller at (800) 229-7495.
Disposal and environmental release of toxic substances declined 5 percent in 2007 to 4.1 billion pounds, according to the U.S. EPA. In particular, releases to air decreased 7 percent in 2007, and releases to water decreased 5 percent.
This annual U.S. EPA report, called the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), covers about 650 chemicals from almost 22,000 facilities, subdivided by chemical, industry, facility, and state.
The leading industry for disposals or releases in 2007 was metal mining, topping 1.15 billion pounds, closely followed by electric utilities, at about 1 billion pounds. The next five industries, in descending order, were primary metals, chemicals, hazardous waste/solvent recovery, paper, and the combined food/beverages/tobacco.
Overall releases of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic chemicals, such as mercury, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxin, increased 1 percent, primarily because of a handful of facilities. Most of the releases were land disposal, not releases into air or water, according to the U.S. EPA.
In terms of volume, the leading substances in the TRI report for 2007 include many acids and metals. Hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid are among the highest-volume toxic substances in the TRI report.
Zinc compounds, lead compounds, barium compounds, manganese compounds, and copper compounds also were among the high-volume substances. Nitrate compounds, commonly used in fertilizers, and the widely used chemical ammonia also were among the volume leaders.
The U.S. EPA data are gathered and released under the authority of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986.
For more information, visit the U.S. EPA website or contact EQ’s Sheri Bussard at (800) 229-7495.
On February 3, 2009, the Superfund Polluter Pays Act of 2009 (H.R. 832) was introduced in the House of Representatives. This proposed bill, introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), would enact a tax on chemical and oil companies to pay for federal cleanup activities under the U.S. EPA’s Superfund program.
The Act would impose a chemical feedstocks excise tax on 42 chemicals, a corporate “environmental income tax” of 0.12 percent on taxable income in excess of $2 million, plus a tax of 9.7 cents per barrel on petroleum, according to a summary of the bill. The taxes would be effective for 10 years.
The 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) established a Superfund tax on chemical and oil companies and a trust fund that was designed to pay for site studies and cleanup work when responsible parties were unable to do so.
Pallone, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has advocated for reinstating the tax since it expired in 1995.
The Superfund trust fund has dwindled from a high of $3.8 billion in 1987 to zero in 2003. As a result, the Superfund program must rely on funding from general appropriations.
Not all of us own hybrids, but there are many things you can do to be greener behind the wheel. Check out these Green Tips to save money at the pump and reduce CO2 emissions:
Don’t drive like a “jack rabbit.”
When you try to drive like Mario Andretti on your way to work, it doesn’t win you any races. It does use a lot more fuel and cost you more money though. Instead, try easing into accelerations, braking, and turns. When you avoid rapid starts and stops, you drive safer and greener.
Around the town, put your windows down.
Air conditioning can reduce your fuel efficiency by as much as 20%. Try driving around town with your windows down. However, open windows create more drag and reduce fuel efficiency at higher speeds (more than 40 mph). So for highway driving, it is more fuel efficient to actually use the AC.
Get rid of the junk in your trunk.
Losing weight is good for you and for your car’s gas mileage. Remove any unneeded items from your car. Do you really need to carry your golf clubs in your trunk all the time? Every pound in your car makes your engine work harder, and that effort uses more fuel. An extra 100 pounds in the trunk typically reduces mileage by about 2%.
Use cruise control.
Cruise control can improve your fuel efficiency on the highway by an average of 7%. According to the Department of Transportation, using cruise control on 10,000 miles driven in a year could save you more than 60 gallons of fuel. Be greener and safer by using cruise control selectively for flat terrain and dry weather conditions.
Warm up your vehicle by driving it.
Even on the coldest mornings, today’s technologically advanced vehicles need only about 30 seconds before they are ready to drive. This is enough time for the oil to circulate throughout the engine. You will use significantly less gas during the colder months by driving your vehicle rather than letting it idle to warm up.
Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance!
Regular maintenance can help your vehicle run longer, reduce CO2 emissions, and save you a lot of money over the life of your vehicle. Here are some easy ways to maintain a “greener” vehicle:
For more tips on being greener behind the wheel, please visit www.ecodrivingusa.com.
For more information on reducing your carbon footprint or to learn more about EQ’s Sustainability Program, visit our website or contact EQ’s Tom Robertson at (800) 229-5299.
For your engineering needs, please contact EQ Engineers at 219-844-3500, or email Ron Hawks
For questions about EQ's capabilities, please contact
Bob McCullough or Laurie Buckman, or call (800) 229-7495.
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