U.S. House Passes HR 2250, EPA Regulatory Relief Act

By a vote of By a vote of 275-142, the House this evening approved H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011. Supporting H.R. 2250 were 234 Republicans and 41 Democrats, which shows it had some bipartisan support. It now goes to the Senate, where a companion bill, S1392, is still awaiting action.

The CMRA worked with a broad coalition of trade associations to help push the bill through the House.

The bill directs EPA to accommodate the use of industrial materials, such as C&D and especially C&D wood, as biomass products. Commonly called the Boiler MACT rules. As they exist today, the rules will have serious economic impacts on a vast array of facilities across the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors. These rules place at risk tens of thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs that our nation cannot afford to lose.

As finalized, the Boiler MACT rules that EPA promulgated are unaffordable, just as the proposed rules were. The rules are not achievable for real-world boilers across the range of fuels and operating conditions. EPA also has created a presumption that materials commonly used as fuels are wastes subject to the extremely costly and stigmatizing incinerator standards. This would not only impose billions of dollars in unreasonable costs, but it also would cause millions of tons of valuable materials to be diverted to landfills and replaced with fossil fuel – a bad result for the environment.

As EPA has acknowledged, the rules were finalized with serious flaws because EPA was forced to meet a strict court-ordered deadline. The final Boiler MACT rule alone would cost over $14 billion in capital for the manufacturing sector, plus billions more in annual operating costs. Complying with the incinerator standards could cost several billion dollars more in capital.

The legislation was needed to resolve serious uncertainties and vulnerabilities, including to:

• ensure the rules are stayed for an adequate and certain period, as EPA’s current administrative stay is being challenged in court;
• allow EPA adequate time to re-propose the rules and get them right, including time for stakeholders to conduct more emissions testing and to avoid mistakes that occur when rulemakings of this scope and importance are rushed and become vulnerable to legal challenge;
• provide direction and support for EPA to use the discretion it already has under the Clean Air Act and Executive Order 13563 to add flexibility and make the rules achievable;
• clarify that using non-hazardous materials as fuels does not result in boilers being treated as incinerators; and
• give facilities more time to comply with the complex and capital-intensive requirements of the rules.

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