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Utah air regulators are working on new controls for the pollution that contributes to climate change.
The Utah Division of Air Quality is finalizing new rules for more than a dozen facilities in the state that emit the most greenhouse gases in a scramble to meet federal requirements that go into effect in January. Like the vast majority of states, Utah expects to add greenhouse gas monitoring to certain air-quality permits in time to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deadline, according to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.
"Utah is one of those states that is moving full-speed ahead," said S. William Becker, executive director of the air professionals group.
The EPA was forced to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the 40-year-old Clean Air Act after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and a scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger the public health and the environment.
A few states, including Texas and Arizona, have said they won't implement any new greenhouse gas regulations. And, some business organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the Western States Petroleum Association and the National Association of Home Builders, also have been fighting the greenhouse gas rules.
Becker said the EPA has worked hard to make the regulations "sensible" and less onerous. The agency has given states additional time to develop their own strategies for handling greenhouse gas permits through what is called the "tailoring rule."
The EPA also has changed a key trigger that dramatically changes the practical effect. Instead of 6 million businesses, farms or government facilities needing operating permits, only 15,550 nationwide will be required to do so.
Under the Clean Air Act, a business that releases more than 100 tons of regulated gases annually, including nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, must get an air-pollution permit.
But under the tailoring rule, the threshold for greenhouse gases is 100,000 tons annually.
Becker described the objecting businesses and states as being those that "won't take 'yes' for an answer." He noted that states that do not adopt the tailoring rule leave an enormous number of greenhouse gas emitters to face federal permitting under the lower emissions triggers.
"What they put at risk," he said, "is a likely construction ban on every ma and pa facility in the state."
Cheryl Heying, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, noted that just over a dozen Utah facilities will be subject to the new greenhouse gas regulations. About half of them already operate under Clean Air Act permits for "criteria pollutants" that will be expanded to include greenhouse gases. Seven or eight landfills not currently required to have air-pollution permits will need to get them, she said.
Heying also noted that there have been no complaints or comments by Utah businesses on the proposed regulation, which the Utah Air Quality Board expects to finalize in December.
"It's one of those things that's coming," she said, " and now we just have to make it work."
Tom Bingham, president of the Utah Manufacturers Association, said his organization won't be fighting the state's greenhouse gas regulation.
"We don't like it," he said, "but we are going to work with DEQ and see if we can make it work."
Greenhouse gases What are they?
The heat-trapping chemicals that will be covered under new federal regulations are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. Some of these, such as sulfur hexafluoride, are extra-potent polluters and are calculated using multipliers to account for their added impact.
To learn more about the state's proposal on greenhouse gases • bit.ly/cfRl3u
Source: Utah Division of Air Quality