(1) In section 169A of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7491), Congress declared ‘as a national goal the prevention of any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility in mandatory class I Federal areas which impairment results from manmade air pollution’.
(2) In section 51.308 of title 40, Code of Federal Regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency established ‘requirements for implementation plans, plan revisions, and periodic progress reviews to address regional haze’, including requirements to establish goals for ‘reasonable progress towards achieving natural visibility conditions’, in part by determining ‘the rate of progress needed to attain natural visibility conditions by the year 2064’.
(3) In regulating the emissions that cause regional haze, Congress assigned States the lead role in developing and implementing a plan to reduce the precursor emissions that cause regional haze.
(4) The State of Minnesota, through the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (in this section referred to as ‘MPCA’), issued a State Implementation Plan (in this section referred to as a ‘SIP’) in December of 2009 that proposed the Best Available Retrofit Technology (in this section referred to as ‘BART’) for nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, finding that good combustion practices met BART for taconite facilities.
(5) The Environmental Protection Agency received and reviewed all of MPCA’s December 2009 SIP. In January 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed accepting Minnesota’s SIP, including its emissions modeling, as well as BART to reduce the emissions of taconite (iron ore) processing facilities.
(6) MPCA performed an extensive study of BART for the different types of taconite indurating furnaces. MPCA determined that the current technologies in place (good combustion practices) were BART.
(7) The Environmental Protection Agency determined that because one taconite facility was able to make use of low NOx burners to reduce emissions, that low NOx burners should be considered BART for all taconite facilities, and that many facilities should add this technology within 18 months.
(8) The Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to account for all of the factors in the State’s analysis has led to a proposed rule that imposes technically infeasible deadlines.
(9) The State’s Implementation Plan should take precedence, setting BART and appropriate emissions limits for taconite plants. The Environmental Protection Agency should defer to the State for such a period of time that the taconite plants can be feasibly upgraded according to the unique characteristics of each furnace and line.
U.S. Congress - Text of H.R.6507 as Introduced in House Promoting Nuanced Taconite Regulations Act of 2012
