Taken from the briefing Sierra Club v. EPA: Clean Air Act Permitting Becomes Even More Complicated and Onerous recorded May, 2013.On January 22, 2013, the court in
Sierra Club v. EPA, No. 10-1413 (D.C. Cir. Jan. 22, 2013) issued a decision with far reaching implications for sources seeking a Clean Air Act permit under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program. The decision addressed two screening tools – Significant Impact Levels (SILs) and Significant Monitoring Concentrations (SMCs) – that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had included in a final rule issued in 2010 to ease the process of obtaining a PSD permit for combustion and other sources that emit fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The court vacated the portion of the rule that allowed use of SILs to exempt any new PM2.5 sources from complex, multi-source air dispersion modeling and to demonstrate that emissions from the proposed source do not cause or contribute to the contravention of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for PM2.5. The court also vacated the portion of the rule that allowed use of the SMC to exempt many sources from pre-application PM2.5 monitoring.
The court decision skips lightly over the use of SILs and SMCs to ease PSD permitting requirements for more than 30 years, holding that the Clean Air Act is “extraordinarily rigid” in addressing the specific requirements for obtaining a PSD permit. Because SILs and SMCs have been critical tools in the PSD permit process, the court decision and subsequent EPA guidance are certain to add time to the already lengthy and costly pre-construction permit application process.
Listen to environmental attorney Philip E. Karmel, a member of Bryan Cave LLP, and Kenneth N. Weiss, P.E., the managing partner of ERM’s Global Air Practice, as they discuss the case, its implications and practical strategies:
Lecture Topics [Total Time: 01:03:42]
- Potential application of the decision to state PSD permitting programs and to SILs and SMCs for pollutants other than PM2.5
- Potential continued use of SILs for certain purposes, consistent with the court’s decision
- Issues raised by EPA’s draft 116-page guidance document issued in March 2013
- Impacts on project schedule and the cost of permitting
- Practical strategies to satisfy PSD increment analyses and speed permit applications
Presentation Material
- Sierra Club v. EPA: Clean Air Act Permitting Becomes Even More Complicated and Onerous
- Maximizing Collaborative And Licensing Efforts
- Sierra Club v. EPA: Clean Air Act Permitting Becomes Even More Complicated and Onerous
- SILs and SMCs
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