Refinery Rule Returned to EPA for Additional 'Analysis': How Big Oil, OIRA, and the SBA Office of Advocacy Teamed Up to Delay Progress

Center for Progressive Reform 2013-03-19

Summary:

This post was written by CPR President Rena Steinzor and CPR Policy Analyst Michael Patoka. On Friday, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) returned a proposed rule on air pollution standards for oil refineries to EPA, insisting that the agency complete "additional analysis" before moving forward. EPA's efforts to reduce hazardous pollutants from these facilities will be delayed for months or likely years. And that additional analysis? OIRA won't even say what it's for. "Trust us" is not the most reassuring government transparency. EPA was proposing to revise the emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants from oil refineries, incorporating the results of a "risk and technology review," which is used to determine whether additional reductions are warranted in light of the remaining risks to human health that the facilities present and the technology now available to lower their harmful emissions. The proposal would also amend new source performance standards (NSPS) for a number of other pollutants from these facilities. The various pollutants emitted from the nation's 150 oil refineries can cause cancer, severe respiratory problems, and a range of cardiovascular, skin, blood, and neurological disorders. Because EPA's proposal has been returned to the agency instead of released to the public, we do not know by how much EPA expected to reduce emissions of these harmful pollutants or how large the resulting health benefits would be. The current emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants from oil refineries were issued in 1995 and 2002, each one covering different sources of pollution. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is required to review these standards within eight years of setting them, so this rulemaking is actually many years overdue. The agency has been under a court-approved settlement to propose this rule by December 15, 2011, and it is more than a year past that deadline as well. After conducting an extensive survey of all the refineries in the nation, EPA submitted its proposal to OIRA on September 4, 2012, already nine months late but also during the election season. OIRA then held onto it for more than six months - much longer than the 90 days (with one 30-day extension) permitted by Executive Order 12866 - only to tell the agency on Friday that it needs to provide even more information.

Link:

http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=8318CFB6-9844-FE66-1CF113E977CB659E

From feeds:

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Tags:

Authors:

Rena Steinzor

Date tagged:

03/19/2013, 20:08

Date published:

03/19/2013, 11:42