The EPA Addresses Residual Risk for Hazardous Air Emissions at Refineries

On May 14, 2014, the EPA proposed new rules to control "residual risk" from hazardous air emissions (such as from benzene) at the nation's petroleum refineries. The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to calculate whether or not residual risk to human health exists after the agency has put Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) in place to control hazardous air emissions. Studies have long shown residual risk to the public after MACT was put in place at refineries, and this finding forms the legal basis for this rule. In particular, the EPA proposes addressing more fugitive emissions, addressing emissions controlled during changes in facility operation, and putting new requirements on storage vessels. The last EPA rulemaking on residual risk from refineries occurred during the George W. Bush administration (initiated in 2002), and that proposal was controversial in at least three respects. First, it wasn't clear that the amount of exposure being measured was accurate, since there were few actual monitors in place. Second, there was significant disagreement with the EPA's decision at that time to only reduce residual risk to one excess death in 10,000, though this was legally upheld, and third, the proposed requirements to implement the residual risk controls were all recognized as actually creating profit at refineries because they were failing to recapture valuable chemical during the refining process.