In an effort to address the EPA charges of deficiencies in the state’s flexible permit rules, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) approved proposed revisions to the rule.
The press release from the TCEQ states:
Despite the EPA’s objections to the program, air quality in Texas has improved greatly over the past 15 years.
The state’s successful Flexible Permit Program was established in 1994 to incentivize grandfathered operations to voluntarily enter into the air permitting program while allowing companies operational flexibility to meet ever-changing market demands. The Flexible Permit Program was innovative in that it allowed operational flexibility in exchange for emission reductions, with the final goal being a well-controlled facility. Flexible permits are required to demonstrate compliance with all state health standards as well as all appropriate federal Clean Air Act requirements. In 2009 the EPA proposed disapproval of the rules.
At the time that the TCEQ established the Flexible Permit Program in 1994, Texas had a large number of “grandfathered” facilities (predating the state’s permitting program that began in 1971). As EPA acknowledges, neither the EPA nor the TCEQ had statutory authority to impose controls on, or require permits for, grandfathered facilities. Thus the state created this voluntary permitting approach.
Examples of facilities that were able to be controlled under the state’s Flexible Permit Program include a power plant, where reductions included 25,800 tpy (tons per year) of sulfur dioxide, 10,300 tpy of NOx, and 195 tpy of total particulate matter. In a petroleum refinery, reductions included 3.9 tpy of sulfur dioxide, 15,800 tpy of NOx, and 920 tpy of VOCs.
Thanks to the Flexible Permit Program and work by the state legislators that in later years enacted mandatory permitting requirements, there are no grandfathered facilities in Texas. There are many such facilities across the rest of the country that are still grandfathered from both state and federal permitting requirements.
“We are defending our flexible air permitting program because it works,” said TCEQ Chairman Bryan W. Shaw, Ph.D. “EPA is not able to demonstrate how our program is less protective of the environment than the bureaucratic federal approach. EPA’s philosophy of more bureaucracy by federalizing state permits will not lead to cleaner air, but will drive up energy costs and kill job creation at a time when people can least afford it.”
“The State of Texas is making a good faith effort to meet the federal government’s objections to our flexible permitting program, even though our program does meet requirements of the federal Clean Air Act,” said TCEQ Commissioner Buddy Garcia. “It is entirely possible that if the state abandons the innovative flexible air permits, the progress we have made over the last 15 years will all be for nothing.”
“Our flexible permits are an integral part of the state’s success in cleaning our air,” said TCEQ Commissioner Carlos Rubinstein. “Overall state-wide ozone levels have declined 22 percent since 2000. Every area of the state, with the exception of Dallas-Fort Worth, is meeting the current federal ozone standard. And Dallas-Fort Worth is only exceeding the standard by one part per billion.”
The proposed rules would more directly reference potentially-applicable federal permitting requirements; add provisions to ensure that the flexible permit rules cannot be used to circumvent federal permitting requirements; add more detailed monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements associated with flexible permits; and implement other changes the EPA has identified as necessary to obtain approval for the flexible permit rules as a SIP revision. The proposed rules, as presented to the Commissioners, are available online at: http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/rules/pendprop.html
The public comment period on the rules package opens on July 2, 2010 and runs through Aug. 2, 2010. A public hearing on the revisions will be held July 29, at TCEQ headquarters, 12100 Park 35 Circle, Austin, Building E, conference room 201-S. The hearing will begin at 2:00 p.m.