Monthly Archives: May 2012

EPA Proposes Revisions to the Back-up Generator Rule: Reasonable Flexibility or a Dirty Loophole?

Yesterday, EPA released proposed revisions to its rules governing emissions from emergency back-up generators. It’s not always the most exciting of topics, but it is important. Many facilities have back-up generators and I know from experience advising clients that, precisely because back-up generators do not run that often, operators can run into compliance issues.

The most important aspect of the proposed rule is that EPA would allow back-up generators to run for up to 100 hours without being subject to emissions limits for the following reasons:

  • Monitoring and testing
  • Demand response
  • Voltage changes of at least 5%

Moreover,… More

Repeat After Me: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported that MassDEP is considering promulgating new regulations to manage noise from on-shore wind turbines. I sympathize with my friends at MassDEP, who are trying to implement a clean energy agenda and ensure that Massachusetts meets the aggressive carbon reduction targets in the Global Warming Solutions Act. This is no easy task in a home rule state that would have a fighting chance to win any national NIMBY championship competition. … More

EPA Defends the Biomass Deferral Rule — It Feels More Like Rube Goldberg Every Day

On Tuesday, EPA filed its brief in support of its rule deferring regulation of GHG emissions from biomass facilities until 2014. I have two immediate reactions.

The first is that, as a policy matter, the deferral was absolutely the right thing to do. The science remains complex and not fully understood. Any regulations promulgated now are likely to be revised at some point. That kind of regulatory uncertainty is not any way to run an agency.… More

Cass Sunstein Is Still Pushing Regulatory Reform — Why Isn’t Everyone Happy?

Yesterday, President Obama released another Executive Order on regulatory reform. The new order expands on EO 13563, and provides three new requirements on agencies:

  • Twice yearly reporting by agencies to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs concerning the status of reform efforts,
  • Increased public participation in regulatory reform, and
  • An obligation to prioritize agency reform efforts to “produce significant quantifiable monetary savings or significant quantifiable reductions in paperwork burdens while protecting public health”

Reactions were predictable. … More

Here’s a Suprise — A Cap-and-Trade System For Nutrients Would Substantially Decrease the Cost of Nutrient Reductions in Chesapeake Bay

bayslammYesterday, the Chesapeake Bay Commission released a study showing that implementation of a nutrient trading system would dramatically reduce the cost to achieve nutrient reductions in Chesapeake Bay.
Pardon me if I seem to be posting a lot of dog bites man stories recently.

Although it should not come as a surprise that a trading system would permit nutrient reductions to be attained most cost-effectively,… More

Apportionment in CERCLA — No Bright Line Test

The Lower Fox River Superfund site continues to pump out decisions on key CERCLA issues. Most recently, the federal court in Wisconsin in US v. NCR Corp. took on the issue of divisibility of harm in granting a preliminary injunction requiring one of the PRPs, NCR, to complete the removal of 660,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediments from a portion of the Lower Fox River. In entering that injunction,… More