Senate Bill To Delay Boiler Rules

EPA would have 15 months to repropose and finalize rules governing hazardous industrial-boiler emissions under a draft bill introduced in the Senate last week. The bipartisan measure, sponsored by Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) and five other senators, extends the compliance period for facilities to meet maximum available control technology (MACT) rules for industrial boilers from three to five years. “Our legislation provides common sense solutions to the challenges the EPA is facing in attempting to implement these compliance rules, which if written without proper data, analysis, and consideration, would cost the industry billions of dollars and potentially thousands of jobs,” Collins said in a statement. The extended timelines are similar to those contained in legislation already introduced in the House of Representatives. But the Senate bill has an additional provision that would classify renewable and carbon-neutral materials such as wood waste as fuel, thus exempting them from MACT rules. Environmental groups remain critical of the legislation, arguing that the extended deadlines would continue to subject the public to dangerous emissions.