American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) President and CEO Thomas J. Gibson has offered the following comment on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Tailoring Rule:
"The Tailoring Rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency today does not solve the fundamental problems associated with regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, which is that failure to address the global dimension of the climate change issue will place U.S. manufacturers at a significant competitive disadvantage, costing valuable American jobs and actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
"Despite the proposed "tailoring" of the statutory requirements, EPA's proposed regulation of stationary sources will discourage new investment and impose significant new costs on manufacturing industries at the worst possible time - just as the economy is in the early stages of what is likely to be a long, slow recovery from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
"All this latest EPA regulation does is arbitrarily pick winners and losers in terms of which facilities must comply immediately with the new permitting requirements. In the end, however, no business will be left untouched from EPA's expansive interpretation of the Clean Air Act.
"Equally importantly, nothing in this rule will prevent the leakage of jobs and emissions to unregulated countries like China, especially from energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries like steel. It is past time for Congress to step in and stop EPA from pursuing this job-killing regulatory approach."
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Thursday issued a final rule that establishes a common sense approach to addressing greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA) permitting programs. This final rule sets thresholds for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that define when permits under the New Source Review Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) and title V Operating Permit programs are required for new and existing industrial facilities.
This final rule "tailors" the requirements of these CAA permitting programs to limit which facilities will be required to obtain PSD and title V permits. Facilities responsible for nearly 70 percent of the national GHG emissions from stationary sources will be subject to permitting requirements under this rule.