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OAR Box 1415 

Prepped by Ollie Stewart 

Document Number: 

22) IV-H-3 

Docket Number: 

A-94-52 

Printed 7/15/2008 9:38:26 AM Sheet 22 of 130 
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"Bromberg, Kevin L." 

<kevin.bromberg@sba 

•gov> 

10/28/2002 09:05 AM 

To: "'Bryon_P._Allen@omb.eop.gov'" <Bryon_P._Allen@omb.eop.gov> 

cc: Keith Barnett/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA 

Subject: FW: Composites Industry Comments on MACT 

FYI - Keith, keeping you in the loop. Keith, thanks for your materials - and good news - John S. 

has checked with their suppliers and they are no longer concerned about the 3 8% - 40 or 42% 

tooling gel coat MACT floor (or whatever it is called) - they now think they can do it. 

I'll try to complete my review in a few days. I only need to look at the MACT floors to see 

whether there were any changes between Keith's presentation to industry which had a set of new 

numbers and the set now under consideration. Industry believes the set of floor standards that it 

saw are feasible. 

Industry believes it has one outstanding issue, and has a meeting scheduled with Jeff H. for 

November 4 - see below. 

Thanks, all 

Kevin 

—Original Message— 

From: John Schweitzer [mailto:jschwtzr@gte.net] 

Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 11:32 AM 

To: Kevin Bromberg 

Subject: Composites Industry Comments on MACT 

Kevin, per your request, please find attached a copy of CFA's (now ACMA) comments on 

the proposed MACT rule for composite manufacturing. (Most of the attachments provided 

with our comments are available at 

http://www.acmanet.org/mact/mact cfa comments 1001.htm .) 

We have been working with EPA since the proposal was released, and have only one 

critical issue outstanding: EPA wants all new sources with emissions of 100 tons per year 

or more to install capture and control equipment. We believe this is feasible only for 

plants that make large quantities of small uniform parts — like those on which this 

new-source floor was based. If this EPA's proposed requirement is not changed, then we 

will be prevented from building new plants to provide products for several important 

markets (many of which will make products that improve our nation's transportation and 

energy infrastructures). 

We want EPA to move the threshold for new-source capture and control for large parts to 

250 tons per year. Large-part operations with emissions below 250 tpy would be required 

to use the same pollution prevention controls as existing sources. 

We are meeting with EPA Assist. Admin. Jeff Holmstead on Nov. 4 to press this issue. I 

have attached a letter we sent to Holmstead's office summarizing our position. I can 
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provide more information if you are interested. 

This is an small business issue, because many of our small "custom" molders will need to 

build new plants to make large products for new markets. If they can't build these plants, 

then they won't be able to efficiently grow their businesses. 

Thanks for your help. 

FROM======================== 

John Schweitzer 

Senior Director of Government Affairs 

American Composites Manufacturers Association 

voice 734.622.0162 

fax 734.622.0122 

ischweitzer@acmanet.org 

www, acmanet. org 

cfa mact comments 1001.i wehrum memofinal.di 
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William F. Pedersen P.L.L.C. 

MEMORANDUM 

To: Bill Wehrum 

Environmental Protection Agency 

From: Bill Pedersen 

Date: September 25, 2002 

Re: Composites Fabricators Association Meeting With Jeff Holmstead - November 4, 2002 

L Introduction 

My client, the Composites Fabricators Association ("CFA")1, and I appreciate your willingness 

to work with us before our November 4 meeting with Jeff Holmstead. On reflection, I think a 

chronological approach is the best way to give you our view ofthe issues. I have set out the 

chronology and concluded with a note on legal and policy points. 

EH Discussion 

As you well know, the questions at issue are (A) whether EPA has made the legally required 

case to establish a MACT "floor" standard of capture and control ("c&c") for all new composites 

fabrication facilities in the "open molding" and "pultrusion" categories that emit at least 100 tons of 

HAP a year, and (B) whether such a standard would be good public policy if it were legal. EPA staff 

is currently defending a c&c standard for ail such facilities, while CFA contends that c&c is only legal 

and appropriate for facilities that make smaller products and that the remaining new facilities should 

comply with the floor for existing sources, which is based on pollution prevention. 

1

 CFA is in the process of changing its name to the American Composites Manufacturers Association. 

1 
A The Proposal 

To support c&c, EPA's proposal identified two "floor setting" facilities for open molding and 

one for pultrusion. (EPA and CFA agree there are not enough controlled facilities to support a c&c 

"floor" for existing sources.) All these facilities make small mass-produced parts. EPA's proposal 

expressly raised the question whether these facilities could be considered "similar" to facilities that 

make larger parts, since the statute requires a finding of similarity in order for the floor to apply. EPA 

concluded that "similarity" existed because facilities in other industries - hangars for aircraft 

manufacturing and shipyards for shipbuilding - applied capture and control to the coating of very 

large products. 

63 Fed. Reg. 40331-40332 (August 2,2001). 

B. CFA Comments 

The CFA comments made three points regarding "new sources". 

1. There was no reason to believe that hangars and shipyards had in fact achieved 100% 

capture and control. The only support for EPA's assertion was a contractor report that basically 

addressed the contractor's view of what could be done, not what had been done. 

2. Even if hangars and shipyards had achieved 100% capture and control, they were too 

different from open molding and pultrusion facilities to support a "floor" for these facilities. 

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3. Open molding and pultrusion facilities that make larger parts are technically very different 

from the "floor -setting" facilities that make smaller parts and therefore could not be considered 

"similar" under the Act. 

See CFA comments, October 25,2001 at 4-19, 56-57. (I will forward a copy of these 

comments to you separately). 

C. CFA Meeting With Sally Shaver - Julv 30.2002 - and JeffHolmstead - November 4.2002 - and 

Related Correspondence 

Over the last year, CFA and OAQPS, working together, have resolved all the serious issues 

raised by the MACT proposal except for the scope ofthe c&c requirement for new sources. 

In an effort to resolve this issue as well, CFA corresponded with EPA in June 2002, met with 

Sally Shaver on July 30,2002, corresponded with EPA again in early September, and will meet with 

JeffHolmstead on November 4, 2002. We have refined our arguments over the last four months, but 

not basically changed them. We contend: 

1. The "floor setting" facilities make small uniform parts in a mass production environment. 

That allows cost-effective control for several different reasons. Workers do not need "all-around" 

access to simple parts but can work "upwind" from them at all times. That allows the use of 

enclosures that are small in relation to the size ofthe part, and that can fit within a larger 

manufacturing building. All the floor-setting facilities have such within-building enclosures. Such 
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enclosures need only small openings. Those openings are easy to keep under negative pressure, which 

is required for Method 204 compliance and high capture rates. Since workers do not need to work 

"downwind" ofthe producing (and emitting) area, such facilities can use low ventilation rates without 

violating OSHA standards. Since production rates are high, emissions rates to the control device are 

also high. The small enclosures, low ventilation rates and high emission rates result in a high "process 

density" (ratio of annual emissions to production area) that in turn allows cost-effective emissions 

control. 

2. Facilities that make large parts, by contrast, need large enclosure openings, and enclosures 

that are larger in relation to the size ofthe part than the enclosures needed for small parts facilities, 

since workers must be able to work all around the part. These enclosures are too big to easily fit within 

a building - indeed, there are no large parts facilities with such "within building" enclosures. Because 

ofthe need for large doors and because of "wind load", there is no way to make a building enclosure 

comply with Method 204. Even if wind load were not a factor, the need for constant movement of 

workers, material, equipment and products into and out ofthe working area would itself make literal 

Method 204 compliance practically impossible. 

Large parts facilities also need higher airflow rates to protect the workers at all points within 

the enclosure. Finally, production rates for larger parts are lower than for smaller parts for two 

reasons. First, larger parts, almost invariably, are more complex than small parts, and need 

proportionately more manufacturing time. Second, the markets for larger parts are smaller. For all 
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these reasons, capture and control for larger facilities is far less cost-effective than capture and control 

for smaller facilities. CFA's presentation to JeffHolmstead will demonstrate this graphically by 

relating the "process density" of a fabrication facility to the size of part produced and to the costeffectiveness of control and capital costs, thereby showing that these large part sources are not 

technically similar to the floor-setting facilities. 

D. The OAQPS Reaction 

To date, this line of argument has not proved persuasive to the OAQPS project manager, Keith 

Barnett, who has made four arguments in response: 

1. One ofthe three "floor-setting" facilities has an enclosure large enough to contain larger 

parts. (The facility is A.R.E. Massillon, and the enclosure (we think) is 19' x 25'x9 VA'). That shows 

that such parts could be manufactured in a capture and control enclosure. 

2. Keith believes that if the industry really tried, it could devise a capture and control facility for 

larger parts. CFA has not shown this is infeasible. 

3.Since it is physically possible (in principle at least) to design a capture and control system for 

a large parts facility, the distinctions between large and small parts facilities that CFA has described 

are "just about cost" and therefore cannot show that large parts facilities are "not similar" to small 

parts facilities. 
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4. Even if literal Method 204 compliance is infeasible for large parts facilities, local regulators 

could cut the facility some slack to create a workable compliance scheme. 

In addition, in our meeting with Sally Shaver, she asked CFA to put forward a technically 

justified cut point between small parts that could be manufactured using c&c and larger parts that 

could not. 

E. CFA's Response 

EPA has never proposed any of Keith's four responses either in its original Federal Register 

notice or in any supplemental document. We based our description of them on discussions with 

OAQPS. Those discussions have not given us the information we would need to address the suggested 

positions in adequate detail. Accordingly, even if the arguments were valid, attempting to use them to 

support a final rule would violate notice and comment requirements. Moreover, CFA believes that in 

fact, none of these arguments is valid. 

1. EPA plans to impose capture and control on facilities that make new parts of all sizes. The 

fact that the ARE facility could physically contain a part up to 19' x 25'x9 V* does nothing to show 

that capture and control is feasible for facilities that make much larger products such as wind turbine 

blades or bridge beams. 

More fundamentally, the fact that a larger part would physically fit within the ARE enclosure 

does not demonstrate that it could be manufactured in that enclosure consistent with Method 204. 
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Production involves both constant movement of workers, equipment, materials, and product into and 

out ofthe enclosure, and the need to comply with OSHA worker protection standards. Simply sticking 

a part inside the enclosure requires none of this. EPA has never explained why and how the ARE 

facility is configured to make such manufacture possible. Based on the limited information available 

to us, CFA believes it is not so configured. 

2. EPA cannot defend a regulation by saying that those subject to it have not refuted its 

feasibility. The law requires EPA to show that its regulations are justified, and does not put the burden 

on CFA to show that they are not. In effect, EPA seeks to require CFA to prove a negative, and to be 

regulated if it cannot prove this negative. We continue to provide as much technical assistance as we 

can to EPA, but ultimately the burden must rest on the government to justify its regulation. 

3.CFA has put forward a detailed analysis ofthe fundamental physical differences in product 

and production process that make capture and control far more difficult, and less cost-effective, at 

larger part facilities than at small part facilities. There is simply no foundation for dismissing these 

distinctions as being "just about cost". From the beginning ofthe MACT program EPA has 

recognized that factors like this must be considered in distinguishing between facilities that can and 

should be regulated under the MACT program and those that are not. In the HON - the very first 

MACT standard - EPA used cost-effectiveness of control to distinguish between process vents that 

would be controlled and those that would not. EPA explained that cost-effectiveness provided the best 

available method of integrating the various technical distinctions that made capture and control 
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appropriate for some of these vents and not for others. 59 Fed. Reg. 19516 (April 22, 1994). In that 

spirit, CFA has explained both the difference in cost-efifectiveness of control for different types of 

facilities, and the technical distinctions that give rise to this basic difference. OAQPS appears to be 

arguing that the only technical differences that can be used to show dissimilarity are those that 

demonstrate that it is physically impossible to apply the specified technology, not matter what the cost. 

This argument is inconsistent both with past EPA practice and with the statute. 

4. CFA has never conceded that the floor-setting facilities comply with Method 204. The 

record does not document any such showing of compliance, and there are practical reasons to believe 

these facilities do not comply. See CFA comments at 7-10,27-29. CFA acknowledges, however, that 

some States have on occasion "adjusted" the requirements of Method 204 to make compliance 

possible for facilities that make uniform small parts. Other States have refused to do so. 

However, far more drastic adjustments would be needed to make Method 204 work for large 

parts facilities. There is no reason to believe that any States would be willing to make such 

adjustments - and EPA has not given them any guidance on what types of adjustments to make. 

Moreover, it might well be that the adjustments needed to make compliance practicable for large parts 

facilities would allow enough emissions to escape to remove any emissions control advantage that 

c&c might enjoy over the floor requirement for existing facilities. EPA has not analyzed this issue in 

any way. 

After our meeting with Sally Shaver, we did additional technical work to 
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show that using "process density" to characterize facilities demonstrates a clear division between 

those facilities that are logical candidates for c& c and those that are not. We presented this work to 

Keith Barnett, but he concluded that these distinctions, too, constituted "only cost." 

For all these reasons, CFA believes that EPA cannot defend a "floor" c&c standard for large 

parts facilities. EPA has not done any ofthe detailed analysis that would be required to set an above 

the floor standard, much less requested comment on it as the law requires. CFA believes, moreover, 

that such a standard would be bad public policy even if it could be legally justified. 

EPA's proposed rule amounts to a construction ban on new plants that the industry will need to 

make large products for several important markets. More importantly, these markets are the very 

markets that promise to provide for the continued growth and vitality ofthe industry. And further, the 

products that will be made in these plants - including bridge beams, wind turbine blades, gasoline 

storage tanks, chemical processing tanks and pollution control equipment, and transportation 

components - will provide significant energy, public health, and infrastructure efficiency benefits.