Document ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2004-0087-0028
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2007-09-12T04:00Z

September 14, 2000

VIA FACSIMILE

Mr. Michael Trutna

U.S. Environmental Protection Association

Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards

Research Triangle Park, NC  22771

	Re:	Design of Flexible Air Permits

Dear Mr. Trutna:

The Flexible Packaging Association appreciates this opportunity to
comment on the August 7, 2000 draft of White Paper 3, entitled "Design
of Flexible Air Permits." FPA is a member organization which represents
the paper, foil, plastic and film converting industry, the majority of
which are small manufacturing businesses.  Flexible packaging is a $18
billion industry in this country.  FPA members use multiple printing and
coating materials and processes to meet ever-changing technical product
demands and regulatory requirements for the packaging of foods,
pharmaceuticals, household goods, garden supplies, cosmetics and other
industrial, institutional and agricultural applications.  Permitting
operational flexibility is therefore absolutely critical to the
industry.  

FPA encourages EPA to finalize White Paper 3 ("WP3") because it provides
helpful insights and guidance regarding Title V permitting.  While we
have several concerns about features of the document which we would like
to see addressed in the final guidance, overall our Association believes
that WP3 is essential guidance for state permitting authorities and
plant managers.  It has the potential to be of great assistance in
fashioning operating permits that are both flexible and meet the
environmental goals of the Clean Air Act.  Most importantly, by
recognizing that many emissions standards, and particularly the VOC
printing and coating limitations under which this industry operates,
have inherent flexibility, it will help promote a better understanding
of how these requirements should be reflected in Title V permits.  We
hope that WP3 will encourage permitting authorities who have been
reluctant to date to accommodate flexibility into Title V permits.  We
also hope that it will assist us and the state agencies in streamlining
the permitting of modifications when certain replicable and foreseeable
changes are made in our members' facilities.

	Preserving Flexibility Already in Applicable Requirements  -  On page 7
of WP3,  EPA advises States that they can often minimize the number of
times the sources will have to revise a permit by writing a "smart
permit:"  

"Such a permit essentially allows a source to make changes as
expeditiously as would be allowed under the relevant applicable
requirements(s) alone.  In other words, the permit does not prevent the
source from operating as flexibly as the applicable requirement(s) allow
by including restrictive terms in the permit that are not included in
the applicable requirement(s).  

	This element of WP3 is critical to an industry such as flexible
packaging.  The VOC emissions standards under which  we generally
operate  are designed to accommodate changes in operations and materials
of existing equipment.  Our experience, thus far, in Title V permitting
is that inexperienced permit writers can feel uncomfortable with this
type of flexibility and coupled with a desire for more regulatory
certainty over operations can insist on permit requirements in addition
to the broad applicable requirements of the standard.  Thus, we feel
that EPA's discussion of the inherent flexibility in many standards will
be reassuring and help resolve some of the apprehensions of regulators
who want to "embellish" applicable requirements with additional
conditions and/or compliance terms that are at odds with the processes
the standards were designed to address.

	On Page 8 and 9, we think that the example is excellent and other
examples would be equally helpful.  It also might be helpful to clarify
why the lithographic example can apply broadly to many industries whose
BACT, RACT, or other emissions limitations are based on capture and
destruction efficiency.  EPA also should clarify in WP3 that testing is
conducted (i.e., performance testing) to establish  the capture and/or
destruction efficiency  being met and the source is in compliance.
States need to take care so that the test value is not indicated as a
permit term or used to calculate emissions since there is inherent error
in the test methods and the next test values could change.

	With respect to a later but seemingly related discussion of what a
permit should contain on page 27, however, FPA had several concerns to
the extent that the new equipment, the subject of the discussion, is
subject to a standard based on capture and destruction efficiency. 
First, FPA submits that the specific operating parameters should not be
listed in the permit since they don't have a bearing on compliance as 
long as the destruction efficiency is maintained.  Additional operating
parameters decrease flexibility because they implicate permit
modifications or notifications and are not necessary for compliance with
such a standard.  Second, the permit should only provide that the
facility should maintain temperature at that demonstrated during the
most recent compliance test or that which is guaranteed by the
manufacturer prior to testing.  Third, at no time should retention time
be a condition of the permit since we don't believe that this value can
be monitored, but rather is inherent in the design of the oxidizer.  In
EPA's example of parameters for an oxidizer, it used 1600 degrees and ¾
second residence time.  How would someone monitor a ¾ second residence
if it were put in their permit?

	Permit Cleanup --  Equally important to the discussion of "smart
permits" and the inherent flexibility of certain applicable requirements
is EPA's discussion on page 8 of replacement conditions in permits. 
This develops an earlier discussion explored first in White Paper 2. 
FPA is in agreement that state permitting authorities should be
encouraged to rid Title V permits of unnecessary embellishments to minor
NSR permits that are unrelated to the underlying SIP applicable
requirements.  We urge the Agency to amplify the benefits of getting rid
of these conditions for state permitting authorities since such multiple
conditions in a permit have the potential to exponentially increase the
burden on state regulators to have to revise the permit during its term.
 

	We have two concerns about the permit clean-up discussion, however. 
First, FPA disagrees that all the minor NSR permits conditions
(including conditions inserted by states with no legal basis in an
applicable requirement) are federally enforceable and urge EPA to
reconsider its legal position.  This position has practical consequences
that can cripple the Title V program for no environmental benefit.  It
is not clear to us why the minor NSR permits are not distinct from the
federally enforceable minor permit requirement in the SIP, or why some
other legally supportable distinction cannot be found to resolve this
now long-standing practical Title V permit obstacle.  For instance, most
of these terms don't have anything to do with the federal requirement
for attainment of maintenance of the NAAQS.

	Second, FPA members are disturbed by the agency's position that such
underlying permit conditions must first be revised through Title I
procedures, before they can be revised in the Title V permit.  These
interlocking procedures are  very inefficient and they thwart the goal
of permit cleanup.  In a later WP3 discussion concerning Title V
synchronization with Title I, there is a helpful discussion about
streamlining administrative processes that appear to be applicable to
this situation.  Because it seems that there is no reason that a state
could not streamline its Title I permit procedures for minor NSR
modifications that do not relate to the need for pre-construction
review, states should be able to parallel process these changes into the
Title V permit by adding a citation to the authority for the minor NSR
program in the Title V applicable requirement.  

	Advance Approvals – Implicit in this discussion is recognition that
minor NSR can cripple Title V permitting and the goals of flexible
permits in states with robust minor NSR programs.  (In states with no
minor NSR, or programs with limited scopes, there is of course no such
problem.)  FPA recommends that EPA elevate this discussion in WP3 and
urge additional focus on legal solutions as well as the ones it
discusses in the paper. The solutions to the minor NSR problems that EPA
offers through advanced approvals for defined categories of changes and
replicable operating procedures are innovative and deserve to be
test-run so that state permitting authorities will gain confidence in
their application.  They may work particularly well in certain
industries such as flexible packaging and not in others depending on a
company's ability to forecast product needs and innovation.  For the
printing and coating industries such as ours, we also worry that there
is potential for confusion in the minds of permitting authorities with
the advance approval concepts, alternative operating scenarios, and
changes that are already allowed under applicable requirements such as
VOC printing and coating standards.  EPA should use some examples from
this industry to clarify that changes in materials and different
printing runs do not trigger minor NSR and do not require advance
approval through ROPs or other mechanisms because they are not changes
that trigger either Title I or Title V permitting.  FPA members would be
happy to assist you in this effort by providing more detail about
examples.

	Perhaps the most serious problem with these alternatives is that they
appear to be administratively burdensome.  First, there is real doubt in
our minds that the states will be able to "shake" their concern about
these provisions without reassurance from EPA that not every uncertainty
and contingency that could occur needs to be covered in an approvable
ROP.  Permitting authorities and the public need to understand that if
such provisions are misused, emissions reporting and other "checks" on
the system will provide information which agencies can act on to prevent
their misuse.  Second, there is no legal reason why advance-approved
changes need to be re-subjected to BACT-analysis every 18 months.  At
the most, BACT could be revisited for pre-approved changes during permit
renewal.  But FPA submits that for minor NSR changes particularly, and
even major PSD/NSR changes under a PAL, the BACT determination should be
legitimate for the life of the PAL or "advance approval."  First, it is
unlikely that technology innovation is going to advance so much,
measured in the incremental environmental benefit, that it offsets the
administrative burden associated with a BACT analysis.  We therefore
recommend that EPA consider a presumptive BACT determination and avoid
the additional post-hoc permit administrative scrutiny that will
discourage states from implementing this innovative provision.

	

	CAP Permits --  Moms  and the "cap and track" alternatives to Title V
permit revisions are both exciting and of concern to our membership. 
First, as stated above, there is a distinct potential for permitting
authorities and others to be confused about what needs to be in a permit
when changes are contemplated under the existing requirements and no new
applicable requirements are triggered.  We hope that EPA can clarify in
the final document that some care needs to be taken in identifying the
objective for Moms and "cap and track" provisions so that permitting
authorities understand that these are not required permit features. 
Second, we also think that these sections of the document are confusing.
 For instance to the extent that the cap and track option appears to be
a mini-netting approach involving a series of potentially unrelated
project changes that would be advance-capped below the significance
levels, title V objective gets lost and creates a new issue that does
not exist under PSD/NSR regulations and guidance.  We would also be
interested to know if advanced approvals could be considered in
conjunction with present incremental growth allowances under one of
these programs.      

	The PAL discussion is somewhat choppy, probably because of the NSR
reform package's development.  FPA is strongly supportive of properly
constructed Pals and "partial Pals" and sees no reason that these should
be limited to five years under a legal view that Pals are a form of
netting. (Improperly constructed PAL policies could present unfair
business advantages independent of environmental concerns.) By the same
token, we support calculation of an "actual emission"–based PAL using
the highest actual emissions in the last ten years.  Many Pals that
currently exist are not constrained by several of the features outlined
in the draft guidance, and EPA has not identified to our knowledge
problems with those prototypes.  Thus we hope that the final NSR rule
will provide and acknowledge a more expansive and flexible approach to
Pals.  

	Monitoring – FPA is encouraged that EPA has softened its former view
that most monitoring changes (except for the addition of clearly more
stringent requirements) require significant permit revisions.  Hopefully
the Title V program revisions will reflect even more strongly this view.
 The example of adding compliance details through the minor permit
revision process will be particularly helpful by obviating the need for
two lengthy permit revision procedures, particularly if EPA does not
allow operational shakedown for new units.  However, the necessity for
including in the permit the replicable operating procedures for
determining the protocol for future monitoring parameters seems like an
even more daunting task than predicting future major new equipment and
other changes.  Perhaps other examples will be helpful in explaining how
people can use ROPs for setting parameter values.

	On page 36, we did question why a revision to a mass balance equation
should necessarily be considered a major change requiring a major
modification, and whether in many instances such equations should even
be part of a permit.  These equations can be changed and still create
similar records.  Additional clarification of this point would be
appreciated.

	For parametric monitoring, WP3 on page 39 suggests that emission
testing be conducted at three different loading and for three one-hour
tests.  This is not currently required  and is very costly.  FPA submits
that except in exceptional situations, testing at typical solvent
loading and air volumes vented to the control device is sufficient.  EPA
also should not require a correlation coefficient for destruction
testing; the correlation coefficient referred to in the document is for
capture testing and it is only relevant if used for DQO or LC method of
capture testing.  Again for capture testing, it is sufficient and
reliable to use typical solvent loading and air volume  of the process,
not three sets of low, mid- and high conditions since these are not
generally reflective of "normal operations".  

	Emissions Factors and Missing Data --  FPA is troubled by the final two
sections of WP3 dealing with emissions factors and missing monitoring
data.  First EPA suggests that for cap permits, sources must have actual
emissions performance data to set the cap or that it must "double" the
emission factors relied on in estimating plant emissions (unless the
factors are used to calculate credits in which case the factor is
halved).  EPA apparently views this puzzling guidance as an incentive to
develop source-specific emissions data within one year.  This guidance
is utterly inappropriate in industries like flexible packaging where
factors are generally of good quality and are based on actual source
testing within the industry.  It is even more questionable where the
monitoring and testing of VOC emissions is either technically infeasible
or its value clearly outweighed by its cost and the availability of
surrogates.  Indeed, EPA's CAM document has recognized that actual
compliance monitoring of VOCs in industries like FPA are generally not
necessary.

	With respect to supplying the missing data that would be needed to
prove compliance with a cap when a source lacks actual emissions data
for all increments of time during which the source is operating,
including periods of process of control equipment malfunction, monitor
malfunction, calibration, or QA/QC checks, EPA is suggesting that again
that missing data can be supplied by doubling emissions calculated with
emissions factors.  If a source has actual data from a CEMs, the policy
appears to be settling on a more reasonable approach used by several
states that require the emissions to be calculated based on the average
emissions immediately before and after the event, adjusted by 20
percent.  Nonetheless, in both instances it appears that WP3 is straying
into an area that can only be addressed by the permit writer given the
particular type of industry subject to the cap.  Therefore, FPA
recommends that this guidance be deleted or greatly shortened to direct
state permitting authorities that this issue must be addressed in an
approvable cap permit. 

	In conclusion, FPA appreciates this opportunity to comment on WP3 and
our members look forward to its finalization.   If we can be of
additional assistance, please do not hesitate to call me at the above so
that I can put you in contact with the knowledgeable contacts in FPA's
member companies. 

Sincerely,

Glynn Rountree, Director

Technology and Regulatory Affairs

Mr. Michael Trutna

September 14, 2000

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