Opinion ID: 768833
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cost-Effectiveness Calculation for Industrial Boilers' Control Measures

Text: 108 CIBO also challenges EPA's conclusion that industrial boilers could achieve a 60% emissions reduction using highly cost-effective control measures, see Final Rule, 63 Fed. Reg. at 57,418, as based on flawed cost calculations. More specifically, CIBO lists the following alleged problems in EPA's cost assumptions: 109 EPA's assumption of 10 years as the lifetime of all control measures for industrial boilers, except for selective catalytic reduction and selective non-catalytic reduction controls, for which 20 years was assumed. 110 EPA's use of a 10% discount rate, not 7%, in its costeffectiveness analysis. 111 EPA's failure to take into account the fact that control effectiveness can vary by as much as 10% to 20%. 112 EPA's failure to take into account cost and feasibility implications of load variability and firing of multiple fuels. 113 EPA's assumption of NOx emission allowance costs of $2,000 per ton, when emission allowances trade for $5,500 to $6,300 per ton. 114 The general problem of these criticisms is that CIBO merely lists several items as problems and labels all of them irrational without explaining why its claims should concern the court. Given that almost all of CIBO's challenges involve technical details on which the court generally defers to the agency's expertise, CIBO's failure to explain why the socalled problems it identifies amount to an arbitrary and capricious decisionmaking is fatal to its claims. 7 Therefore, we reject CIBO's claims regarding EPA's underlying cost assumptions about industrial boilers. 115