Opinion ID: 4020089
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Emissions Averaging

Text: During the notice-and-comment period, certain industry entities urged the EPA to allow a facility containing more than one CISWI unit to demonstrate compliance with the CISWI MACT standards by averaging the HAP emissions of all units in the facility. See Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration Units: Reconsideration and Proposed Amendments; Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials that Are Solid Waste (2011 Proposed CISWI Rule on Reconsideration), 76 Fed. Reg. 80,452, 80,463 (Dec. 23, 2011). Although it allowed facility-wide averaging in the Major Boilers Rule, the Agency declined to allow it for facilities with CISWI units. See id. The EPA explained, first, that “[t]he applicability of CISWI is such that each unit is an affected facility.” Id. In response to further comments, the EPA subsequently explained that it did “not believe [it had] the legal authority to allow emissions averaging in CISWI or under section [7429] generally because each individual unit is an affected facility.” Summary of Public Comments and Responses for Commercial and Industrial Solid Waste Incineration Units (CISWI Rule—Responses to Comments), EPA-HQ-OAR-2003-0119-2638-A2 (Dec. 2012), at 195. 29 d. Treatment of Units that Begin Combusting Solid Waste Finally, in the preamble to the 2011 CISWI Rule, the EPA stated broadly that “[u]nits that begin combusting solid waste are considered existing sources under CISWI.” 76 Fed. Reg. at 15,714 (emphasis added). This categorical pronouncement drew objections from commentators who insisted that, if such units experienced an increase in HAP emissions, the units would meet the statutory definition of “modified solid waste incineration unit[s],” see 42 U.S.C. § 7429(g)(3), and would, accordingly, be subject to the MACT standards for new units, see id. § 7429(g)(2). In the subsequent proposed CISWI Rule, the EPA clarified that “[a]n existing source will not be considered a new source solely due to a combustion material switch. Assuming new source applicability is not triggered, existing sources that change fuels or materials are considered existing sources . . . .” 2011 Proposed CISWI Rule on Reconsideration, 76 Fed. Reg. at 80,459.