Opinion ID: 621128
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Auxiliary Vent Stacks and 30-Meter Stack

Text: The last set of challenged SIP disapprovals involves Montana Sulphur's five auxiliary vent stacks and its 30-meter stack. The SIP included a SO2 limit of 12 lbs/3-hour period for these stacks. The EPA disapproved the limit because it did not restrict the sulfur content of the fuel burned, and because the SIP lacked a monitoring method that would make the limit practically enforceable. 67 Fed.Reg. at 22,170. Montana Sulphur argues that the limit was not required because the emissions from these stacks are too small to have any practical effect on air quality; thus, it claims, monitoring methods to assure that the limit is met are unnecessary. While the EPA cannot require a state to adopt a particular control measure, see Virginia, 108 F.3d at 1407-08, the EPA has the power to assure that a SIP will achieve NAAQS, 42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2), and the Clean Air Act prohibits it from approving a SIP that would interfere with attainment, see Browner, 230 F.3d at 185. The State of Montana included the limit in its SIP as a control strategy. The EPA is thus not requiring Montana to adopt a particular control measure, but requiring Montana to include a monitoring method only where it relies upon such limits in its SIP for an attainment demonstration, which in turn was designed to assure that it achieved NAAQS. Thus, it was reasonable for the EPA to insist that the limit be enforceable. See also Pennsylvania v. EPA, 932 F.2d 269, 272 (3d Cir.1991) ([S]tandards cannot be maintained unless the measures taken to achieve them are enforceable.).