On December 30, 2013, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) presented notice in the Virginia Register (Volume 30, Issue 9) for public comment a petition filed by the Virginia Manufacturers Association (VMA). The petition requests that DEQ open its Major New Source Review regulations (9 VAC 5-80 Permits for Stationary Sources) for specific changes to amend these regulations to make them no more stringent than companion federal regulations. MeadWestvaco (MWV) supports these changes for the reasons that are outlined within the body of these comments.
MWV operates a major manufacturing facility in Virginia and has been subject to these regulations for many years. Virginia has always been concerned about the environment and sensitive to manufacturing and its economic benefits. Virginia has balanced these interests well and as a result has seen emission levels reduced over the years. Part of this balance has been achieved through adoption of a philosophy to make environmental regulations no more stringent than those required by federal standards without demonstration of good cause for such stringency. MWV believes that the provisions identified in VMA’s petition are ones that go beyond federal standards unnecessarily and should be amended.
The past five years have been extremely difficult for manufacturing as a result of the economy. This has resulted in a longer than normal business cycle and overall production rates have been lower than they were during prior periods. In addition, this period has been longer than other business cycles. Now that the economy is showing signs of recovery, manufacturing will have greater opportunity to grow.
As structured the current regulations will, however, dampen this growth. The first and third provisions of VMA’s petition focus on the current Virginia five year look back period as opposed to the federal ten year look back period. The longer look back period allows businesses and DEQ to have greater flexibility in how production rates and emission rates more naturally change over time. As written the five year look back period will penalize businesses due to the overall economy and not necessarily to a specific business cycle. A ten year look back will allow businesses to compare past actual emissions to whatever future changes might be subject to a permitting assessment more accurately. MWV believes that this will give businesses more flexibility as well as simplifying permitting for DEQ.
MWV obtained a permit during this period and had a ten year look back period been in place, it would have resulted in a much simpler review for DEQ and a less complicated permit. Using the shorter 5-year look back with a period of slower production, the emissions of one particular pollutant showed an increase of emissions and the project was nearly considered a major modification. Using the more realistic 10 year look back which would include more normal production levels, the project evaluation would have shown an overall decrease in emissions.
VMA’s petition also requests that DEQ include the replacement unit provisions, Item 4, within its regulations as adopted by EPA. MWV believes that this will allow for simpler permitting without negative effects on emissions. The current methodology requires that the emissions from a new unit be compared to significance levels. If those levels are exceeded then a facility must consider any other affected units and emissions increases and decreases over the look back period. With respect to a replacement unit in reality, a new unit retiring an older unit will often result in the same or lower emissions. However, the current methodology creates unnecessary permitting efforts due to the described emission accounting exercise without a benefit to the environment. Adoption of the replacement unit provision will allow a facility to compare emissions from the new unit with the emissions of the unit to be retired within the same step.
MWV fully supports the VMA petition and urges DEQ and State Air Pollution Control Board to amend its regulations.