Posted on March 24, 2014 by Catherine R. McCabe
While the world waits for the Supreme Court to decide whether EPA can regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act, EPA and state permitting authorities have moved ahead to issue GHG permits. Some of those permits are encountering legal challenges. The Sierra Club and citizen activists are challenging permits issued by EPA Regions as insufficiently stringent, and urging EPA to use its Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permitting authority to require greater use of solar energy and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at new facilities.
So far, EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board has rejected two citizen challenges to GHG PSD permits issued by EPA Regions. On March 14, 2014, the Board denied the Sierra Club’s petition for review of a GHG permit issued by Region 6 for a new natural gas-fired power plant in Harlingen, Texas. In re La Paloma Energy Center, LLC. (Those of you who follow events in Texas will recall that EPA is currently running the GHG permitting program in that state, but has proposed to approve the state’s application to assume responsibility for that program.) The Board rejected Sierra Club’s arguments that the permit’s GHG emission limits were not stringent enough to meet BACT standards and that Region 6 should have required La Paloma to consider adding a solar energy component to its power plant. The Board cautioned, however, that there is no “automatic BACT off-ramp” for solar energy alternatives, and emphasized that permitting authorities must consider suggestions for adding solar energy components at new facilities on a case-specific basis.
In 2012 the Board rejected similar arguments by citizen activists who urged Region 9 to use its PSD permitting authority to require a new hybrid (gas-solar) power plant in California to reduce GHG emissions by increasing its planned solar generation capacity. In re City of Palmdale. The proposed plant was to be fueled primarily by natural gas, with a modest (10%) solar power component to satisfy California renewable energy requirements. The decisions in both City of Palmdale and La Paloma relied heavily on the Regions’ findings that there was insufficient space at the project sites to accommodate the solar power generation capacity that the petitioners were advocating.
The Palmdale decision also upheld Region 9’s rejection of CCS as a BACT requirement for that facility based on cost considerations. The estimated annual cost of CCS would have been twice the project cost (annualized over 20 years) in that case. Sierra Club has renewed the debate over the affordability of CCS in a new PSD permit appeal that is currently pending before the Board. In re ExxonMobil Chemical Company Baytown Olefins Plant. Region 6 rejected the CCS option in this case based on a finding that the cost would be disproportionately high. Stay tuned for a Board decision in the next few months . . .
*Any views expressed herein are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the United States.
Tags: greenhouse gases, PSD, permitting, solar energy, carbon capture and sequestration
Clean Air Act | Environmental Protection Agency | Permitting