I participated today in a Midwest Air Quality Workshop in Chicago. At the workshop, Bill Harnett from U.S. EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Strategy (OAQPS) gave an interesting presentation regarding U.S. EPA’s reaction to the vacatur of CAIR by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Here are a couple of the key issues discussed or observations made:

Chances of Rehearing Appear Slim- U.S. EPA is not very optimistic about their chances to get rehearing from the D.C. Circuit. Apparently only 5 of the 10 justices who sit on the Court do not recuse themselves from U.S. EPA’s cases involving the utilities. This means that instead of a full panel of justices, U.S. EPA is requesting reconsideration to only five justices, three of which decided to vacate CAIR already. This means U.S. EPA will have to get one of the Justices to change their previous opinion just to get rehearing…an outcome that does not appear likely.

Even if Rehearing is Granted the Best Hope is Restoring Only a Portion of CAIR- As discussed in my prior post on the brief U.S. EPA filed for rehearing, U.S. EPA seems to have thrown in the towel already on getting all of CAIR restored- meaning the second phase of reductions in 2015 are out of the picture. Even if U.S. EPA gets a rehearing it is already saying the best possible outcome will be to restore the first phase (2009) of CAIR reductions.

No Short Term Legislative Fix- This was apparent with Congress going into recess for the elections. Time simply ran out on a quick fix that could have restored the first phase of the CAIR reductions in 2009. The ramifications are significant because, as discussed below, any path forward will involve at least a two or three year process.

A Fix is at least 2-3 Years Away- While U.S. EPA is already evaluating options for a new federal rule and also hoping for legislation, either approach will be lengthy. U.S. EPA is going to have to wait until a new administration comes into office. Appointments won’t happen until at least the Spring. This means a new rule proposal or even rules following legislation won’t happen until the summer of 2009 at the earliest. However, even after the rule is proposed this just starts the long rulemaking process. Therefore, U.S. EPA is saying a final rule is 2-3 years away and reductions may be 4-5 years away.

U.S. EPA Wants to Develop a "Safe" or "Bullet Proof" Rule- It is clear U.S. EPA does not want to risk losing the entire CAIR program a second time. To try an ensure that won’t happen, U.S. EPA says they will push for a rule that addresses the issues raised by the Court. What this means exactly is unclear, but I doubt the utilities will be happy with the outcome. One option discussed was to craft a federal rule that does not "address" interstate transport, but only "reduces" transport. Under CAIR, U.S. EPA said the states didn’t have to do anything more to "address" transport because CAIR solved interstate transport issues. In a new rule, U.S. EPA says they won’t go that far leaving additional reductions to solve interstate transport up to the States.

How? U.S. EPA would leave it up to the states to certify in the State Implementation Plans (SIPs) that they have reduced emissions from sources in the State to such a degree they addressed all transport issues. This helps U.S. EPA because if one State’s finding that they addressed interstate transport is overturned by the Courts the whole federal rule does not crumble.

For Trading to Survive U.S. EPA Can’t Solve Transport, Some Reductions Will Come From the States- This builds upon the notion U.S. EPA will only strive to "reduce" transport and not "address" it . A federal rule that solves interstate transport could not include a cap and trade component. A principle reason the Court vacated CAIR was because with a cap and trade program there were no assurance reductions would occur in any given state. All the sources in a state could satisfy their obligations by purchasing allowances and avoiding controls. As a result, the Court said U.S. EPA illegally concluded in the CAIR rulemaking that it solved interstate transport of emissions from power plants.

Without CAIR State’s will attain Ozone but not PM 2.5 – Each of the five LADCO States (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan) gave presentations on their air quality plans. All of the State’s a planning to restore the NOx SIP Call in response to the CAIR decision. From the reductions under the NOx SIP Call all the states said they can attain the 1997 ozone standard.

However, without CAIR, attaining the fine particulate (PM 2.5) standard is nearly impossible. CAIR brought huge reductions in SO2 that will be lost without CAIR. LADCO modeling shows we go from 3 to 20 monitors in the Midwest reading nonattainment with the P.M. 2.5 standard without CAIR by 2009. Unless the States get very aggressive and proceed with old command and control enforcement/permitting against these sources it appears unlikely they can get enough reductions to attain the P.M 2.5 standard by their 2010 deadline.

(Note: Once the visuals from the various presentations are available next week I will post the best illustrations of the issues I have discussed above)