EPA Endorses Plan on Toxic Emission Cuts

Through talks designed to avert lengthy legal wrangling, industry, environmentalists and government officials have agreed on rules cutting toxic air emissions from factories, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.

In the first negotiated rule-making under the new Clean Air Act, the EPA said it has agreed with all interested parties on a plan for reducing leakage of 149 toxic pollutants from more than 450 types of industrial facilities, mostly chemical plants.

David Doniger, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council who helped negotiate the air toxics compromise, agreed with EPA Administrator William K. Reilly that such negotiations are useful. But he said they generally work only in situations where procedural issues--as opposed to fundamental public health concerns--are involved.

Doniger also noted that, although his group might agree to a compromise, it could not assure that other environmental groups not included in talks might oppose it.

Under traditional rule-making procedures, the EPA proposes a rule and then takes comment from affected parties. The agency then takes those comments into consideration in formulating its final regulations.

However, industry and environmentalists have been habitually unhappy with the EPA’s final products, leading to lengthy litigation that has delayed and blunted the effectiveness of federal pollution control efforts.

The EPA’s toxic air pollution program has been among those most bogged down by court battles in the past. As a result, the agency now has controls in place for only eight of the hundreds of toxic air pollutants routinely released by factories.

The toxic air agreement deals with leaks from valves, pumps and other equipment used at facilities making organic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, rubber, plastics and related products.

The “agreement in principle” among negotiators calls for regulating fugitive emissions of 149 of the 189 toxic pollutants targeted for reduction under the new Clean Air Act. The 149 pollutants are all organic chemicals, such as toluene, benzene and formaldehyde.