EPA to respond next month
to court challenge of air rules
to court challenge of air rules
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to respond next month to briefs
filed by drycleaning industry associations and the Sierra Club challenging the
agency’s amended rules for perc drycleaners under the Clean Air Act.
The industry challenge focuses on EPA’s decision to prohibit new perc cleaners from locating in residential buildings
and to phase out existing perc cleaners from residential buildings by 2020.
Industry associations joining the suit include the Halogenated Solvents
Industry Alliance, the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute, the National Cleaners
Association and the Textile Care Allied Trades Association.
They argued that EPA’s use of risk-based factors to revise the emission standards for co-residential
cleaners instead of technology-based factors, which, the associations said, was
the intent of Congress when it passed the law in 1991.
The Clean Air Act does not allow using risk based standards to displace
previously established technology standards, they argued, and even if EPA did
have such authority, the risk-based factors used by EPA in its 2006 amendments
are “arbitrary and capricious.”
The associations also said that EPA failed to conduct a comprehensive evaluation
of the economic impact of the amendments on small co-residential cleaners.
The Sierra Club, on the other hand, argued that EPA did not go far enough in its
amendments, saying that the phase-out of perc should have been extended to
include all drycleaners.
The initial briefs were filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia in December. After EPA responds, the parties will have until the fall
of 2008 to file final briefs.
The New York State Attorney General’s office has until early April to file an amicus brief in support of EPA’s new rules.
HSIA said that oral arguments will likely come this fall with a final decision
either late this year or sometime in 2009.
Unless the court rules otherwise, the new Clean Air rules remain in force for
drycleaners. For the vast majority of the nation’s drycleaners, the main requirement is to use halogenated carbon leak detectors
to conduct monthly leak detections along with the already required weekly
inspection for leaks that can be identified without measuring instruments.
Cleaners should also be aware that the new rules prohibit operation of transfer
equipment and that all new perc drycleaning machines must be closed-loop
equipment with integrated primary and secondary emission controls.
