A panel of judges Thursday appeared sympathetic to an industry challenge to EPA’s boiler pollution standards — particularly their retroactive application to several facilities.
The rule covers industrial boilers used by the agriculture and paper industries, among others.
EPA’s so-called boiler MACT, which stands for “maximum achievable control technology,” has a long regulatory and litigation history that stretches back to a proposal first issued in 2010.
The agency’s 2022 revisions were intended to address court rulings from 2016 and from 2018 that faulted portions of prior boiler rules. The revisions strengthened hydrogen chloride emissions limits by more than 100 times, among other things. The agency applied the limits to all boilers built since the original 2010 proposal.
