Environmental advocates and industry groups have differing views about the newly issued Environmental Protection Agency guidance to state and local agencies to help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions using the best available control technologies.
The EPA released the guidance document on Nov. 10, aiming to assist air-permitting authorities in identifying cost-effective options under the Clean Air Act to cut pollution from greenhouse gases. A new federal preconstruction permit program begins on Jan. 2, 2011.
Nathan Willcox, Environment America’s federal global warming program director, calls the EPA’s approach “reasonable.”
But industry officials have blasted the guidance, saying it could stall construction of new powerplants and industrial facilities. Frank Maisano, an energy analyst in Bracewell and Giuliani’s Washington, D.C., office, says the new permitting process could result in a “construction moratorium” for the manufacturing and energy sectors.
