The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to pile on complex  regulations that impact manufacturers. Just last month, the Agency proposed more stringent air quality standards for fine particulate matter (i.e. PM2.5 NAAQS). Business groups are already starting to speak out. At an EPA public hearing yesterday in Sacramento, CA, the California Manufacturers & Technology Association (CMTA) urged the EPA to maintain the current PM2.5 standards.

“This proposal will unnecessarily burden the economy at a time when the country and California, in particular, are struggling to overcome the recession,” stated Mike Rogge, Policy Director at the CMTA. Rogge’s testimony highlighted the serious and immediate consequences for areas that do not attain the air quality standards established by the EPA. For example, companies building new facilities or performing major modifications to certain existing facilities in, or near, a non-attainment area will be required to install the most effective emission reduction technology regardless of cost. The EPA’s actions will cause many manufacturers around the country to think twice before expanding their operations.

We encourage all manufacturers to urge the EPA to retain the existing PM2.5 standards during the comment period which ends on August 31, 2012. You can learn more about the EPA’s proposal here.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers, including Reps. John Sullivan (R-OK) and Mike Ross (D-AR), introduced legislation on July 28 that would protect the cement industry from expensive and unachievable air quality regulations. According to a press release from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act (H.R. 2681) directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “develop achievable and workable standards for the nation’s cement manufacturing facilities, replacing a series of complex rules affecting the sector that are projected to impose significant costs, and force plant shutdowns and job losses.”

Specifically, the bill addresses three rules impacting the nation’s Portland cement manufacturing facilities, including the Cement MACT rule, regulations impacting commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units and regulations impacting non-hazardous secondary materials. The Portland Cement Association (PCA) estimates the rules could cost over $5.4 billion, may cause 18 plants to shut down by 2013 and will put thousands of high-paying manufacturing and construction jobs at risk.

 Manufacturers believe this legislation is needed to rein in the EPA’s aggressive regulatory program, which will severely cripple an industry that is critical to U.S. construction and economic recovery. We urge similar action in the Senate. Just yesterday, in a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 25 Senators called for legislative action on behalf of the cement industry.

Washington Examiner, “Air quality improving despite population, vehicle growth“:

“Air quality is improving in the region — there is no question about that,” said Joan Rohlfs, chief of air quality planning for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. “It’s very dramatic, actually. In fact, it’s almost an issue for us because people are losing their awareness [of air pollution]. We don’t have that many code-red days anymore.”

Besides Earth Day, the peg for the article is the Environmental Protection Agency’s annual report on air quality trends, released to little attention on March 10. The report found that ozone levels have dropped 14 percent between 1990 and 2008, lead has plummeted 78 percent, and carbon monoxide is down 68 percent.

We missed the news when the EPA highlighted the report in an outpouring of national susurration, catching up a few weeks later. As The Examiner reports: “‘No one ever really looks at the data,’ said Steven Hayward, a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. ‘[Public officials] never stand up and say here is the progress we’ve made.’”