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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is postponing indefinitely new pollution regulations for industrial boilers. The rules, which would require many manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin to install new pollution controls, were strongly opposed by business groups here, who claimed they might be forced shut down 11 paper mills. Environmentalist, however, say thousands could die from the current pollution levels.

Such rules are more than a decade overdue, according to federal law. The federal Clean Air Act set a deadline of 2000 for imposing new pollution limits on the boilers, which often function as small power plants for paper mills and other facilities. In recent years, manufacturing interests have strongly opposed the rules, arguing companies would be forced to cut jobs to pay for the new pollution controls.

Congressional representatives, including several in Wisconsin, have asked the EPA to delay or soften the rules in recent months. A March 16 letter from Wisconsin Republicans Jim Sensenbrenner, Sean Duffy, Tom Petri, Reid Ribble and Democrat Ron Kind addressed to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the “massive additional costs … would threaten employment throughout our state.”

Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl has also urged caution. “The EPA needs to carefully consider the full range of information before making final decisions,” he said.

Ed Wilusz, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Paper Council, told NewsBuzz in December the proposed rules were a “huge concern.”

Scott Manley, director of environmental policy of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, said the rules’ impact would be “tilted disproportionately against the pulp and paper industry.”

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups are suing the EPA to force it to implement the new regulations for industrial boilers.

jim sensenbrenner

But last week, at the direction of the White House, the EPA announced it was postponing the new regulations indefinitely. It’s seeking “additional data and information” until July 15.

Critics say the Obama administration is softening its environmental agenda after Democrats suffered tough defeats in November. Fox News called the decision to withdraw the rules “a concession to Republicans and moderate Democrats.”

According to Jennifer Feyerherm from the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, the withdrawal is “an example of special interests pushing their interests to a point where lives are going to be lost.”

The EPA estimates that the reduction in soot, mercury, carbon monoxide and other toxic pollutants brought by the rules would have saved between 2,500 and 6,500 “premature deaths” nationally each year in addition to 4,000 non-fatal heart attacks.

According to the agency, about 13,840 boilers nationwide would have fallen under the rules.

Industry groups predicted the rules, if implemented, would lead to sweeping job losses. The Wisconsin Paper Council, citing a study funded by the American Forest and Paper Association, predicted that 11 paper mills would close in the state and 7,500 paper industry jobs, about a fifth of the industry’s workforce, would be lost.

sean duffy

Installing new pollution controls, already required of larger pollution sources such as coal power plants, would cost $470 million, the study estimated.

Environmental groups have charged that such industry estimates are exaggerated. The EPA has estimated that nationally, the new controls would cost $1.4 billion a year. Much of that would be spent on installing new pollution controls, thereby creating jobs, according to the Sierra Club.

“That money is an investment in our health and an investment in jobs in Wisconsin,” Feyerherm says.

She says the rules would also apply to 13 state-owned power plants, such as the Charter Street plant at UW-Madison, which are classified as boilers. The Charter Street plant is being converted from coal to natural gas, but some of the other state-owned plants still burn coal.

Industrial boilers are smaller than the large power plants operated by electric utilities, but Feyerherm says many manufacturing facilities have more than one boiler and, when added together, their pollution levels approach those released by smaller power plants run by electric utilities.

But Sean Duffy, Republican congressman representing northwestern Wisconsin, isn’t swayed. “If the EPA wants to protect the air, that’s fine, and I’m all for that,” he said in a statement, “but let’s make sure we’re not suffocating economic recovery in the process.”

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