EPA has ended a decades-old permitting policy for industrial plants seeking to restart operations after a prolonged shutdown period, gutting an air quality tool for what can be significant pollution sources and easing the path for shuttered facilities to reopen.
Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a Thursday memo that plants that are resuming operations will no longer have to get a fresh permit under the New Source Review program. The determination follows a ruling last year by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court’s reasoning, he added, “is persuasive and illustrates that the Clean Air Act is best read not to require a permit to resume operation of an idle stationary source.” EPA will, however, continue to require a permit if the restart entails a change to the plant’s operations qualifies as a “major modification” under the New Source Review program, his memo said.
What was known as the “reactivation policy” originated in the late 1970s. Under a later interpretation, it applied to plants idled for at least two years that were thus presumed to have permanently closed.
