EPA is claiming headway in bolstering the effectiveness of its much-criticized program for ensuring that new wood stove models meet current emission standards.
Millions of Americans rely on stoves and other “residential wood heaters” for winter warmth and other needs. Their cozy image notwithstanding, those devices are collectively major sources of fine particles that are tied to thousands of early deaths each year. Though EPA released new rules in 2015 to rein in those emissions, the agency’s EPA’s watchdog had previously flagged problems with implementation.
“We are also working on targeting potential noncompliance and carrying out both informal and formal enforcement,” EPA enforcement head David Uhlmann wrote in a newly released memo to agency Inspector General Sean O’Donnell, noting that those efforts included adding employees and other resources.
Uhlmann’s memo was aimed at addressing part of a remaining recommendation from an inspector general’s audit released last year that assailed the agency’s system for certifying that stoves and other wood-fired home heating appliances meet the soot standards set in 2015. O’Donnell’s office again flagged oversight gaps in a briefer follow-up review issued this past May.
