EPA Rules on Boilers, Plywood Favor Industry

WASHINGTON, DC, May 25, 2004 (ENS) - Two new rules issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reflect the Bush administration's cozy relationship with industry groups and its willingness to favor industry interests over public health, environmentalists say.

A new report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) examines EPA rules that relax emissions controls on plywood manufacturing plants and industrial sites using boilers.

EPA officials insist both rules balance public health and economic concerns, but the EIP report finds the public health part of that equation severely lacking.

The report notes that the EPA expects the exemptions in the two rules will increase hazardous air pollutants by a combined annual total of 13,300 tons, fine particle emissions by nearly 24,000 tons, smog-forming volatile organic compounds by 13,000 tons, and sulfur dioxide by more than 60,000 tons.

"A close look at the new emission loopholes for plywood makers and boiler sites shows how the White House Office of Management and Budget and its political allies at EPA distorted science to minimize risk and maximize the number of plants eligible for the exemptions," said EIP Director Eric Schaeffer, a former top enforcement official with the EPA.

"The government's own analysis shows that granting these exemptions will generate minimal benefits for industry to industry, while significantly increasing the American public's exposure to deadly pollutants," Schaeffer said.

The EPA calculates that the boiler rule saves industry only $170 million a year in emission control costs. By contrast, the agency's estimates show that the increase in pollution will result in a far greater $1.7 billion toll in higher public health costs.

"In the case of the boiler rules, the government is so eager to appease industry that it is creating a dollar's worth of public health problems for every dime it saves industry," Schaeffer said. "This is a stacked deck in which the American public comes out the big loser."

The EPA anticipates that 448 coal-fired boilers and 386 wood-fired boilers used by a variety of industries will increase pollution levels under the new boiler rule.

The federal agency's analysis shows that requiring all industrial boilers to install emission controls would reduce premature deaths by 2,270 annually, eliminate more than 173,490 asthma attacks a year, and eliminate 196,860 cases of upper respiratory systems in asthmatic children.

Based on analysis by the White House Office of Management and Budget of the health effects of fine particle pollution alone, the plywood rule could cost the public health more than $300 million a year, while saving the industry $66 million at most.

The EPA anticipates that at least 147 out of 223 plywood plants potentially subject to the regulation fall within its new formaldehyde exemption.

The plywood rule rests on "twisted science," according to EIP's report, by downplaying the cancer risks of formaldehyde exposure.

Plywood manufacturers are the most significant industrial source of formaldehyde.

The rule used a computerized risk model that is 10,000 times lower than one calculated from human exposure studies from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.