Washington, DC, January 19, 2006 – The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) today cautioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against imposing stringent, new air quality regulations that could impose significant burdens on U.S. manufacturers facing fierce international competition.
The particulate matter standards, known as National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), may be further tightened under an Environmental Protection Agency proposal published in the Federal Register today, triggering a 90-day comment period.
“The EPA’s proposal is bad policy and bad for business,” said Engler. “The proposal is not grounded in sound science, and because the current standard has not even been implemented, changing the standard now would move the goalposts during the middle of the game, creating investment and business uncertainty. This is not the time to impose excessive new burdens on U.S. manufacturers facing unprecedented competition from abroad.”
The Bush Administration has already issued a number of rules that will make significant strides toward reducing emissions of PM including the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) to reduce emissions from power plants in the eastern United States, and the Clean Diesel Program to reduce emissions from highway, non-road and stationary diesel engines. The NAM believes that an untimely revision of the PM 2.5 standard could undermine these already existing rules.
Although the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to periodically review air quality standards to ensure they provide adequate health and environmental protection, it does not mandate that such a review result in revision of an existing standard.
The NAM will develop comments to submit to the EPA on the current proposal, urging the EPA to adopt its stated option of preservation of the existing standard
