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Northwest Indiana Partners for Clean Air April 25, 2014

Northwest Indiana Partners for Clean Air April 25, 2014. Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE Commissioner IN Department of Environmental Management. IDEM’s Mission. Protecting Hoosiers and Our Environment While Becoming the Most Customer-Friendly Environmental Agency

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Northwest Indiana Partners for Clean Air April 25, 2014

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  1. Northwest Indiana Partners for Clean AirApril 25, 2014 Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE Commissioner IN Department of Environmental Management

  2. IDEM’s Mission Protecting Hoosiers and Our Environment While Becoming the Most Customer-Friendly Environmental Agency IDEM’s mission is to implement federal and state regulations to protect human health and the environment while allowing the environmentally sound operations of industrial, agricultural, commercial and government activities vital to a prosperous economy.

  3. How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment? • Develop regulations and issue permits to restrict discharges to environmentally safe levels. • Inspect and monitor permitted facilities to ensure compliance with the permits.

  4. How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment? • Use compliance assistance and/or enforcement when people exceed their permit levels or violate regulations. • Educate people on their environmental responsibilities. • Clean up contaminated sites to eliminate public exposure to toxics and return properties to productive use.

  5. Performance Metrics March 2014

  6. Performance Metrics June 2005

  7. Permits--Percent of Statutory Days

  8. Best in NPDES Permitting

  9. Water Quality Indiana Combined Sewer Overflow Status

  10. Current Air Quality Status • At the end of 2009, all of Indiana met every currently effective NAAQS for the first time since NAAQS were established in the 1970’s. • IDEM was successful in working with U.S. EPA to have all of the state designated as attainment for those pollutants except: • Clark and Floyd Counties PM2.5

  11. New Air Quality Standards • Since the end of 2009, new air quality standards have resulted in U.S. EPA designating the following new nonattainment areas: • Lake and Porter Counties Ozone (2008 standard) • Lawrenceburg Township (Dearborn County) Ozone • City of Muncie Lead

  12. 2011-20138-Hour Ozone Design ValuesCompared to the standard at 0.075 ppm

  13. New Air Quality Standards • All monitors in Indiana currently meet the 100 ppb short term NO2 standard established in 2010. • On July 25, 2013, U.S. EPA designated nine townships in five counties as nonattainment for the 1-hour, 75 ppb SO2 standard established in 2010.

  14. New PM2.5 Standard • The new annual standard is 12 micrograms per cubic meter which is a 20% reduction from the previous 15 micrograms per cubic meter standard. • Standard became effective March 18, 2013. • New nonattainment designations likely in early 2015.

  15. Preliminary PM2.5 Annual Design Values (3-yr Average) Based on 2011-2013* Monitoring Data Standard at 12 µg/m3 *Data Certified Through November 2013

  16. Governor Pence’s 2014 Roadmap • Increase the speed of business through one-stop permitting. • Improve recycling in Indiana through market-based reforms. • Implement the first step of a unified, long-term water plan by streamlining Indiana’s water quality permitting responsibilities.

  17. 2014 Legislation • HB 1183—Recycling Reporting, State Goal and Study • Requires reporting of recycling activities by: • A recyclable materials broker. • The owner or operator of a solid waste disposal facility at which recycling occurs. • The owner or operator of a material recovery facility. • A Solid Waste Management District.

  18. 2014 Legislation • HB 1183—Recycling Reporting, State Goal and Study • Allows reporting of recycling activities by: • A scrap metal processing facility. • An automotive salvage recycler. • Certain other entities.

  19. 2014 Legislation • HB 1183—Recycling Reporting, State Goal and Study • Sets the goal of the state to recycle at least 50% of its municipal waste. • IDEM must post a uniform recycling activity report on its website by July 1, 2015. • IDEM must annually report a summary of the recycling activity information starting by December 31, 2015.

  20. 2014 Legislation • SB 359—CFO Manure Management Plans and Composting • Allows facilities that compost organic material to obtain registrations rather than solid waste processing facility permits. • Clarifies the permit renewal and reporting requirements for Confined Feeding Operations.

  21. 2014 Legislation • HB 1217—Single Point of Contact for Wetlands Permits • Requires IDEM and IDNR to develop a joint process to permit wetlands activities regulated by both departments. • HB 1342—Environmentally Restrictive Covenants (ERC) Modifications and DOR Fee Transfer • Allows IDEM to recover costs of processing revisions to ERC.

  22. 2014 Legislation • SB 271—Compartmentalized Underground Storage Tank (UST) & Regulated Drains • Clarifies fees for USTs with multiple compartments. • Makes IDEM and IDNR field visits to projects impacting regulated drains optional. • HB 1070—Regional District Trustee • Allows legal trustees for Thralls Regional Sewer District where all property owners and rate payers are part of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.

  23. Federal Air Initiatives to Watch • President’s climate change initiative. • Regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants. • Mitigation measures. • New NSPS limits for wood fueled units including outdoor hydronic heaters. • Air pollution issues from downwind states. • New ozone standard in 2015.

  24. President’s Climate Directives • U.S. EPA to issue proposed carbon pollution restrictions for: • New power plants by September 20, 2013. • Existing power plants by June 1, 2014, and finalize those restrictions by June 1, 2015. • States will be required to submit implementation plans under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act by June 30, 2016.

  25. President’s Climate Directives • In September, 2013, U.S. EPA proposed New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions for certain Electric Utility Generating Units (EGUs). • - Combined cycle gas turbines will meet the rule. • - Coal fired units will not meet the rule without using carbon capture and storage.

  26. President’s Climate Directives • Carbon capture and storage (CCS): • is not yet commercially available, • has not yet been demonstrated at commercial scale, and • is likely to be prohibitively expensive. • Due to the energy used for CCS, the total greenhouse gas emissions per unit of useful energy produced from a coal fired plant using this technology and meeting the lower emission limits will likely be no lower than emissions from a modern plant without CCS.

  27. What are the Goals? • The President’s Climate Directives do not contain any emission reduction goals, however, there are two possibilities: • The National Academy of Sciences report, “America’s Climate Choices” recommends that actions be taken now to start reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to levels between 50% and 80% below 1990 levels. • The President’s letter after Copenhagen discusses a 17% reduction from 2005 emissions by 2020.

  28. Percentage Change in CO2 Emissions from Utilities (2005 – 2012) Decreasing >15% Decreasing 0 – 15% Increasing No Data Location of the State Capitals State Boundaries

  29. President’s Climate Directives • In the spring of 2012, the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) passed Resolution 12-1, “Challenges of Achieving Significant Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Reductions.” A copy of this resolution is available at: • www.ecos.org/files/4711_file_Resolution_12_1_Challenges_of_GHG_reductions.doc 35

  30. President’s Climate Directives • The resolution requests that the U.S. EPA develop one or more scenarios that will produce an 80% reduction in GHG emissions nationally, from a 2005 baseline, in 2050 or beyond; and to conduct an analysis of the costs and the benefits associated with each such scenario along with an estimate of the costs and benefits of not obtaining these GHG reductions.

  31. There is No Comprehensive GHG Plan • The President’s plan does not include numerical goals for GHG reductions. • U.S. EPA has decided not to spend the resources required to develop the requested scenario, but rather to develop rules to reduce GHG emissions, even if these rules do not materially reduce U.S. emissions. • The President’s Climate Directives will change the power plant carbon profile without any public plan to actually reduce U.S. (or world) GHG emissions to the levels advocated by the National Academy of Sciences.

  32. Summary of Concerns • There is no clear goal for the President’s Climate Directives. • How will we know when we have achieved success? • How can we develop and evaluate alternative plans to achieve the goal? • Since there is no goal, there is no plan to achieve the goal.

  33. Summary of Concerns • We have started the process of requiring very expensive changes to our electric generating sector with little understanding of how these changes will impact the achievement of the ultimate environmental goal. • The increased energy prices caused by these new requirements will have a significant adverse impact on the affordability of electricity and the economies of the states that produce goods and energy.

  34. Questions? Tom Easterly Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management (317) 232-8611 teasterly@idem.IN.gov

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