Environmental attorney Sanders says U.S. EPA to stay new rule revising single source rule for New Source Review under Clean Air Act.

To allow further review of the January 15, 2009, final rule modifying the NSR air permitting program’s “aggregation” policy, U.S. EPA is extending the effective date of the rule. This action is in response to the White House’s January 20, 2009, and the Office of Management and Budget’s January 21, 2009, memoranda regarding regulatory review.

EPA also will reconsider one or more of the aspects of this final rule raised by the Natural Resources Defense Council in a petition for reconsideration. To allow time for the review and the reconsideration, EPA will stay the effective date of this rule for 90 days, until May 18, 2009.

New Source Review is a pre-construction permitting program to ensure air quality is maintained when factories, industrial boilers and power plants are built or modified. The program ensures that state-of-the art emission control technology is installed at new plants or existing plants that are undergoing a major modification. Aggregation refers to the grouping of multiple, related physical or operational changes into a single project for evaluating requirements under the New Source Review program.

More information: http://www.epa.gov/nsr/actions.html